XML based generic UNIX discovery framework

• US 9,479,396 B2
• Filed: 05/31/2013
• Issued: 10/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: 11 11 Systems, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Sungard Availability Services LP (Sungard Availability Services Capital, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gokhale, Amol P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Srivastava, Vivek
• Assistant Examiner(s): RAZA, MUHAMMAD A
• Application Number:
  US13/906,983
• Publication Number:
  US 20140359108A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,243 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0856 by backing up or archiving configuration information

Abstract

Services that support recovery of a data center require collecting information concerning the service customer'"'"'s physical and virtual infrastructure, and specifically the configuration of their operating systems such as UNIX operating systems. Here an automatic discovery tool executes within the context of a secure browser program. Once a user is authenticated, a JavaScript or HTML program seamlessly retrieves a file that is specific to the type and version of the UNIX operating system on the host; the file contains commands and parsing logic for the commands to retrieve configuration data. Once parsed, the program forwards that data to a database so that the replication service provider may then correctly provision recovery systems.

Claims

1. A method implemented on a node including a memory coupled with a hardware processor for automated configuration detection for host machines in a customer production environment that are to be replicated in recovery host machines in a replication service environment comprising:

sending a request from a secure browser executing on the node within the customer production environment to an application server located within the replication service environment, the request for access to an executable survey program stored by the application server, wherein the customer production environment is remotely located from the replication service environment and connected via a private network connection;

receiving, by the secure browser from the application server located in the replication service environment, the executable survey program;

running the executable survey program from within the secure browser, the executable survey program further, for each respective host machines within the customer production environment;

(a) obtaining access information for the respective host machines including host names and login credentials, wherein the host names and the login credentials are used to automatically connect to each of the respective host machines in the customer production environment via secure shell (SSH);

(b) using the access information for each of the respective host machines to invoke an instrumented component interface for accessing the respective host machines to obtain installed operating system type and version information for the respective host machines;

(c) using the operating system type and version information to request access to an operating system specific file from the application server, the operating system specific file containing an operating system specific configuration query commands and operating system specific parsing logics associated with the operating system type and version for the respective host machines, wherein each of the operating system specific configuration query commands has associated operating system specific parsing logics, and wherein requesting access to the operating system specific file from the application server comprises accessing a database to select the operating system specific file from one of several files, each operating system specific file associated with a specific UNIX-compatible operating system type and UNIX-compatible operating system version;

(d) sending the operating system specific configuration query commands to the respective host machines;

(e) capturing output of the operating system specific configuration query commands from the respective host machines;

(f) using the associated operating system specific parsing logics to extract further host configuration information of interest from the output of the operating system specific configuration query commands;

(g) storing the further host configuration information; and

(h) using the further host configuration information extracted by the operating system specific parsing logics for configuring the respective recovery host machines in the replication service environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein an administrative user of the replication service environment uses the secure browser program from within the customer production environment to send the request to the application server.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the application server further authenticates the administrative user before providing access to the executable survey program.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the executable survey program is a JavaScript program.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the respective hosts machines within the customer production environment implements a UNIX compatible operating system selected from a group consisting of LINUX, Solaris, BSD, Ubuntu and Fedora.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the operating system specific file is an XML file.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the further host configuration information comprises a manufacturer, model, and physical memory of the respective host machines, as well as the installed operating system type and installed operating system version.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the executable survey program further obtains access to the one or more host machines using a secure shell connection to send the host names and login credentials to the respective host machines in the customer production environment.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein a connection from the browser to the respective host machines is a secure shell connection.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the operating system specific parsing logics include delimiter and token length.

11. An apparatus for configuration detection of a customer production environment containing host machines that are replicated to recovery hosts machines in a replication service environment comprising:

an application server, located within the replication service environment;

a node including a memory coupled with a hardware processor, located within the customer production environment, for executing a secure browser program, when executed on the hardware processor, to;

connect to the application server located within the replication service environment, and request access to an executable survey program stored by the application server, wherein the customer production environment is remotely located from the replication service environment and connected via a private network connection;

receive, by the secure browser from the application server located in the replication service environment, the executable survey program;

run the executable survey program from within the secure browser, the executable survey program further, for each respective host machines within the customer production environment;

(a) obtain access information for the respective host machines including host names and login credentials, wherein the host names and the login credentials are used to automatically connect to each of the respective host machines in the customer production environment via secure shell (SSH);

(b) use the access information for each of the respective host machines to invoke an instrumented component interface for accessing the respective host machines to obtain installed operating system type and version information for the respective host machines;

(c) using the operating system type and version information to request access to an operating system specific file stored by the application server, the operating system specific file containing an operating system specific configuration query commands and operating system specific parsing logics associated with the operating system type and version for the respective host machines, wherein each of the operating system specific configuration query commands has associated operating system specific parsing logics, and wherein requesting access to the operating system specific file from the application server comprises accessing a database to select the operating system specific file from one of several files, each operating system specific file associated with a specific UNIX-compatible operating system type and UNIX-compatible operating system version;

(d) send the operating system specific configuration query commands to the respective host machines;

(e) capture output of the operating system specific configuration query commands from the respective host machines;

(f) use the associated operating system specific parsing logics to extract additional host configuration information of interest from the output of the operating system specific configuration query commands;

(g) store the additional host configuration information; and

(h) use the additional host configuration information extracted by the operating system specific parsing logics to configure the respective recovery host machines in the replication service environment.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the secure browser program further accepts input from an administrative user of the replication service environment from within the customer production environment.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the application server further authenticates the administrative user before providing access to the executable survey program.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the executable survey program is a JavaScript program.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the host configuration information is forwarded to the replication service environment as an XML file.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising:

a configuration database to store the additional host configuration information extracted by the associated operating system specific parsing logics, and also store the operating system specific file.

17. A programmable computer product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed by a processor on a computer device, causes automated configuration detection of host machines in a customer production environment that are replicated to recovery host machines in a replication service environment, the programmable computer product comprising:

sending a request from a secure browser executing on a node within the customer production environment to an application server located within the replication service environment, the request for access to an executable survey program stored by the application server, wherein the customer production environment is remotely located from the replication service environment and connected via a private network connection;

receiving, by the secure browser from the application server located in the replication service environment, the executable survey program;

running the executable survey program from within the secure browser, the executable survey program further, for each respective host machines in the customer production environment;

(a) obtaining access information for the respective host machines including host names and login credentials, wherein the host names and the login credentials are used to automatically connect to each of the respective host machines in the customer production environment via secure shell (SSH);

(b) using the access information for each of the respective host machines to invoke an instrumented component interface to connect to the respective host machines to obtain installed operating system type and version information for the respective host machines;

(c) using the operating system type and version information to request access to an operating system specific file from the application server, the operating system specific file containing an operating system specific configuration query commands and operating system specific parsing logics associated with the operating system type and version for the respective host machines, wherein each of the operating system specific configuration query commands has associated operating system specific parsing logics, and wherein requesting access to the operating system specific file from the application server comprises accessing a database to select the operating system specific file from one of several files, each operating system specific file associated with a specific UNIX-compatible operating system type and UNIX-compatible operating system version;

(d) sending the operating system specific configuration query commands to the respective host machines;

(e) capturing output of the operating system specific configuration query commands from the respective host machines; and

(f) using the associated operating system specific parsing logics to extract additional host configuration information of interest from the output of the operating system specific configuration query commands;

(g) storing the additional host configuration information; and

(h) using the additional host configuration information extracted by the operating system specific parsing logics for configuring the respective recovery host machines in the replication service environment.