Stateful virtual compute system

• US 9,588,790 B1
• Filed: 02/04/2015
• Issued: 03/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wagner, Timothy Allen, Reque, Sean Philip
• Primary Examiner(s): Sough, H S
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chen, Zhan
• Application Number:
  US14/614,141
• Time in Patent Office: 762 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3668 Software testing software testing in telephone exchanges H04M3/242, testing of hardware G06F11/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

A system for providing a stateful virtual compute system is provided. The system may be configured to maintain a plurality of virtual machine instances. The system may be further configured to receive a request to execute a program code and select a virtual machine instance to execute the program code on the selected virtual machine instance. The system may further associate the selected virtual machine instance with shared resources and allow program codes executed in the selected virtual machine instance to access the shared resources.

Claims

1. A system adapted to provide low-latency computational capacity from a virtual compute fleet, the system comprising:

an electronic data store configured to store at least a program code of a user; and

a virtual compute system comprising one or more hardware computing devices adapted to execute specific computer-executable instructions, said virtual compute system in communication with the electronic data store, and configured to at least;

maintain a plurality of virtual machine instances on one or more physical computing devices, wherein the plurality of virtual machine instances comprise a warming pool comprising virtual machine instances having one or more software components loaded thereon and waiting to be assigned to a user, and an active pool comprising virtual machine instances assigned to one or more users;

receive a first request to execute a program code of a user on the virtual compute system, the first request including information usable for identifying the program code and the user;

select a virtual machine instance to be used to execute the program code from the warming pool;

determine a shared computing resource associated with the user or the program code;

cause the selected virtual machine instance to be associated with the shared computing resource such that the selected virtual machine instance has access to the shared computing resource;

create a first container to be used for executing the program code in the selected virtual machine instance;

cause the program code to be executed in the first container, the execution of the program code in the first container configured to modify data in the shared computing resource associated with the selected virtual machine instance;

receive a second request to execute the program code of the user on the virtual compute system, the second request including information usable for identifying the program code and the user;

create a second container to be used for executing the program code in another virtual machine instance other than the selected virtual machine instance; and

subsequent to the execution of the first program code in the first container, cause the program code to be executed in the second container, the execution of the program code in the second container configured to access the data modified by the prior execution of the program code in the first container.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the shared computing resource comprises at least one of a shared disk, a shared memory, a shared file system, or a shared cache.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual compute system is further configured to cause a change made to the shared computing resource by the executions of the program code to remain in the shared computing resource after the selected virtual machine instance is terminated.

4. A system, comprising:

a virtual compute system comprising one or more hardware computing devices adapted to execute specific computer-executable instructions and configured to at least;

maintain a plurality of virtual machine instances on one or more physical computing devices;

receive a first request to execute a first program code of a user on the virtual compute system, the first request including information usable for identifying the user;

cause the first program code to be executed in a first container created on a first virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the first program code in the first container configured to modify data accessible by multiple executions of the first program code;

receive a second request to execute the first program code on the virtual compute system, the second request including information usable for identifying the user; and

subsequent to the execution of the first program code in the first container, cause the first program code to be executed in a second container created on a second virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances that is different from the first virtual machine instance, the execution of the first program code in the second container configured to access the data modified by the prior execution of the first program code in the first container.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the virtual compute system is further configured to cause a change made to the data by the executions of the first program code to be removed after copies of the first program code are removed from the first and second virtual machine instances.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the virtual compute system is further configured to cause a change made to the data by the executions of the first program code to remain after copies of the first program code are removed from the first and second virtual machine instances.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein the virtual compute system is further configured to:

determine that the data is accessible by executions of a second program code of the user; and

cause the second program code to be executed in a third container created in a third virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the second program code in the third container configured to access the data modified by one or more prior executions of the first program code.

8. The system of claim 4, wherein the user is referred to as a first user and the virtual compute system is further configured to:

determine that one or more program codes of a second user are allowed to access the data associated with the first user; and

cause the one or more program codes of the second user to be executed in one or more containers created in one or more virtual machine instances of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the one or more program codes in the one or more containers configured to access the data associated with the first user.

9. The system of claim 4, wherein the data is stored by a storage service that is external to the virtual compute system, wherein the virtual compute system is further configured to associate the storage service with the first program code.

10. The system of claim 4, wherein the data is stored in at least one of a shared disk, a shared memory, a shared file system, or a shared cache.

11. A computer-implemented method comprising:

as implemented by one or more computing devices configured with specific executable instructions,

maintaining a plurality of virtual machine instances on one or more physical computing devices;

receiving a first request to execute a first program code of a user on the virtual compute system, the first request including information usable for identifying the user;

causing the first program code to be executed in a first container created on a first virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the program code in the first container configured to modify data accessible by multiple executions of the first program code;

receiving a second request to execute the first program code on the virtual compute system, the second request including information usable for identifying the user; and

subsequent to the execution of the first program code in the first container, causing the first program code to be executed in a second container created on a second virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances that is different from the first virtual machine instance, the execution of the first program code in the second container configured to access the data modified by the prior execution of the first program code in the first container.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising causing a change made to the data by the executions of the first program code to be removed after the first and second containers are terminated.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising causing a change made to the data by the executions of the first program code to remain after the first and second containers are terminated.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining that the data is accessible by executions of a second program code of the user; and

causing the second program code to be executed in a third container created in a third virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the second program code in the third container configured to access the data modified by one or more prior executions of the first program code.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the user is referred to as a first user and, the method further comprising:

determining that one or more program codes of a second user are allowed to access the data associated with the first user; and

causing the one or more program codes of the second user to be executed in one or more containers created in one or more virtual machine instances of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the one or more program codes in the one or more containers configured to access configured to access the data associated with the first user.

16. Non-transitory physical computer storage storing computer executable instructions that, when executed by one or more computing devices, configure the one or more computing devices to:

maintain a plurality of virtual machine instances on one or more physical computing devices;

receive a first request to execute a first program code of a user on the virtual compute system, the first request including information usable for identifying the user;

cause the first program code to be executed in a first container created on a first virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the program code in the first container configured to modify data accessible by multiple executions of the first program code;

receive a second request to execute the first program code on the virtual compute system, the second request including information usable for identifying the user; and

subsequent to the execution of the first program code in the first container, cause the first program code to be executed in a second container created on a second virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances that is different from the first virtual machine instance, the execution of the first program code in the second container configured to access the data modified by the prior execution of the first program code in the first container.

17. The non-transitory physical computer of claim 16, wherein the computer executable instructions further configure the one or more computing devices to cause a change made to the data by the executions of the first program code to be removed after copies of the first program code are removed from the first and second virtual machine instances.

18. The non-transitory physical computer of claim 16, wherein the computer executable instructions further configure the one or more computing devices to cause a change made to the data by the executions of the first program code to remain after copies of the first program code are removed from the first and second virtual machine instances.

19. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 16, wherein the computer executable instructions further configure the one or more computing devices to:

determine that the data is accessible by executions of a second program code of the user; and

cause the second program code to be executed in a third container created in a third virtual machine instance of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the second program code in the third container configured to access the data modified by one or more prior executions of the first program code.

20. The non-transitory physical computer of claim 16, wherein the user is referred to as a first user and the computer executable instructions further configure the one or more computing devices to:

determine that one or more program codes of a second user are allowed to access the data associated with the first user; and

cause the one or more program codes of the second user to be executed in one or more containers created in one or more virtual machine instances of the plurality of virtual machine instances, the execution of the one or more program codes in the one or more containers configured to access the data associated with the first user.