Virtual resource cost tracking with dedicated implementation resources

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10013662-B2
Application number	US-89488310-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2010
Priority date	Sep 30, 2010
Publication date	Jul 3, 2018
Grant date	Jul 3, 2018

Abstract

Virtual resources may be provisioned in a manner that is aware of, and respects, underlying implementation resource boundaries. A customer of the virtual resource provider may specify that particular virtual resources are to be implemented with implementation resources that are dedicated to the customer. Dedicating an implementation resource to a particular customer of a virtual resource provider may establish one or more information barriers between the particular customer and other customers of the virtual resource provider. Implementation resources may require transition procedures, including custom transition procedures, to enter and exit dedicated implementation resource pools. Costs corresponding to active and inactive implementation resources in a dedicated pools associated with a particular customer may be accounted for, and presented to, the customer in a variety of ways including explicit, adjusted per customer and adjusted per type of virtual resource and/or implementation resource.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for virtual resource cost tracking, comprising:
maintaining, at a virtual resource provider having a plurality of customers, a virtual resource implemented by a set of hardware resources including a shareable hardware resource capable of being simultaneously allocated as a plurality of hardware resource allocation units to a plurality of virtual resources associated with the plurality of customers;
dedicating, by a control plane of the virtual resource provider and based at least in part on a resource allocation policy, the shareable hardware resource to virtual resources of a subset of customers of the plurality of customers at least in part by transitioning the shareable hardware resource from a general implementation resource pool available to the plurality of customers to a dedicated implementation resource pool available to the subset of customers, the control plane comprising one or more hardware servers with control access of the shareable hardware resource;
determining, by the control plane, an active resource utilization amount corresponding to at least an allocated first hardware resource allocation unit of the shareable hardware resource that is allocated to implementing the virtual resource and dedicated to the virtual resources of the subset of customers, the active resource utilization amount expressed in terms of first hardware resource allocation units and time units;
determining, by the control plane, an inactive resource utilization amount corresponding to at least an unallocated second hardware resource allocation unit of the shareable hardware resource that is unallocated to implementing the virtual resource and dedicated to the virtual resources of the subset of customers, the inactive resource utilization amount expressed in terms of second hardware resource allocation units and the time units;
determining, by the control plane, at least one resource cost of the virtual resource based at least in part on the active resource utilization amount and the inactive resource utilization amount;
providing a presentation of cost information associated with said at least one resource cost of the virtual resource to at least one of the subset of customers;
determining, by the control plane, a resource utilization efficiency of the shareable hardware resource based at least in part on a comparison of the active resource utilization amount with the inactive resource utilization amount; and
allocating, by the control plane accessing the shareable hardware resource and based on the resource utilization efficiency, the unallocated second hardware resource allocation unit to implement other virtual resources of other customers of the plurality of customers, wherein allocating the unallocated second hardware resource allocation unit adjusts a virtual resource density of the dedicated implementation resource pool.

2. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 , wherein hardware resources in the general implementation resource pool at least partially implement a plurality of virtual resources of the plurality of customers of the virtual resource provider.

3. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 , wherein the virtual resource comprises at least one of: a virtual computer system, a virtual data store, and a virtual private network.

4. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 , wherein the shareable hardware resource corresponds to one of: a storage device, a physical server, a server rack, a data center, a physically secured portion of the data center, a portion of the data center monitored with respect to physical access, a mobile data center, a network switch, a network connection, a wireless network transmitter, or a wireless network receiver.

5. A computer-implemented method according to claim 4 , wherein each hardware resource allocation unit corresponds to a unit of capacity of at least one of: the storage device, the physical server, the server rack, the data center, the physically secured portion of the data center, the portion of the data center monitored with respect to physical access, the mobile data center, the network switch, the network connection, the wireless network transmitter, and the wireless network receiver.

6. A computer-implemented method according to claim 5 , wherein the unit of capacity of the physical server corresponds to a standardized virtual computer system unit, and the physical server has a capacity of greater than one standardized virtual computer system unit.

7. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1 , wherein resource utilization amounts correspond to a multiplicative product of hardware resource allocation units and time units.

8. A computer-implemented method for virtual resource cost tracking, comprising:
maintaining a virtual resource implemented at least in part by a shareable hardware resource that is capable of simultaneously implementing a plurality of virtual resources associated with one or more customers of a virtual resource provider;
dedicating, by a control plane of the virtual resource provider, the shareable hardware resource to virtual resources of a distinct subset of customers of the one or more customers at least in part by transitioning the shareable hardware resource from a general implementation resource pool available to the one or more customers to a dedicated implementation resource pool available to the distinct subset of customers, the control plane comprising one or more hardware servers with control access of the shareable hardware resource;
determining, by the control plane, an inactive resource utilization amount corresponding to at least one unallocated portion of the shareable hardware resource that is unallocated to implementing the virtual resource and dedicated to the virtual resources of the distinct subset of the one or more customers, the inactive resource utilization amount expressed in terms of hardware resource allocation units and time units;
determining, by the control plane, at least one resource cost of the virtual resource based at least in part on the inactive resource utilization amount;
providing a presentation of cost information said at least one resource cost of the virtual resource to the subset of customers;
determining, by the control plane, a resource utilization efficiency of the shareable hardware resource based at least in part on a comparison of an active resource utilization amount with the inactive resource utilization amount; and
allocating, by the control plane accessing the shareable hardware resource and based on the resource utilization efficiency, a part of the unallocated portion of the shareable hardware resource to implement other virtual resources of other customers of the one or more customers, wherein allocating the part of the unallocated portion adjusts a virtual resource density of the dedicated implementation resource pool.

9. A computer-implemented method according to claim 8 , wherein determining said at least one resource cost of the virtual resource comprises determining a first resource cost based at least in part on an active resource utilization amount distinct from the inactive resource utilization amount that corresponds to at least one allocated portion of the shareable hardware resource that is allocated to implementing the virtual resource and dedicated to the virtual resources of the distinct subset of the one or more customers, and determining a second resource cost based at least in part on the inactive resource utilization amount.

10. A computer-implemented method according to claim 9 , wherein the first resource cost is a multiplicative product of an active implementation resource cost rate

Assignees

• Brandwine Eric Jason
• Theimer Marvin M
• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Brandwine Eric Jason
• Theimer Marvin M

Classifications

• G06Q30/06

  Buying, selling or leasing transactions · CPC title

• G06Q10/06312 Primary

  Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling · CPC title

• G06F9/4881

  Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues · CPC title

• G06F15/177

  Initialisation or configuration control {(processor initialisation G06F9/4405)} · CPC title