Disaster Recovery and Automatic Relocation of Cloud Services

• US 20120110186A1
• Filed: 03/04/2011
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kapur, Sukhdev S., Banerjee, Subrata, Spiegel, Ethan M., Singh, Sumeet, Ganesan, Ashok
• Granted Patent: US 8,639,793 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2025 using centralised failover control functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/203 using migration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing

Abstract

Techniques are provided to move the services performed on one device to another device in a cloud computing system for a variety of reasons including failure, maintenance or upgrade of the device. A notification is received that services performed by an impacted device in a domain of a plurality of hierarchical domains need to be moved. A determination is made as to whether there are replacement resources available in the domain to perform the services, and if so, the replacement resources are automatically rendered to perform the services. The process continues to higher level domains that have a view into the capabilities of subordinate domains in order to determine where to move the services within the cloud computing system.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

in a cloud computing system comprising a plurality of hierarchical levels including a pod level, a data center level that comprises a plurality of pods and a next generation network level that comprises a plurality of data centers, wherein each pod comprises a plurality of compute, storage and service node devices, receiving a notification at a management device in a particular pod that performs pod level resource management operations for the particular pod, the notification indicating that services associated with one or more impacted devices in the particular pod need to be moved;

determining whether there are replacement devices available in the particular pod to perform the services of the one or more impacted devices; and

when it is determined that there are replacement devices in the particular pod available to perform the services of the one or more impacted devices, automatically rendering the one or more impacted devices in the particular pod to perform the services.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification indicates that the one or more impacted devices in the particular pod have failed.

3. The method of claim 1, where the notification indicates that the one or more impacted devices in the particular pod will become unavailable due to maintenance.

4. The method of claim 1, when it is determined that there are no replacement devices available in the particular pod to perform the services of the one or more impacted devices, further comprising sending a request to a management device that performs data center level resource management operations of a particular data center of which the particular pod is part.

5. The method of claim 4, and further comprising:

receiving the request at the management device of the particular data center;

determining whether there are one or more replacement devices available in one or more of a plurality of pods that are part of the particular data center that can perform the services of the one or more impacted devices in the particular pod; and

when it is determined that there are one or more replacement devices available in other pods of the particular data center to perform the services of the one or more impacted devices of the particular pod, sending a request to the management device that performs the pod level resource management operations in the one or more pods in the particular data center, the request configured to cause the pod level resource management operations to automatically render the one or more replacement devices in the other pod or pods to perform services of the one or more impacted devices in the particular pod.

6. The method of claim 5, when it is determined that there are no replacement devices available in any other pods of the particular data center, sending a request to a management device that performs next generation network level center resource management operations for the plurality of data centers.

7. The method of claim 6, and further comprising:

receiving the request at the management device that performs next generation network level center resource management operations for the plurality of data centers; and

determining whether there are one or more replacement devices available in other data centers that can perform the services of the one or more impacted devices in the particular pod.

8. The method of claim 7, and further comprising forwarding a request to a management device that performs data center level resource management operations for one of the plurality of data centers determined to have one or more replacement devices available to perform the services of the one or more impacted devices of the particular pod.

9. The method of claim 8, and further comprising:

at the management device that performs next generation network level resource management operations for the plurality of data centers, receiving a notification that one of the plurality of data centers needs to be moved; and

determining whether another one or more of the plurality of data centers has resources available to handle the operations of the data center that needs to be moved.

10. The method of claim 9, and further comprising:

determining an order of priority for a plurality of virtual data center operations of the data center that needs to be moved; and

generating requests to move the plurality of virtual data center operations to one or more other data centers according to the order of priority so that higher priority virtual data center operations are moved before lower priority virtual data center operations.

11. The method of claim 8, and further comprising automatically sending the requests to the management device that performs the data center level resource management operations for the one or more data centers.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the notification at the management device in the particular pod during a provisioning process of devices in the particular pod.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein automatic rendering is performed without human interaction or involvement.

14. A method comprising:

in a cloud computing system comprising a plurality of data centers each comprising a plurality of compute, storage and service node devices, receiving a notification at a management device that performs resource management operations for the plurality of data centers, the notification indicating that operations of a data center need to be moved; and

determining whether another one or more of the plurality of data centers has resources available to satisfy the operations of the data center that need to be moved.

15. The method of claim 14, and further comprising automatically generating and sending a request to another one or more of the plurality of data centers determined to have resources available to satisfy the operations of the failed data center, wherein the request is configured to cause a management device that performs resource management operations for the other one or more data centers to automatically render compute, storage or service node devices to perform the operations of the failed data center.

16. The method of claim 14, and further comprising:

determining an order of priority for a plurality of virtual data center operations of the data center that need to be moved; and

generating requests to move the plurality of virtual data center operations to one or more other data centers according to the order of priority so that higher priority virtual data center operations are moved before lower priority virtual data center operations.

17. The method of claim 14, and further comprising automatically sending the requests to the management device that performs the data center level resource management operations for the one or more data centers.

18. An apparatus comprising:

a network interface device configured to enable communications over a network;

a processor coupled to the network interface device, the processor configured to;

receive a notification that services performed by an impacted device in a domain of a plurality of hierarchical domains of a cloud computing system need to be moved;

determine whether there are replacement resources available in the domain to perform the services of the impacted device; and

automatically render the replacement resources in the domain to perform the services.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processor is to determine when there are no replacement resources available in the domain to perform the services, and to send a request to a management device that performs resource management operations at a higher hierarchical domain to identify other domains that may have resources available to perform the services.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the instructions that are operable to receive comprise instructions operable to receive the notification indicating that the impacted device has failed.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the instructions that are operable to receive comprise instructions operable to receive the notification indicating that the services performed by the impacted device need to be moved for maintenance or upgrade purposes.

22. One or more computer readable storage media encoded with instructions that when executed are operable to:

receive a notification at a management device that performs resource management operations for a plurality of data centers in a cloud computing system, the notification indicating that operations of a data center need to be moved; and

determine whether another one or more of the plurality of data centers has resources available to satisfy the operations of the data center that need to be moved.

23. The computer readable storage media of claim 22, and further comprising instructions that are operable to automatically generate and send a request to another one or more of the plurality of data centers determined to have resources available to satisfy the operations of the failed data center, wherein the request is configured to cause a management device that performs resource management operations for the other one or more data centers to automatically render compute, storage or service node devices to perform the operations of the failed data center.

24. The computer readable storage media of claim 22, and further comprising instructions that are operable to:

determine an order of priority for a plurality of virtual data center operations of the data center that need to be moved; and

generate requests to move the plurality of virtual data center operations to one or more other data centers according to the order of priority so that higher priority virtual data center operations are moved before lower priority virtual data center operations.