Apparatus, systems, and methods for cloud agnostic multi-tier application modeling and deployment

• US 9,967,318 B2
• Filed: 09/02/2014
• Issued: 05/08/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Fu, Tianying, Joshi, Gautam, Malik, Saad Ali, Nagaraj, Abhinav
• Primary Examiner(s): Nooristany, Sulaiman
• Application Number:
  US14/474,943
• Publication Number:
  US 20140372533A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,344 Days
• 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

Embodiments disclosed facilitate obtaining a cloud agnostic representation of a multi-tier application. Cloud specific implementations of the cloud agnostic representation may be deployed on a plurality of clouds. In some embodiments, dependency information for each component service in a multi-tier application is obtained, wherein the dependency information for a component service indicates prerequisites for starting the component service; and a cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application is derived, wherein the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application comprises metadata for obtaining each of the component services for a plurality of clouds, and a sequence for starting each of the component services, the sequence based, in part, on the dependency information.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

at a device including a processor and a non-transitory memory;

obtaining, for a multi-tier application comprising a plurality of components, dependency information for each component in the plurality of components, wherein the dependency information for a component in the plurality of components comprises information indicating prerequisites for initiating execution of the component;

deriving a cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application based, in part on the dependency information, wherein the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application comprises metadata for the multi-tier application without cloud-specific information;

provisioning a plurality of virtual machines to run the plurality of components of the multi-tier application based on the dependency information;

deriving, from the cloud agnostic representation, cloud-specific commands for deploying the multi-tier application on the plurality of virtual machines; and

deploying the multi-tier application on the plurality of virtual machines using the cloud-specific commands in order to obtain a cloud specific implementation of the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the dependency information for each component further comprises residence dependency information and the metadata further comprises:

Virtual Machine (VM) co-residency information for a first subset of the plurality of components when deployed, the VM co-residency information comprising;

information indicating a compatibility of at least one first group of components in the first subset for co-residency;

or

information indicating an incompatibility of at least one second group of components in the first subset for co-residency;

or

VM placement information for a second subset of the plurality of components when deployed, the VM placement information comprising a mapping of each component in the second subset to one or more VMs.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of components are selected from at least one of:

a service library, the service library comprising a plurality of services, wherein each of the plurality of services is associated with a corresponding service configuration metadata;

or

an application catalog, the application catalog comprising a plurality of predefined multi-tier applications, wherein each of the plurality of predefined multi-tier applications is associated with a corresponding application metadata.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the multi-tier application is obtained by:

displaying a representation of the plurality of services in the service library and a representation of applications in the application catalog in a Graphical User Interface (GUI); and

displaying, based on the dependency information and in response to a selection of each of the plurality of components, a graphical representation of the multi-tier application on the GUI the graphical representation reflecting the selected components and dependencies between the selected components.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of services comprise at least one of:

a web server;

a relational database;

a non-relational database;

a load balancing service;

a front-end cache;

a back-end cache;

a message bus;

an application server;

Virtual Machine Image (VMI) based services;

or

external endpoint based services.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein deploying the multi-tier application on the plurality of virtual machines comprises:

obtaining, based on the metadata in the cloud agnostic representation, the cloud specific implementation of the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application.

19. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

selecting a previously stored application from the application catalog;

modifying the previously stored application to obtain a modified application, including adding or removing one or more services from the service library and adding or removing one or more previously stored applications from the application catalog;

obtaining the dependency information for the modified application; and

saving the modified application in the application catalog as the multi-tier application.

7. An apparatus comprising:

a memory comprising dependency information for a component in a plurality of components of a multi-tier application, wherein the dependency information for the component comprises information indicating prerequisites for initiating execution of the component; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to;

obtain, for the multi-tier application, the dependency information for each component in the plurality of components;

derive a cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application based, in part, on the dependency information, wherein the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application comprises metadata for the multi-tier application without cloud-specific information;

provision a plurality of virtual machines to run the plurality of components of the multi-tier application based on the dependency information;

derive, from the cloud agnostic representation, cloud-specific commands for deploying the multi-tier application on the plurality of virtual machines; and

deploy the multi-tier application on the plurality of virtual machines using the cloud-specific commands in order to obtain a cloud specific implementation of the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the dependency information for each component further comprises residence dependency information and the processor is further configured to:

obtain the metadata based on the residence dependency information, the metadata comprising;

