Managing unallocated server farms in a desktop virtualization system

• US 9,703,581 B2
• Filed: 05/18/2012
• Issued: 07/11/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Original Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Inventors: Duchastel, Thierry, Kludy, Thomas
• Primary Examiner(s): MAI, KEVIN S
• Application Number:
  US13/475,299
• Publication Number:
  US 20120297069A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,880 Days
• Field of Search: 709226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• 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 and systems for managing the allocated and unallocated server farms in a desktop virtualization system are provided herein. A server farm management device may store and maintain one or more unallocated server farm thresholds for the desktop virtualization system. The current number of unallocated server farms may be determined in response to a trigger or according to a predetermined schedule. When the number of unallocated server farms falls below a threshold, one or more new unallocated server farms may be created using the available servers in the desktop virtualization system. Thresholds may relate to overall number of unallocated server farms in the desktop virtualization system, as well as to the numbers of unallocated server farms of certain types or having certain characteristics.

Claims

1. A server farm management device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory storing computer readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, configure the server farm management device to;

retrieve a first threshold of unallocated server farms for a desktop virtualization system, wherein the first threshold is associated with a first server farm characteristic;

retrieve a second threshold of unallocated server farms for the desktop virtualization system, wherein the second threshold is associated with a second server farm characteristic different from the first server farm characteristic;

determine that a first number of unallocated server farms in the desktop virtualization system that have the first server farm characteristic does not satisfy the first threshold and that a second number of unallocated server farms in the desktop virtualization system that have the second server farm characteristic does not satisfy the second threshold; and

responsive to determining that both the first threshold and the second threshold are not satisfied and determining that there are not enough available servers in the desktop virtualization system to satisfy both the first threshold and the second threshold, create one or more unallocated server farms in the desktop virtualization system having the first server farm characteristic based on determining that the first threshold has a higher priority than the second threshold.

2. The server farm management device of claim 1, the memory storing further computer readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, configure the server farm management device to:

based on detecting allocation of an allocated server farm, trigger a comparison of the first threshold of unallocated server farms to the first number of unallocated server farms that have the first server farm characteristic.

3. The server farm management device of claim 1, wherein the first server farm characteristic comprises an isolation mode of a given server farm, a set of applications available in the given server farm, a load balancing policy of the given server farm, or an election policy of the given server farm.

4. The server farm management device of claim 1, wherein creating the one or more unallocated server farms comprises:

retrieving and executing a server farm configuration script on a plurality of available servers in the desktop virtualization system,

wherein at least one of the server farm configuration script or a set of parameters provided to the server farm configuration script is based on the first server farm characteristic.

5. The server farm management device of claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the server farm management device to:

determine, based on a threshold priority rule, that the first threshold has the higher priority.

6. A method comprising:

retrieving, by a server farm management device comprising at least one processor, a first threshold of unallocated server farms for a desktop virtualization system, wherein the first threshold is associated with a first server farm characteristic of one or more allocated server farms;

retrieving, by the server farm management device, a second threshold of unallocated server farms for the desktop virtualization system, wherein the second threshold is associated with a second server farm characteristic different from the first server farm characteristic;

determining, by the server farm management device, that a first number of unallocated server farms in the desktop virtualization system that have the first server farm characteristic does not satisfy the first threshold and that a second number of unallocated server farms in the desktop virtualization system that have the second server farm characteristic does not satisfy the second threshold; and

responsive to determining that both the first threshold and the second threshold are not satisfied and determining that there are not enough available servers in the desktop virtualization system to satisfy both the first threshold and the second threshold, creating, by the server farm management device, one or more unallocated server farms in the desktop virtualization system having the first server farm characteristic based on determining that the first threshold has a higher priority than the second threshold.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

detecting an assignment of a tenant to a previously unallocated server farm in the desktop virtualization system; and

determining that the previously unallocated server farm has the first server farm characteristic and, in response, triggering a comparison of the first number of unallocated server farms to the first threshold.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the first server farm characteristic is a number of servers in a given server farm.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein creating the one or more unallocated server farms comprises:

identifying one or more available servers in the desktop virtualization system; and

retrieving and executing a server farm configuration script on the one or more available servers,

wherein at least one of the server farm configuration script or a set of parameters provided to the server farm configuration script is based on the first server farm characteristic.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the first server farm characteristic is an isolation mode of a given server and creating the one or more unallocated server farms comprises:

determining an isolation mode of the server farm allocated to the tenant; and

creating a first unallocated server farm having the same isolation mode as the server farm allocated to the tenant.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the first server farm characteristic is a load balancing policy or an election policy of a given server farm and creating the one or more unallocated server farms comprises:

determining a load balancing or election policy of the server farm allocated to the tenant; and

creating a first unallocated server farm having the same load balancing or election policy as the server farm allocated to the tenant.

12. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

determining, by the server farm management device and based on a threshold priority rule, that the first threshold has the higher priority.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the number of servers in the given server farm is more than one.

14. A method comprising:

detecting, by a server farm management device comprising at least one processor, an allocation to a tenant of a previously unallocated server farm in a desktop virtualization system;

determining, by the server farm management device, that the previously unallocated server farm allocated to the tenant comprises a first number of servers;

retrieving, by the server farm management device, a first threshold of unallocated server farms for the desktop virtualization system, wherein the first threshold is associated with the first number of servers;

retrieving, by the server farm management device, a second threshold of unallocated server farms for the desktop virtualization system, wherein the second threshold is associated with a second number of servers different from the first number of servers;

determining, by the server farm management device, that a first number of unallocated server farms having the first number of servers in the desktop virtualization system does not satisfy the first threshold;

determining, by the server farm management device, that a second number of unallocated server farms having the second number of servers in the desktop virtualization system does not satisfy the second threshold;

determining, by the server farm management device, that a current number of available servers in the desktop virtualization system is insufficient to satisfy both the first threshold and the second threshold;

determining, by the server farm management device and based on a threshold priority rule, that the first threshold has a higher priority than the second threshold; and

responsive to determining that both the first threshold and the second threshold are not satisfied and determining that the current number of available servers in the desktop virtualization system is insufficient to satisfy both the first threshold and the second threshold, creating, by the server farm management device, one or more unallocated server farms in the desktop virtualization system based on determining that the first threshold has the higher priority, each of the one or more unallocated server farms comprising the first number of servers.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the first number of servers in the server farm allocated to the tenant is more than one.