Providing instance availability information

• US 9,451,013 B1
• Filed: 01/02/2013
• Issued: 09/20/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/02/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Roth, Gregory Branchek, de Kadt, Christopher Richard Jacques, Greenfield, James Alfred Gordon, Shealey, Randall Avery, Golden, Robin Alan, Radhakrishnan, Arjun
• Primary Examiner(s): Jacobs, Lashonda
• Application Number:
  US13/732,986
• Time in Patent Office: 1,357 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/76 using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation requested by the user or requested by the network in response to changing network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/78 Architectures of resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

A distributed execution environment provides instances of computing resources for customer use, such as instances of data processing resources, data storage resources, database resources, and networking resources. Data is collected from systems internal to and external to the distributed execution environment. Some or all of the data is utilized to compute instance availability information for instances of computing resources provided by the distributed execution environment. The instance availability information might then be provided to customers and other users of the distributed execution environment. Various types of actions might be taken in a manual or automated way based upon the computed instance availability information.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for providing information regarding the operational status of instances of computing resources provided by a distributed execution environment, the method comprising performing computer-implemented operations for:

collecting data from one or more sources within the distributed execution environment regarding the operational status of one or more components utilized to provide the instances of computing resources;

collecting data from one or more sources external to the distributed execution environment, the data collected from the one or more sources external to the distributed execution environment being relevant to a determination of a probability of a future failure of the instances of computing resources;

utilizing the data from the one or more sources within the distributed execution environment and the data from the one or more sources external to the distributed execution environment to generate instance availability information, the instance availability information comprising data identifying actual failures of the instances of computing resources, a severity of the failures of the instances of computing resources, and a probability of the future availability of the instances of computing resources;

providing the instance availability information to one or more users of the distributed execution environment; and

taking one or more actions with regard to one or more of the instances of computing resources based upon the instance availability information and in response to one or more requests received from the one or more users, wherein the one or more actions comprise at least one of migrating the one or more of the instances of computing resources from a data center into another data center, migrating the one or more of the instances of computing resources out of the distributed execution environment, scaling up a number of instances of computing resources or scaling down the number of instances of computing resources, or performing one or more backup operations with respect to the one or more of the instances of computing resources.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more users comprise customers of the distributed execution environment, and wherein the instance availability information is provided on a per-customer basis.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the components utilized to provide the instances of computing resources comprise hardware components.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the components utilized to provide the instances of computing resources comprise software components.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the data from one or more sources external to the distributed execution environment comprises a weather forecast for a geographic area that includes the instances of computing resources.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the data from one or more sources external to the distributed execution environment comprises data collected from one or more utility providers servicing a geographic area that includes the instances of computing resources.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the instance availability information is provided to the one or more users of the distributed execution environment through a Web service application programming interface (“

APP”

).

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein migrating one or more of the instances of computing resources from a data center into another data center comprises migrating the one or more of the instances of computing resources out of a data center affected by a failure and into a data center not affected by the failure.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein migrating one or more of the instances of computing resources from a data center into another data center comprises migrating the one or more of the instances of computing resources out of a data center not affected by a failure and into a data center affected by the failure.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising modifying a price charged to a customer of the distributed execution environment for the instances of computing resources following provision of the instance availability information to the customer.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the instances of computing resources comprise one or more of instances of virtual machines, instances of database resources, instances of data storage resources, instances of search resources instance of domain name service resources, instances of load balancing resources, instances of workflow resources, instances of application container resources, instances of electronic communication resources, instances of queuing resources, instances of notification resources, instances of caching resources, instances of identity and access management resources, instances of cryptographic resources, instances of content distribution resources, or instances of networking resources.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein less instance availability information is provided in response to detecting a failure of an instance availability monitoring component configured to provide the instance availability information.

13. A system for providing instance availability information, the system comprising:

one or more computer systems configured to provide a distributed execution environment; and

one or more computer systems configured to

collect data indicating the operational status of one or more components utilized to provide instances of computing resources in the distributed execution environment,

generate instance availability information based upon the data indicating the operational status of the one or more components, the instance availability information comprising data identifying one or more actual failures of the instances of computing resources and data indicating a probability of future availability of one or more of the instances of computing resources,

expose the instance availability information to one or more users of the distributed execution environment, and

perform one or more actions with regard to one or more of the instances of computing resources based upon the instance availability information, wherein the one or more actions comprise at least one of migrating the one or more of the instances of computing resources from a data center into another data center, migrating the one or more of the instances of computing resources out of the distributed execution environment, scaling up a number of instances of computing resources or scaling down the number of instances of computing resources, or performing one or more backup operations with respect to the one or more of the instances of computing resources.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the instance availability information further comprises data identifying a severity of the failures of the instances of computing resources.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the one or more computer systems configured to collect data are further configured to collect data from one or more sources external to the distributed execution environment for use in computing the probability of future availability of the instances of computing resources.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the data indicating the operational status of the one or more components is collected from one or more canary instances in the distributed execution environment.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the canary instances comprise production instances configured to provide functionality in the distributed execution environment.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein exposing the instance availability information to one or more users of the distributed execution environment comprises providing an application programming interface (API) for obtaining the instance availability information.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the API is configured to provide the instance availability information on one or more of a per customer basis, a per instance basis, a per data center basis, or a per region basis.

20. The system of claim 13, further comprising one or more computer systems configured to receive instance launch requests and, in response thereto, to launch instances in accordance with a priority based at least in part on the instance availability information associated with one or more other instances.

21. The system of claim 13, further comprising one or more computer systems configured to receive instance launch requests, the launch requests containing information encoding a required availability within one or more periods of time, and, in response thereto, to launch instances using computing resources selected to be capable of providing availability based on the required availability.

22. The system of claim 13, wherein the collected data further comprises data based at least in part on planned software deployments or planned maintenance activities in the distributed execution environment.

23. The system of claim 13, wherein the availability information is comparative availability for a plurality of instances owned by a customer of the distributed execution environment.

24. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

generate instance availability information that comprises data identifying one or more actual failures of one or more instances of computing resources and data indicating a probability that the one or more instances of computing resources in a distributed execution environment will be available during a future time period;

provide the instance availability information to a customer of the distributed execution environment for use in configuring the one or more instances of computing resources; and

perform one or more actions with regard to at least one of the one or more instances of computing resources based upon the instance availability information, wherein the one or more actions comprise one or more of migrating the at least one instance of computing resource from a data center into another data center, migrating the at least one instance of computing resource out of the distributed execution environment, scaling up a number of instances of computing resources or scaling down the number of instances of computing resources, or performing one or more backup operations with respect to the at least one instance of computing resource.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 24, wherein the computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to modify a price associated with the instances of computing resources after the computed probability has been provided to the customer of the distributed execution environment.

26. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 24, wherein modifying a price associated with the instances of computing resources comprises modifying a price of one or more instances purchased and priced according to a spot pricing model.

27. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 24, wherein the probability is computed based upon data collected from components within the distributed execution environment and data collected from one or more sources external to the distributed execution environment.

28. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein the data collected from one or more sources external to the distributed execution environment comprises at least one of a weather forecast for a geographic area that includes the instances of computing resources or data collected from one or more utility providers servicing the geographic area that includes the instances of computing resources.