Measuring provisioning capacity across distributed systems

• US 9,766,941 B2
• Filed: 12/08/2011
• Issued: 09/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: GanapathyRaj, Pradeep, McLean, Michael, Serbanescu, Radu, Chen, Meng Hua
• Primary Examiner(s): Srivastava, Vivek
• Assistant Examiner(s): CELANI, NICHOLAS P
• Application Number:
  US13/314,235
• Publication Number:
  US 20130151689A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,112 Days
• Field of Search: 709224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/508 Monitor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/048 mobile agents
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Provisioning capacity measuring may be provided. First, a provisioning monitoring job may run on a grid manager that spawns a plurality of farm monitoring jobs onto a respective plurality of farms. Next, a user count for each of the respective plurality of farms may be respectively provided. The user count may comprise a number of users on each of the respective plurality of farms. An event alert may be provided when the user count for any of the respective plurality of farms is greater than a threshold.

Claims

1. A method for measuring provisioning capacity, the method comprising:

running a provisioning monitoring job on a grid manager;

spawning, by the provisioning monitoring job, a plurality of farm monitoring jobs onto a plurality of farms associated with the grid manager, the plurality of farms comprising a plurality of content farms associated with the grid manager and a plurality of directory service farms associated with the plurality of content farms;

receiving, from the plurality of farm monitoring jobs, a user count for each of the respective plurality of farms, wherein receiving the user count for each of the plurality of farms comprises at least;

receiving, at a first content farm from a plurality of directory service farm monitoring jobs, the user count for the plurality of directory service farms, wherein receiving the user count for the plurality of directory service farms comprises receiving a number of licensed users and a number of unlicensed users associated with each of the plurality of directory service farms and receiving an indication of one of the plurality of content farms in which each of licensed users and unlicensed users reside, and

aggregating, by a first content farm monitoring job, the user count and the indications received for the plurality of directory service farms to tally the user count comprising the number of licensed users and the number of unlicensed users for the first content farm;

receiving the aggregated user count for each of the plurality of content farms and the user count for each of the plurality of directory service farms; and

providing an event alert when the user count for one of the respective plurality of farms is greater than a threshold comprising a fraction of a capacity level of the one of the plurality of farms, wherein the event alert provides for a responsive action comprising at least one of the following;

closing a farm in the plurality of farms, standing up a new farm in the plurality of farms, and moving a user from a one of the plurality of directory service farms to another of the plurality of directory service farms.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein running the provisioning monitoring job on the grid manager comprises running the provisioning monitoring job on the grid manager being configured to run on a network including the plurality of farms.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein running the provisioning monitoring job on the grid manager comprises running the provisioning monitoring job on the grid manager periodically.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the user count for each of the respective plurality of farms comprises receiving the user count at the grid manager.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising saving, to a grid manager database, the user count for each of the respective plurality of farms.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising saving, to a grid manager database, the user count for each of the respective plurality of farms, the grid manager database residing on the grid manager.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the event alert comprises providing the event alert by the grid manager.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating the plurality of thresholds for the event alert; and

sending the event alert when the user count exceeds one of the plurality of thresholds.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein creating the plurality of thresholds comprises creating the plurality of thresholds for the number of licensed users and the number of unlicensed users for each of the plurality of content farms and the plurality of directory service farms.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of farms are associated with a plurality of thresholds comprising a first threshold and a second threshold, the second threshold being higher than the first threshold, and wherein providing the event alert comprises:

providing, when the user count for one of the respective plurality of farms is greater that the first threshold, a first event alert, and

providing, when the user count for one of the respective plurality of farms increases to the second threshold, a second event alert.

8. A system for measuring provisioning capacity, the system comprising:

a memory storage; and

a processor coupled to the memory storage, wherein the processor is operative to;

spawn a plurality of farm monitoring jobs onto a plurality of farms, the plurality of farms comprising a plurality of content farms associated with a grid manager and a plurality of directory service farms associated with the plurality of content farms;

receive a user count for each of a respective plurality of farms wherein the processor being configured to receive the user count comprises the processor being configured to at least;

receive, at a first content farm, from a plurality of directory service farm monitoring jobs, the user count for the plurality of directory service farms, wherein receiving the user count for the plurality of directory service farms comprises receiving a number of licensed users and a number of unlicensed users associated with each of the plurality of directory service farms and receiving an indication of one of the plurality of content farms in which each of licensed users and unlicensed users reside, and

aggregate, by a first content farm monitoring job, the user count and the indication received from the plurality of directory service farms to tally the user count comprising the number of licensed users and the number of unlicensed users for the first content farm, and

receive the aggregated user count for each of the content farms and the user count for each of the plurality of directory service farms; and

provide an event alert when the user count for one of the plurality of farms is greater than a threshold comprising a fraction of a capacity level of the one of the plurality of farms, wherein the event alert provides for a responsive action comprising at least one of the following;

closing a farm in the plurality of farms, standing up a new farm in the plurality of farms, and moving a user from a one of the plurality of directory service farms to another of the plurality of directory service farms.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the processor being further operative to save, to a grid manager database, the user count for each of the respective plurality of farms.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of farms comprises at least one computer server.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the capacity level comprises a limit on the number of licensed users and the number of unlicensed users associated with each of the plurality of farms.

17. The system of claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of farms are associated with a plurality of thresholds comprising a first threshold and a second threshold, the second threshold being higher than the first threshold, and wherein providing the event alert comprises:

providing, when the user count for one of the respective plurality of farms is greater that the first threshold, a first event alert, and

providing, when the user count for one of the respective plurality of farms increases to the second threshold, a second event alert.

14. A method of measuring provisioning capacity, the method comprising:

running a provisioning monitoring job on a grid manager;

spawning, by the provisioning monitoring job, a plurality of directory service farm monitoring jobs onto each of a plurality of directory services farms associated with plurality of content farms associated with the grid manager, wherein each of the plurality of directory service farm monitoring jobs provides;

(i) a user count associated with each of the plurality of directory service farms, the user count comprising a count of licensed users and a count of unlicensed users associated with each of the plurality of directory service farms; and

(ii) an indication of one of the plurality of content farms with which each of licensed and unlicensed users is associated;

spawning, by the provisioning monitoring job, a content farm monitoring job onto each of the plurality of content farms, wherein a first content farm monitoring job uses the user counts and the indications provided by the plurality of directory service farm monitoring jobs to aggregate the count of licensed users and the count of unlicensed users to tally the user count associated with a first content farm;

receiving, by the grid manager, the aggregated user count for each of the content farms and the user count for each of the plurality of directory service farms; and

providing, by the grid manager, an event alert when the user count of one of the plurality of directory service farms or the plurality of content farms is greater than a threshold comprising a fraction of a capacity level of the one of the plurality of content farms or the plurality of directory service farms, wherein the event alert provides for a responsive action comprising at least one of the following;

closing a farm in the plurality of farms, standing up a new farm in the plurality of farms, and moving a user from a one of the plurality of directory service farms to another of the plurality of directory service farms.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising storing, in a database associated with the grid manager, the count of licensed users and the count of unlicensed users within each of the plurality of content farms and the plurality of directory services farms.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein each of the plurality of farms are associated with a plurality of thresholds comprising a first threshold and a second threshold, the second threshold being higher than the first threshold, and wherein providing the event alert comprises:

providing, when the user count for one of the respective plurality of farms is greater that the first threshold, a first event alert, and

providing, when the user count for one of the respective plurality of farms increases to the second threshold, a second event alert.