Virtual Machine (VM) co-residency information for a first subset of the plurality of components when deployed, the VM co-residency information comprising;

information indicating a compatibility of at least one first group of components in the first subset for co-residency;

or

information indicating an incompatibility of at least one second group of components in the first subset for co-residency;

or

VM placement information for a second subset of the plurality of components when deployed, the Vivi placement information comprising a mapping of each component in the second subset to one or more VMs.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein:

the memory comprises;

a service library, the service library comprising a plurality of services, wherein each of the plurality of services is associated with a corresponding service configuration metadata;

or

an application catalog, the application catalog comprising a plurality of predefined multi-tier applications, wherein each of the plurality of pre-defined multi-tier applications is associated with a corresponding application metadata; and

the processor is configured to;

select each of the plurality of components from at least one of the service library or the application catalog.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the apparatus further comprises a display coupled to the processor, wherein to obtain the multi-tier application, the processor is further configured to:

display, on the display, a representation of the plurality of services in the service library and a representation of applications in the application catalog in a Graphical User Interface (GUI); and

display, on the display, based on the dependency information and in response to a selection of each of the plurality of components, a graphical representation of the multi-tier application on the GUI, the graphical representation reflecting the selected components and dependencies between the selected components.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the plurality of services comprise at least one of:

a web server;

a relational database;

a non-relational database;

a load balancing service;

a front-end cache;

a back-end cache;

a message bus;

an application server;

Virtual Machine Image (VW) based services;

or

external endpoint based services.

12. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein to deploy the multi-tier application on the plurality of virtual machines, the processor is configured to:

obtain, based on the metadata in the cloud agnostic representation, the cloud specific implementation of the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application.

20. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor is further configured to:

select a previously stored application from the application catalog;

modify the previously stored application to obtain a modified application, including adding or removing one or more services from the service library and adding or removing one or more previously stored applications from the application catalog;

obtain the dependency information for the modified application; and

save the modified application in the application catalog as the multi-tier application.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions, which, when executed by a processor, perform steps in a method, the steps comprising:

obtaining, for a multi-tier application comprising a plurality of components, dependency information for each component in the plurality of components, wherein the dependency information for a component in the plurality of components comprises information indicating prerequisites for initiating execution of the component;

deriving a cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application based, in part on the dependency information, wherein the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application comprises metadata for the multi-tier application without cloud-specific information;

provisioning a plurality of virtual machines to run the plurality of components of the multi-tier application based on the dependency information;

deriving, from the cloud agnostic representation, cloud-specific commands for deploying the multi-tier application on the plurality of virtual machines; and

deploying the multi-tier application on the plurality of virtual machines using the cloud-specific commands in order to obtain a cloud specific implementation of the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the dependency information for each component further comprises residence dependency information and the metadata further comprises:

Virtual Machine (VM) co-residency information for a first subset of the plurality of components when deployed, the VM co-residency information comprising;

information indicating a compatibility of at least one first group of components in the first subset for co-residency;

or

information indicating an incompatibility of at least one second group of components in the first subset for co-residency;

or

VM placement information for a second subset of the plurality of components when deployed, the VM;

placement information comprising a mapping of each component in the second subset to one or more VMs.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein each of the plurality of components are selected from at least one of:

a service library, the service library comprising a plurality of services, wherein each of the plurality of services is associated with a corresponding service configuration metadata;

or

an application catalog, the application catalog comprising a plurality of predefined multi-tier applications, wherein each of the plurality of predefined multi-tier applications is associated with a corresponding application metadata.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the multi-tier application is obtained by:

displaying a representation of the plurality of services in the service library and a representation of applications in the application catalog in a Graphical User Interface (GUI); and

displaying, based on the dependency information and in response to a selection of each of the plurality of components, a graphical representation of the multi-tier application on the GUI, the graphical representation reflecting the selected components and dependencies between the selected components.

17. The method computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the plurality of services comprise at least one of:

a web server;

a relational database;

a non-relational database;

a load balancing service;

a front-end cache;

a back-end cache;

a message bus;

an application server;

Virtual Machine Image (VW) based services;

or

external endpoint based services.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein deploying the multi-tier application on the at least one of the plurality of clouds comprises:

obtaining, based on the metadata in the cloud agnostic representation, the cloud specific implementation of the cloud agnostic representation of the multi-tier application.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 further comprising:

selecting a previously stored application from the application catalog;

modifying the previously stored application to obtain a modified application, including adding or removing one or more services from the service library and adding or removing one or more previously stored applications from the application catalog;

obtaining the dependency information for the modified application; and

saving the modified application in the application catalog as the multi-tier application.