Techniques for automatically provisioning a database over a wide area network

• US 8,849,850 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2013
• Issued: 09/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Baffier, Jean-Louis, Dangeard, Marc, Gruet, Thierry, Ziegler, Olaf, Tan, Dean, Sechrest, Christina, Sero, Pascal, Walsh, Kevin
• Primary Examiner(s): Casanova, Jorge A
• Application Number:
  US13/931,658
• Publication Number:
  US 20130290180A1
• Time in Patent Office: 459 Days
• Field of Search: 707/769, 707/802, 707/812, 709217-224, 717/177
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1446 Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/21 Design, administration or maintenance of databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/02 for separating internal from external traffic, e.g. firewalls

Abstract

Techniques for provisioning databases for users on a wide area network such as the Internet include a first party managing one or more database systems. Second parties subscribe to database services supported by the managed database systems. The first party provides, over a network, to database applications of the second parties, access to database services to which the second parties are subscribed. The database systems may use database appliances hosting both database process(es), and non-database process(es) tailored to the needs of the database process(es). A user is therefore able to obtain database resources from an Internet Database Service Provider (IDSP) without incurring the full costs of database administrator(s), dedicated database equipment facilit(ies), or even dedicated database device(s), depending on usage. Meanwhile, the IDSP incurs minimum staffing loads because of self-service tools. Costing model and automatic billing are also described.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a plurality of computing devices, comprising processors and memories, configured to execute database server components for processing queries upon data stored within databases, and further configured to execute database applications configured to respond to communications received over a wide area network based at least in part on accessing, through the database server components, the data stored in the databases;

database storage devices, coupled to the database server components, comprising storage media upon which the databases are stored;

one or more computing devices, comprising one or more processors and one or more memories, configured to implement at least;

a registration component configured to receive registration data comprising customer identifiers, customer passwords, and lists of one or more services to which customers have subscribed;

a provisioning component configured to, responsive to the registration data received by the registration component, at least;

create customer accounts for the customers, allocate storage spaces for which the customers have registered, and configure the database server components to provide particular database services to which particular customers have subscribed; and

a database application installation and configuration component configured to, responsive to customer inputs selecting particular database applications to install, automatically install the particular database applications on particular computing devices, and configure the particular database applications to use the database server components to provide particular application functions to corresponding customers.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of computing devices comprises database devices configured to execute the database server components and, separate from the database devices, application service platform devices configured to execute at least one of the database applications.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of computing devices comprises at least one computing device configured to execute both a database server component of the database server components and a database application of the database applications.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein registration component is further configured to exposes an application programming interface configured to receive at least a portion of the registration data.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a website component, coupled to the wide area network and the registration component, configured to provide registration web pages to client devices, wherein at least a portion of the registration data is created in response to registration input received at the website over the wide area network.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a website component, coupled to the wide area network and the database application installation and configuration component, configured to provide to client devices lists of selectable applications that are available to registered customers, wherein at least a portion of the customer inputs selecting the particular database applications to install are received responsive to providing the lists of selectable applications.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a management component configured to track the particular database applications installed by the database application installation and configuration component, and manage licenses for the particular database applications.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a registration self-maintenance component, coupled to the wide area network and the plurality of computing devices, configured to provide system status indications of database resources to which registered customers have subscribed, receive requests of the registered customers to make changes to the subscribed resources, and reconfigure the plurality of computing devices to effect the changes.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a registration self-maintenance component, coupled to the wide area network and the plurality of computing devices, configured to receive requests of the registered customers to make changes to the subscribed resources, and reconfigure the plurality of computing devices to effect the changes;

wherein the requests of the registered customers to make changes to the subscribed resources comprise first requests to update maximum amounts of particular resources allocated to first customers, the particular resources including at least one of;

storage space, number of connected users, processor time, processor usage, or number of transactions.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the database application installation and configuration component is configured to automatically install a first application of the particular database applications by sending to one or more of the particular computing devices a data structure comprising data indicating one or more steps for installing the first application.

11. The system of claim 1,

wherein the database application installation and configuration component is configured to automatically install a first application of the particular database applications by sending to one or more of the particular computing devices an initial value for a configuration parameters of the first application;

wherein the system further comprises;

a monitoring component configured to monitor resource usage logs at the plurality of computing devices;

a tuning component configured to tune the configuration parameter based on the resource usage logs.

12. The system of claim 1,

wherein the database application installation and configuration component is configured to receive reports from the particular computing devices of consumable resources available at the particular computing devices;

wherein the database application installation and configuration component is configured to configure the particular database applications based on the reported consumable resources.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a firewall component configured to secure at least one of the particular applications from communications over the wide area network that originate from unauthorized clients;

a public website component by which at least one of the particular applications are accessible over the wide area network, outside of the firewall.

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a public website component configured to provide client devices with access to a login procedure;

wherein the particular applications are configured to be accessible to the client devices over the wide area network upon the client devices successfully logging in via the public website component.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a billing database configured to store resource usage information reflecting resource usage at the plurality of devices over a given time period, the resource usage information including one or more of;

storage space usage for individual customers, processor usage for individual customers, number of transactions for individual customers, or number of users for individual customers;

a billing engine configured to calculate prices to charge the customers based at least partly on their respective resource usage information;

an online payment system configured to receive payment of customer charges.

16. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a database content supply component configured to supply content to certain databases created for certain customers, the content being supplied from sources of content selected by the customers.

17. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a database content supply component configured to present a list of a plurality of available feeds to certain customers, receive a selection of certain feeds, create certain databases for the customers to store items from the certain feeds, and update the certain databases to include new items from the certain feeds in accordance with a schedule.

18. The system of claim 1,

wherein configuring the database server components to provide particular database services to which particular customers have subscribed comprises creating particular databases, of the databases, for the particular customers in their respective storage spaces.

19. The system of claim 1,

wherein configuring the particular database applications to use the database server components to provide particular application functions comprises configuring the particular database applications to interact with the database server components to store data in particular databases, of the databases, that have been created for each corresponding customers, and to access the data stored in the corresponding particular databases.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein configuring the particular database applications to use the database server components to provide particular application functions comprises configuring the particular database applications to interact with the database server components to access syndicated databases to which multiple customers are subscribed.

21. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a database access component configured to provide access, over the wide area network, to certain registered customers for performing ordinary database functions on data in particular databases that have been created for the certain registered customers or to which the certain registered customers are subscribed.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the provisioning component is configured to, responsive to the registration data and/or subscribed resource changes, configure at least one of the computing devices in the plurality of computing devices as dedicated devices, at which all resources are dedicated to a single customer of the particular customers.

23. The system of claim 1, wherein the provisioning component is configured to, responsive to the registration data and/or subscribed resource changes, configure at least one of the computing devices in the plurality of computing devices to host a plurality of virtual devices.

24. The system of claim 1,

wherein the plurality of computing devices comprises staging devices at which certain database applications are inaccessible over the wide area network outside of a firewall;

wherein the plurality of computing devices further comprises production devices at which the certain database applications are accessible over the wide area network outside of the firewall;

wherein the system further comprises a website component configured to provide the customers with interfaces for pushing new or updated database applications from the staging devices to the production devices.

25. The system of claim 1,

further comprising a management component configured to automatically update software at the plurality of computing devices, responsive to new software updates becoming available.

26. The system of claim 1,

further comprising a management component configured to perform automated backup operations on the databases.

27. The system of claim 1,

further comprising a management component configured to automatically discover new devices on an internal network and register the new devices as being available for hosting the database server components and/or the database applications, whereby the new devices become part of the plurality of devices.