Resource allocation to reduce correlated failures

• US 9,722,866 B1
• Filed: 09/23/2011
• Issued: 08/01/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Van Rensburg, Cornelle Christiaan Pretorius Janse, Brooker, Marc J., Theimer, Marvin M., Agrawal, Abhinav, Gray, Adam D., DeSantis, Peter N.
• Primary Examiner(s): Srivastava, Vivek
• Assistant Examiner(s): Celani, Nicholas
• Application Number:
  US13/243,858
• Time in Patent Office: 2,139 Days
• Field of Search: 709226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/004 Error avoidance G06F11/07 and subgroups take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play

Abstract

Implementation resources are operated in a manner furthering a particular purpose while excluding use of the implementation resources for other purposes. At least some of the implementation resources have capacity that is usable to implement multiple other resources. The capacity of the implementation resources is allocated in a manner that satisfies one or more conditions on the capacity of the implementation resources that is used. Generally, the capacity is allocated in a manner that reduces the likelihood that resources initiated close in time will fail together should underlying implementation resources fail. The implementation resources may be hardware devices that implement virtual computer systems.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for providing computing resources, comprising:

receiving, by one or more computer systems, a request to provision a number of virtual computer systems for a customer of the virtual resource provider using dedicated hardware, wherein fulfillment of the request requires allocation of a first amount of capacity for the number of virtual computer systems;

as a result of the customer having specified use of dedicated hardware, dedicating, by the one or more computer systems, a group of hardware devices, the group of hardware devices comprising a number of hardware devices that is greater than a minimum number of hardware devices sufficient for the allocation of the first amount of capacity, in a manner that prevents virtual computer system instances from being implemented for other customers of the virtual resource provider using the group of hardware devices and that fulfills one or more conditions that include a condition on a second amount of capacity of the group that can be used upon provisioning the number of virtual computer systems;

provisioning, by the one or more computer systems, the number of virtual computer systems using one or more hardware devices in the dedicated group while, as a result of the condition on the second amount of capacity, leaving capacity for at least one additional virtual computer system in the group; and

providing, by the one or more computer systems, to the customer, access to the provisioned number of virtual computer systems.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the condition on the second amount of capacity is such that, when the number of virtual computer systems are provisioned, at least two hardware devices of the group are each capable of implementing at least one additional virtual computer system.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more conditions on the second amount of capacity of the group includes a condition that a specified number of virtual computer systems are each provisioned using a different hardware device before a hardware device of the group is used to provision more than one virtual computer system.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein dedicating the group is further based at least in part on a customer-specified selection of computing resources from a set of computing resources of the customer that are implemented using hardware from which use by other customers is excluded as a result of the customer having specified use of dedicated hardware.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising provisioning, by the one or more computer systems, one or more computing resources for the customer using hardware that also implements one or more other computing resources for one or more other customers.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the minimum number of hardware devices is based at least in part on a maximum number of virtual computer systems allowed to be implemented per hardware device.

7. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving a request to implement a set of virtual computer systems using hardware devices that are dedicated to a particular purpose, wherein fulfillment of the request requires allocation of an amount of capacity for the set of virtual computer systems;

determining a set of hardware devices that, when used to fulfill the request, fulfills one or more conditions on capacity of the set of hardware devices that include a limit on capacity utilization of the set of hardware devices and comprises a number of hardware devices that is more than a minimum number of hardware devices sufficient for the allocation of the amount of capacity;

using the set of hardware devices to implement the set of virtual computer systems while, as a result of the one or more conditions on the capacity, leaving capacity in the set of hardware devices for implementing at least one additional virtual computer system; and

as a result of the request specifying use of hardware devices dedicated to the particular purpose, maintaining the set of hardware devices in a manner that excludes the set of hardware devices from purposes different from the particular purpose.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the hardware devices include a plurality of types of apportionable resources of one or more physical hosts.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the particular purpose is exclusive use by a customer of a resource provider.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the limit on capacity utilization of the set of hardware devices is a limit that ensures that at least two of the hardware devices will each be able to implement the at least one additional virtual computer system.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein determining the set of hardware devices includes determining a number of hardware devices to be added to a current group of hardware devices dedicated to the particular purpose when capacity of the current group of hardware devices would not be able to simultaneously fulfill the request and the one or more conditions.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the minimum number of hardware devices is based at least in part on a maximum number of virtual computer systems allowed to be implemented per hardware device.

13. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory including instructions executable by the one or more processors to cause the system to at least;

maintain a pool of hardware devices by at least managing the pool of hardware devices in a manner that excludes user-specified sets of hardware devices each dedicated to a corresponding particular purpose from use for another purpose;

use the pool of hardware devices to implement virtual computer systems;

receive requests to implement one or more additional virtual computer systems; and

for each request of at least a subset of the received requests, implement the requested one or more additional virtual computer systems such that;

as a result of the requested one or more additional virtual computer systems being requested for a corresponding user-specified set that is dedicated to a particular purpose, one or more conditions on capacity of the user-specified set, including a condition that indicates a minimum amount of available capacity to remain upon implementation of the requested one or more additional virtual computer systems, are fulfilled; and

as a result of the user-specified sets of hardware devices each being dedicated to a corresponding particular purpose, the user-specified sets of hardware devices each remain dedicated to the corresponding particular purpose and the user-specified sets of hardware devices are modified to leave capacity in the user-specified sets of hardware devices for implementing at least one additional virtual computer system.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the particular purpose for a user-specified set is use of the user-specified set by a customer of a computing resource provider that excludes use by other customers of the computing resource provider.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the hardware devices includes devices associated with one or more physical hosts.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the hardware devices includes at least one resource type other than a physical host.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the one or more conditions on capacity of the user-specified set include a condition that indicates a number of hardware devices necessary when the user-specified set has less than a predetermined number of members.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the minimum number of hardware devices is based at least in part on a maximum number of virtual computer systems allowed to be implemented per hardware device.

19. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media having stored thereon instructions executable by one or more processors of a computer system that, as a result of being executed by the one or more processors, cause the computer system to at least:

for each group of a plurality of groups of hardware devices;

maintain the group to be dedicated to a particular purpose such that the group;

implements a number of virtual computer systems;

has capacity for being used for another purpose; and

is prevented from being utilized from the other purpose as a result of a specification that the group be dedicated to the particular purpose;

receive a request to modify the group by changing the number of virtual computer systems implemented by the group, wherein fulfillment of the request requires allocation of an amount of capacity for the number of virtual computer systems; and

fulfill the request by at least modifying the group in a manner that;

one or more conditions on available capacity of the group, including a minimum amount of available capacity for the group upon fulfillment of corresponding requests, is fulfilled; and

the group comprises a number of hardware devices that, as a result of the one or more conditions on the available capacity of the group, leaves capacity in the group for implementing at least one additional virtual computer system.

20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 19, wherein the hardware devices include physical hosts.

21. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 19, wherein the one or more conditions include a minimum number of hardware devices that are to be used to implement user-requested virtual computer systems before a hardware resource implements multiple user-requested virtual computer systems.

22. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 19, wherein changing the number of virtual computer systems implemented by the group includes increasing the number of virtual computer systems implemented by the group.

23. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 19, wherein changing the number of virtual computer systems implemented by the group includes decreasing the number of virtual computer systems implemented by the group.

24. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 19, wherein the particular purpose is exclusive use by a corresponding customer of a virtual resource provider.