System and method using software defined continuity (SDC) and application defined continuity (ADC) for achieving business continuity and application continuity on massively scalable entities like entire datacenters, entire clouds etc. in a computing system environment

• US 9,716,746 B2
• Filed: 07/28/2014
• Issued: 07/25/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: Sanovi Technologies PVT Limited (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Garg, Devendra, Kuppuswamy, Vinodraj, Holavanhalli, Adarsh
• Primary Examiner(s): KATSIKIS, KOSTAS J
• Application Number:
  US14/444,557
• Publication Number:
  US 20150032817A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,093 Days
• Field of Search: 709204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2035 without idle spare hardware
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2048 where the redundant components share neither address space nor persistent storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• 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 and method for achieving Business Continuity and Application Continuity with the system comprising one or more resources of multiple end users or service providers logically connected to one or more cloud infrastructures wherein the collection of resources forms a Continuity Grid or a part of Continuity Grid or sub Grid for which continuity is needed and wherein the Continuity Grid or part of continuity grid or sub Grid are paired with the Continuity Peer Grids located in the same or different cloud infrastructures to satisfy continuity requirements of the Continuity Grid or part of Continuity Grid or sub Grid.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a local blueprint for supporting continuity for all local resources of a particular sub Grid;

a first continuity grid having a first collection of hardware computer resources of multiple end users or service providers logically connected to a first at least one cloud infrastructure;

a second continuity grid having a second collection of hardware computer resources connected to a second at least one cloud infrastructure; and

a cloud continuity subsystem connected to both said first at least one cloud infrastructure and to said second at least one cloud infrastructure, said cloud continuity subsystem including one or more hardware computer resources for executing instructions for implementing software defined continuity (SDC) and application defined continuity (ADC) according to a plurality of continuity requirements for achieving Business Continuity and Application Continuity comprising one or more resources of multiple end users or service providers logically connected to one or more cloud infrastructures;

wherein at least part of said first continuity grid is paired by the cloud continuity subsystem with the second continuity grid located in the same or different cloud infrastructures to satisfy the continuity requirements, and wherein

said local blueprint defines continuity operations used to maintain continuity metrics used to preserve continuity of local resources within said particular sub Grid, wherein,

for each particular sub Grid comprised in a portion of sub Grids in the first Continuity Grid, there is provided by the cloud continuity subsystem a corresponding continuity peer sub Grid in the second Continuity Grid for providing continuity for the particular sub Grid in the first Continuity Grid by action of a respective continuity tether that is configured to provide a data pipeline to control and transform data flowing between the particular sub Grid and the peer sub Grid for providing continuity for the particular sub Grid, and wherein

at least some number of said plurality of sub Grids in said first Continuity Grid are each a parent sub Grid hierarchically arranged to be comprised of one or more child sub Grids each also including a local blueprint for providing continuity with a corresponding child peer sub Grid provided in said second Continuity Grid.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein Application Defined Continuity define application continuity independent of the underlying cloud infrastructure using ADC profile created by ADC API.

3. The system as claimed in claim 2, wherein ADC profile for a workload is translated into a continuity template by ADC Controller such that Software Defined Continuity (SDC) can provide continuity.

4. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein Continuity grids contain a set of resources and are linked with continuity peers that may or may not be in the same cloud, datacenter, geography or accessible location.

5. The system as claimed in claim 4, wherein every resource has a continuity strategy that is applied to the said resource and applying the strategy results in one or more Continuity Peers in the entire system.

6. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein every Continuity Grid has a tether that links all data movement from one continuity grid to its Continuity Peers and wherein all Continuity Grids including sub-grids can teleport their tether to the parent continuity grids.

7. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein continuity grids start out being a dark grid with a wireframe and comprise basic services required for functioning of grid and default or empty configuration values for Continuity Blue Print.

8. The system as claimed in claim 7, wherein continuity on any Continuity Grids is enabled using Continuity Blue Prints that are updated due to entity/resource fingerprinting during the self-aware discovery process where a UCOG discovers its members or when commands supplying specific information are released into the UCOG from external sources.

9. The system as claimed in claim 8 wherein Continuity Grids actively fingerprint everything under its control and fill out the blueprint with practical values from the installations it manages and a given continuity/ADC profile and ends up with its own Continuity Blue Print.

10. The system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the Continuity Grids scales elastically whenever resources are added to it and maintains SLAs within the ambit of the enclosing infrastructure.

11. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein Continuity Grids map entire system rendering a single Continuity Blue Print for the entire system.

12. The system as claimed in claim 7, wherein Continuity Blue Prints have Continuity Operations filled out and the values of Continuity Operations are automatically adjusted to reflect the altered continuity capabilities of the Continuity Grids when resources are added or removed to/from the Continuity Grid.

13. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein Continuity Grids are self-tuning and can change continuity strategies to adjust for load changes, emergency situations, exception handling based on datacenter policies.

14. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein each Continuity Grid comprises or has an access to Data center Acquisition Module, Virtual and Physical Resource Management Module, Fully Automated continuity Tiering (FACT) Module, Elastic Continuity Grid (ECG) Module, Continuity Optimization and Reasoning Engine (CORE) Module, Application Continuity Tethering Services (ACTS) Module, Continuity Universe (CONVERSE) Module, Cost and Accounting Module, Blue Print Management Module, Grid Execution Services Module, ADC API, ADC Controller, Information Exchange/API Layer, Communication and Access Layer, Orchestration Module, End User Interface and Service Provider Interface.

15. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein every Continuity Grid relies on a continuity meter that is a combination of a fixed values and live measurements.

16. The system as claimed in claim 15, wherein the Continuity meter comprises Service Level Agreement (SLA) metrics dial, continuity phase shift dial, geographical proximity dial and the desired cost dial.

17. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein continuity handled by each Continuity Grid is defined as phase shift, geography and operational levels handled by all the continuity grids.

18. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein each Continuity Grid is self-aware, self-managing and can be independently monitored and drilled down to the desired level.

19. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the Continuity Grids can be promoted from lowly continuous to highly continuous and vice versa at any time.

20. A method using a cloud continuity subsystem including a computer system and a local blueprint for supporting continuity for all local resources of a particular sub Grid to provide continuity to a workload or resource of a first continuity grid having a first collection of computer resources of massively scalable entities connected to a cloud infrastructure, said method using software defined continuity (SDC) and application defined continuity (ADC) for achieving business continuity and application continuity for the massively scalable entities, wherein

a local blueprint defines continuity operations used to maintain continuity metrics used to preserve continuity of local resources within said particular sub Grid, and wherein,

for each particular sub Grid comprised in a portion of sub Grids in the first Continuity Grid, there is provided by the cloud continuity subsystem a corresponding continuity peer sub Grid in a second Continuity Grid for providing continuity for the particular sub Grid in the first Continuity Grid by action of a respective continuity tether that is configured to provide a data pipeline to control and transform data flowing between the particular sub Grid and the peer sub Grid for providing continuity for the particular sub Grid, and wherein

at least some number of said plurality of sub Grids in said first Continuity Grid are each a parent sub Grid hierarchically arranged to be comprised of one or more child sub Grids each also including a computer system and a local blueprint for providing continuity with a corresponding child peer sub Grid provided in said second Continuity Grid, the method comprising the steps of:

a. the cloud continuity subsystem starting the continuity provisioning by end user or service provider or automatically or as and when new workloads are added to the first continuity grid;

b. the cloud continuity subsystem fetching the resources or workloads;

c. the cloud continuity subsystem fetching an ADC profile of the said resources or workload as input by end customer or service provider;

d. the cloud continuity subsystem identifying sub grids in existing parent grids in the first continuity grid by universal continuity grids or creation of new grids/sub-grids by the universal continuity grids;

e. the cloud continuity subsystem updating a blueprint of the parent grids with the knowledge of the sub-grids;

f. the cloud continuity subsystem starting resource discovery by the sub-grids identified in step d;

g. the cloud continuity subsystem starting fingerprinting of the discovered resources identified in step f;

h. the cloud continuity subsystem updating blueprints of sub-grids with the resource information obtained at step f and step g;

i. the cloud continuity subsystem computing the number of continuity operations required, continuity strategy needed, Geo Placements, cost optimizations by sub grids based on resources/workload and ADC profile;

j. the cloud continuity subsystem updating the blueprints of sub-grids with the continuity operation information obtained at step l;

k. the cloud continuity subsystem finding continuity peer grids in another cloud infrastructure that can satisfy continuity requirements of the sub grids;

l. the cloud continuity subsystem pairing the sub-grid and continuity peer grid obtained at step k;

m. the cloud continuity subsystem updating the blueprints with the peer information, actions that can be performed, events, and/or parent information;

n. the cloud continuity subsystem adjusting the number of continuity operations available with sub grids and parent grids with number of continuity operations needed to provide continuity for given resource/workload; and

o. the cloud continuity subsystem managing continuity, cost management, Resource Accounting, Resource Monitoring and percolating the information upwards to parent grids and updating the blueprints with changes.

21. A system for achieving business continuity, comprising:

a first Continuity Grid located in a first cloud system, said first Continuity Grid comprising a plurality of first Continuity sub Grids;

a second Continuity Grid located in a second cloud system, said second Continuity Grid comprising a plurality of second Continuity sub Grids; and

a cloud continuity subsystem comprising a continuity computer system connected to a plurality of cloud systems including said first cloud system and said second cloud system, said continuity computer system being configured to execute a software module comprising instructions for providing respective continuity peer sub Grids from at least some the second Continuity sub Grids in the second Continuity Grid for a portion of the plurality of first Continuity sub Grids in the first Continuity Grid;

wherein each particular first Continuity sub Grid of the portion of the plurality of first Continuity sub Grids in the first Continuity Grid has local resources including;

a computer system for executing applications, said computer system including one or more servers, storage devices, and networks, and

a local blueprint for supporting continuity for all local resources of the particular first Continuity sub Grid, wherein the local blueprint defines continuity operations used to maintain continuity metrics used to preserve continuity of the local resources within said particular first Continuity sub Grid;

wherein, for each particular first Continuity sub Grid comprised in said portion of the plurality of first Continuity sub Grids in the first Continuity Grid, there is provided by the cloud continuity subsystem a corresponding continuity peer sub Grid in the second Continuity Grid for providing continuity for the particular first Continuity sub Grid in the first Continuity Grid by action of a respective continuity tether that is configured to provide a data pipeline to control and transform data flowing between the particular first Continuity sub Grid and the peer sub Grid for providing continuity for the particular first Continuity sub Grid, and wherein

at least some number of said plurality of first Continuity sub Grids in said first Continuity Grid are each a parent first Continuity sub Grid hierarchically arranged to be comprised of one or more child first Continuity sub Grids each also including a computer system and a local blueprint for providing continuity with a corresponding child peer sub Grid provided in said second Continuity Grid.