Processing of application peak load

• US 9,781,191 B2
• Filed: 02/27/2013
• Issued: 10/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kashyap, Vivek
• Primary Examiner(s): Zele, Krista
• Assistant Examiner(s): NAJEE-ULLAH, TARIQ S
• Application Number:
  US13/778,592
• Publication Number:
  US 20130238690A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,679 Days
• Field of Search: 709203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• 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

Methods may provide peak load processing on a computer system. A method may include receiving at a remote computer system a request from a local computer system, coupled to the remote computer system by a network, to replicate at the remote computer system a local instance of an application executing on the local computer system that is subject to user requests received at the local computer system. The method may further include replicating on the remote computer system a remote instance of the application and redirecting user requests from the local computer system to the remote computer system. The method may further include executing on the remote computer system the remote instance of the application, including processing with the remote instance of the application user requests redirected from the local computer system to the remote instance of the application.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

monitoring utilization of a local instance of an application on a local computer system coupled to a remote computer system by a network;

receiving at the remote computer system a request from the local computer system to replicate at the remote computer system the local instance of an application executing on the local computer system that is subject to user requests received at the local computer system in response to determining a utilization of the second computer system exceeds a predefined operation threshold of the second computer system, wherein the predefined operation threshold comprises a response time that is longer than a baseline response time, the baseline response time comprising recorded response times within the second computer system;

receive at the remote computer system an instance of the application executing on the local computer system from a remote repository in an Open Virtualization Format (“

OVF”

), the remote repository storing a plurality of applications executing on the local computer system, the plurality of applications being developed and tested within a container-based development cloud using resources of the remote computer system prior to being stored in the remote repository;

receiving on the remote computer system application configuration information stored in OVF metadata by the local computer system, the application configuration information comprising data for configuring the instance of the application on the remote computer system to have customizations that correspond to customizations of the instance of the application executing on the second computer system;

replicating on the remote computer system the instance of the application using the application configuration information from the local computer system;

redirecting user requests from the local computer system to the remote computer system; and

executing on the remote computer system the remote instance of the application, including processing with the remote instance of the application user requests redirected from the local computer system to the remote instance of the application.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising providing the local computer system with data associated with the remote instance of the application.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising sending to the local system responses produced by the application to the received user requests for redirection to the users that submitted the corresponding user requests.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein replicating on the remote computer system a remote instance of the application running on the local system includes initiating termination of the execution of the local instance of the application, and receiving a copy of the application and configuration of the local instance of the application after the local instance of the application has terminated.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the local computer system is coupled to the Internet, associated with a domain having a DNS entry providing access by users, and wherein redirecting user requests from the local computer system to the remote computer system includes dynamically assigning the domain to a DNS entry of the remote computer system.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein replicating on the remote computer system a remote instance of the application includes replicating a data base of the local computer system on the remote computer system.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the operation threshold comprises a response time of three times one of a threshold defined in a policy and a baseline response time, the baseline response time recorded response times within the local computer system.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising receiving new user requests from the local computer system and executing the new user requests on the remote computer system, the new user requests received after receiving the application information, wherein the remote computer system and the local computer system are connected through a router accessed at an Internet Protocol (“

IP”

) address and each of the remote computer system and the local computer system include a subnet address such that the new user requests received on the IP address and intended for the local computer system are forwarded to the remote computer system.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein at least a portion of requests received by the local computer system prior to receiving the application are executed on the local computing system while new requests are executed on the remote computer system.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the remote instance of the application is executed within an operating system container on the remote computer system, the remote computer system comprising a plurality of operating system containers executing on an operating system for the remote computer system.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the network coupling the remote computer system and the local computer system comprises a bandwidth limitation such that an amount of data sent from the local computer system to the remote computer system for a predetermined period of time does not exceed the bandwidth limitation.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the operating system container on the remote computer system is bridged to a local subnet of the local computer system, the operating system container receiving an Internet Protocol (“

IP”

) address associated with an IP domain for the local computer system.

13. A method comprising:

executing at a local computer system a local instance of an application;

receiving at the local computer system user requests for use of the application;

processing with the local instance of the application a first portion of the received user requests;

monitor utilization of the local instance of the application on the local computer system;

receiving, in response to determining a utilization of the local computer system exceeds a predefined operation threshold of the local computer system, at a remote computer system coupled to the local computer system by a network, an instance of the application executing on the local computer system from a remote repository in an Open Virtualization Format (“

OVF”

), the remote repository storing a plurality of applications executing on the local computer system, the plurality of applications being developed and tested within a container-based development cloud using resources of the remote computer system prior to being stored in the remote repository, wherein the predefined operation threshold comprises a response time that is longer than a baseline response time, the baseline response time comprising recorded response times within the second computer system;

sending to the remote computer system application configuration information from the local computer system stored in OVF metadata, the application configuration information comprising data for configuring the remote instance of the application executing on the remote computer system to have customizations that correspond to customizations of the local instance of the application executing on the local computer system;

replicating on the remote computer system a remote instance of the application using the application information from the local computer system;

executing on the remote computer system the remote instance of the application, including processing with the remote instance of the application user requests received from the local computer system, the remote instance of the application being executed within an operating system container executing on the remote computer system; and

sending to the remote computer system a second portion of the received user requests to be processed by the remote instance of the application on the remote computer system.

14. The method according to claim 13, further comprising, prior to sending the second portion of the received user requests, terminating the executing of the local instance of the application at the local computer system, and wherein sending to the remote computer system the second portion of the received user requests includes sending all of the user requests to the remote computer system while the local instance of the application is terminated.

15. The method according to claim 13, further comprising receiving at the local computer system data associated with the remote instance of the application.

16. The method according to claim 13, further comprising receiving from the remote computer system responses to user requests sent to the remote computer system, and sending the received responses to the users that submitted the corresponding user requests.

17. The method according to claim 13, further comprising, prior to sending to the remote computer system the second portion of the received user requests, receiving an indication from the remote computer system that a remote instance of the application has been provisioned at the remote computer system.

18. The method according to claim 13, further comprising providing access by the remote computer system to a data base of the local computer system.