Near real-time feed manager for data center infrastructure monitoring (DCIM) using custom tags for infrastructure assets

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10567244-B1
Application number	US-201815893377-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Feb 9, 2018
Priority date	Feb 9, 2018
Publication date	Feb 18, 2020
Grant date	Feb 18, 2020

Abstract

A messaging service is disclosed that provides access to data center event data for physical infrastructure assets via dynamically configurable custom tags defined by customers. For example, a network services exchange provider or co-location provider deploys a data center monitoring system that monitors physical infrastructure assets that enable system operation within a data center for events. The system implements an API which applies custom tags defined by customers to the assets, wherein each custom tag defines attributes of the assets. The system receives subscription requests that describe events and custom tags applied to the assets. The data center infrastructure monitoring system publishes a subscription of event data related to the events for the assets to which the custom tags are applied. Further, a feed manager receives updates to asset equipment and changes to metadata describing the assets and automatically updates the subscription to account for the changes.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
monitoring, by a data center infrastructure monitoring system of a data center, a plurality of physical infrastructure assets that enable system operation within the data center for a plurality of events;
applying, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, one or more custom tags to the plurality of physical infrastructure assets, wherein each of the one or more custom tags is associated with a particular customer of the data center and specifies one or more attributes of the plurality of physical infrastructure assets;
receiving, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, a subscription request to event data for a topic to which the data center infrastructure monitoring system publishes event data for the plurality of physical infrastructure assets to which the one or more custom tags are applied; and
publishing, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system and to a subscription application programming interface, the event data for the topic.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein applying the one or more custom tags to the plurality of physical infrastructure assets comprises:
receiving, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, one or more custom tag rules, wherein a custom tag rule application programming interface defines the one or more custom tag rules in response to input from the customer, and wherein each of the one or more custom tag rules specifies a custom tag of the one or more custom tags and a rule for applying the custom tag to assets of the plurality of physical infrastructure assets; and
applying, based on the one or more custom tag rules, the one or more custom tags to the plurality of physical infrastructure assets.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising updating, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system and in response to receiving one or more custom tag rules, a data topic map of the one or more custom tag rules to the topic to which the data center infrastructure monitoring system publishes event data for the plurality of physical infrastructure assets to which the one or more custom tags are applied.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, metadata describing one or more changes to one or more physical infrastructure assets of the plurality of physical infrastructure assets.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising updating, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, the subscription request to the event data for the topic based on the received metadata.

6. The method of claim 4 , further comprising updating, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, visibility of the event data for the topic based on the received metadata for a customer associated with the subscription.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, that the event data for the topic is visible to a customer associated with the subscription request prior to publishing the event data for the topic to the subscription application programming interface.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, the one or more custom tags; and
storing, by the data center infrastructure monitoring system, the one or more custom tags in a custom tag database of the data center infrastructure monitoring system.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more custom tags are defined by a custom tag application programming interface in response to input from a customer associated with the subscription.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more custom tags describe one or more of:
a geographic location of the data center;
a customer identifier;
an asset identifier; or
a text string provided by a customer associated with the subscription.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the plurality of physical infrastructure assets is a non-customer physical infrastructure asset, and the non-customer physical infrastructure asset is not allocated to the customer of the data center.

12. A data center infrastructure monitoring system configured to:
monitor a plurality of physical infrastructure assets that enable system operation within the data center for a plurality of events;
apply one or more custom tags to the plurality of physical infrastructure assets, wherein each of the one or more custom tags is associated with a particular customer of the data center and specifies one or more attributes of the plurality of physical infrastructure assets;
receive a subscription request to event data for a topic to which the data center infrastructure monitoring system publishes event data for the plurality of physical infrastructure assets to which the one or more custom tags are applied; and
publish, to a subscription application programming interface, the event data for the topic.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein, to apply the one or more custom tags to the plurality of physical infrastructure assets, the data center infrastructure monitoring system is further configured to:
receive one or more custom tag rules, wherein a custom tag rule application programming interface defines the one or more custom tag rules in response to input from the customer, and wherein each of the one or more custom tag rules specifies a custom tag of the one or more custom tags and a rule for applying the custom tag to assets of the plurality of physical infrastructure assets; and
apply, based on the one or more custom tag rules, the one or more custom tags to the plurality of physical infrastructure assets.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the data center infrastructure monitoring system is further configured to update, in response to receiving one or more custom tag rules, a data topic map of the one or more custom tag rules to the topic to which the data center infrastructure monitoring system publishes event data for the plurality of physical infrastructure assets to which the one or more custom tags are applied.

15. The system of claim 12 , wherein the data center infrastructure monitoring system is further configured to receive metadata describing one or more changes to one or more physical infrastructure assets of the plurality of physical infrastructure assets.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the data center infrastructure monitoring system is further configured to update the subscription request to the event data for the topic based on the received metadata.

17. The system of claim 15 , wherein the data center infrastructure monitoring system is further configured to update visibility of the event data for the topic based on the received metadata for a customer associated with the subscription.

18. The system of claim 12 , wherein the data center infrastructure monitoring system is further configured to determine that the event data for the topic is visible to a customer associated with the subscription request prior to publishing the event data for the topic to the subscription application programming interface.

19. The system of claim 12 , wherein the data center infrastructure monitoring system is further configured to:
receive the one or more custom tags; and
store the one or more custom tags in a custom tag database of the data center infrastructure monitoring system.

20. The system of claim 12 , wherein the one or more custom tags are defined by a custom tag application programming interface in re

Assignees

• Equinix Inc

Inventors

• Mahi Deepinder Singh
• Kamath Ashwin
• Rangasamy Venkatachalam
• Velu Nilakandan
• Kumar Mukul

Classifications

• H04L67/306

  User profiles · CPC title

• G06Q50/26 Primary

  Government or public services (business processes related to the transportation industry G06Q50/40) · CPC title

• H04L43/04 Primary

  Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation · CPC title

• H04L43/20

  the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or software-defined entities, e.g. SDN or NFV · CPC title

• H04L41/40

  using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities · CPC title