Discovery of hyper-converged infrastructure

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10970107-B2
Application number	US-201916730289-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 30, 2019
Priority date	Dec 21, 2018
Publication date	Apr 6, 2021
Grant date	Apr 6, 2021

Abstract

An embodiment may involve a computational instance including persistent storage, the persistent storage containing representations of virtual machines previously discovered in a server cluster. The embodiment may also involve one or more processors configured to perform operations involving: (i) transmitting, to the server cluster, a request for an event log, the event log containing events related to virtual machines configured in the server cluster; (ii) receiving, from the server cluster, the event log; (iii) determining that the event log contains one or more significant events related to a particular virtual machine from virtual machines configured in the server cluster; (iv) performing a discovery pattern on the server cluster, wherein output from performing the discovery pattern includes a characterization of the particular virtual machine; and (v) causing an update to be written to the persistent storage, wherein the update includes the characterization of the particular virtual machine.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a computational instance including persistent storage, the persistent storage containing configuration and operational representations of virtual machines previously discovered in a server cluster, wherein the server cluster is disposed on a managed network; and
one or more processors configured to perform operations involving:
transmitting, to the server cluster, a first request for an event log, wherein the event log contains representations of events related to virtual machines configured in the server cluster;
as a result of transmitting the first request, receiving, from the server cluster, a first version of the event log;
determining that the first version of event log contains one or more significant events related to a particular virtual machine from virtual machines configured in the server cluster, wherein the significant events are pre-defined;
in response to determining that the first version of event log contains one or more significant events related to the particular virtual machine, performing a discovery pattern on the server cluster, wherein output from performing the discovery pattern includes a characterization of the particular virtual machine; and
causing an update to be written to the persistent storage, wherein the update includes the characterization of the particular virtual machine.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein transmitting requests for the event log to the server cluster occurs at repeated polling intervals, wherein transmitting the first request occurred as part of a first polling interval, and wherein the one or more processors are further configured to, during a second polling interval of the repeated polling intervals, perform operations involving:
transmitting, to the server cluster, a second request for the event log;
as a result of transmitting the second request, receiving, from the server cluster, a second version of the event log;
determining that the second version of the event log does not contain any significant events related to the virtual machines configured in the server cluster; and
in response to determining that the second version of the event log does not contain any significant events related to the virtual machines configured in the server cluster, refraining from performing the discovery pattern on the server cluster until a subsequent polling interval of the repeated polling intervals.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the repeated polling intervals occur every n seconds, and wherein transmitting the first request and transmitting the second request occur n seconds apart.

4. The system of claim 2 , wherein the second version of the event log contains only events that occurred since the server cluster provided the first version of the event log.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are within a proxy server disposed on the managed network, wherein transmitting the first request for the event log occurs autonomously by the proxy server, and wherein causing the update to be written to the persistent storage comprises:
transmitting, by the proxy server, the update to the computational instance; and
writing, to a database within the persistent storage, the characterization of the particular virtual machine.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more significant events are pre-defined in a list, and wherein determining that the event log contains the one or more significant events related to the particular virtual machine comprises determining that at least one event in the event log relates to a significant event in the list.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein performing the discovery pattern on the server cluster comprises performing discovery on the server cluster in its entirety.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein performing the discovery pattern on the server cluster comprises performing discovery just on those of the virtual machines for which the event log indicates that a significant event has occurred.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are also configured to perform further operations involving:
transmitting, to a uniform resource locator of the server cluster, a query indicating a type of resource contained within the server cluster, a count of resources matching the type to provide, and an offset indicating an index of the resources; and
receiving, from the server cluster, a response containing a list of resources matching the type, wherein the list starts with a resource associated with the index and contains at most a number of the resources equivalent to the count.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the server cluster is one of a plurality of server clusters managed by a controller device, and wherein the one or more processors are also configured to perform further operations involving:
transmitting, to a uniform resource locator of the controller device, a query indicating a type of resource contained within the plurality of server clusters, a count of resources matching the type to provide, and an offset indicating an index of the resources; and
receiving, from the controller device, a response containing a list of resources matching the type, wherein the list starts with a resource associated with the index and contains at most a number of the resources equivalent to the count, and wherein the resources are configured across at least two of the plurality of server clusters.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the server cluster is configured with a plurality of tags, wherein each of the tags includes a key-value pair, and wherein the one or more processors are also configured to perform further operations involving:
transmitting, to a uniform resource locator of the server cluster, a query indicating a particular tag of the tags; and
receiving, from the server cluster, a response containing a list of values associated with the particular tag.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computational instance is configured to transmit, to a client device associated with the managed network, a representation of a graphical user interface (GUI), wherein the GUI contains:
one or more panes including respective numbers of server clusters disposed on the managed network, servers within the server clusters, and storage containers within the server clusters.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the GUI further contains:
a further pane including a scatter-plot of storage container size versus storage container utilization.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein the GUI further contains:
one or more further panes including representations of storage pool capacity of the server clusters, virtual machines executing on the server clusters, and types of controller virtual machines on the server clusters.

15. A computer-implemented method comprising:
transmitting, to a server cluster, a first request for an event log, wherein the event log contains representations of events related to virtual machines configured in the server cluster, wherein persistent storage contains configuration and operational representations of virtual machines previously discovered in the server cluster;
as a result of transmitting the first request, receiving, from the server cluster, a first version of the event log;
determining that the first version of event log contains one or more significant events related to a particular virtual machine from virtual machines configured in the server cluster, wherein the significant events are pre-defined;
in response to determining that the first version of event log contains one or more significant events related to

Assignees

• Servicenow Inc

Inventors

• Aron Aviya
• Tal Hail
• Subramaniam Sreenevas

Classifications

• H04L67/53

  using third party service providers · CPC title

• G06F2009/45595

  Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances · CPC title

• H04L67/1095 Primary

  Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes · CPC title

• G06F2009/45591

  Monitoring or debugging support · CPC title

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title