Instance mapping engine and tools

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11157292-B2
Application number	US-201816189893-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 13, 2018
Priority date	Nov 13, 2018
Publication date	Oct 26, 2021
Grant date	Oct 26, 2021

Abstract

The presently disclosed systems and methods collect information associated with client instances, and use the information associated with the instances. In particular, information related to database servers and/or applications servers providing the instance may be retrieved from databases that store information relating to instances, and written and saved in an instance configuration file. Moreover, instances may be deployed or provisioned by reading an instance configuration file and setting properties of the instance using the parameters saved in the instance configuration file. Two instance configuration files may be compared to determine differences between the two files. Additionally, the instance may be reverted back to the previously healthy version of the instance using the previous instance configuration file. The disclosed systems and methods also include enforcing policies related to instances, and determining financial costs associated with implementing an instance defined by an instance configuration file.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium, comprising machine-readable instructions to:
collect configuration information associated with a client instance;
generate an instance configuration file corresponding to the client instance as provisioned in a cloud computing system, wherein the instance configuration file comprises a listing of one or more application servers, one or more database servers, one or more properties of the one or more application servers, one or more properties of the one or more database servers, or any combination thereof, and wherein the instance configuration file is generated using an instance mapping engine configured to map, generate, and adjust the client instance in the cloud computing system, wherein the instance configuration file is parameterized using an identifier associated with the client instance, wherein mapping the client instance comprises using an instance mapper configured to receive information associated with the client instance from a configuration management database and mapping the client instance to a second instance configuration file previously generated by the instance mapping engine, wherein the second instance configuration file corresponds to a previous version of the client instance;
prior to deployment of the client instance and based on the instance configuration file:
determine that the instance configuration file is in a proper format;
determine that the deployment of the client instance does not exceed a threshold amount of computing resources;
determine that the deployment of the client instance does not exceed a threshold amount of financial resources; and
determine that the deployment of the client instance does not violate a policy; and

deploy the client instance based on the instance configuration file in response to determining that the instance configuration file is in the proper format, deployment of the client instance does not exceed the threshold amount of computing resources, deployment of the client instance does not exceed the threshold amount of financial resources, and deployment of the client instance does not violate the policy.

2. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 1 , wherein the proper format enables reading the listing of the one or more application servers, the one or more database servers, the one or more properties of the one or more application servers, the one or more properties of the one or more database servers, or any combination thereof, from the instance configuration file.

3. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 1 , comprising machine-readable instructions to generate an error message in response to determining that the instance configuration file is not in a proper format.

4. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 1 , wherein the instance configuration file comprises a previous instance configuration file of a current client instance.

5. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 4 , comprising machine-readable instructions to determine that the instance configuration file is healthy, wherein the instance configuration file is determined to be healthy when errors generated by the client instance based on the instance configuration file does not exceed a threshold number.

6. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 5 , wherein deploying the client instance based on the instance configuration file occurs in response to determining that the instance configuration file is healthy.

7. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 6 , wherein deploying the client instance based on the instance configuration file comprises reverting the current client instance back to a prior client instance, wherein the prior client instance is a previous instance of the current client instance.

8. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 5 , comprising machine-readable instructions to generate an error message in response to determining that the instance configuration file is not healthy.

9. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 1 , wherein the policy is provided via a policy file.

10. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 1 , wherein the policy comprises restricting usage of the one or more application servers, the one or more database servers, the one or more properties of the one or more application servers, the one or more properties of the one or more database servers, or any combination thereof, used by the client instance.

11. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 9 , comprising machine-readable instructions to:
parse the instance configuration file;
receive each line of the instance configuration file;
parse the policy file;
receive each line of the policy file;
identify each line of the policy file that comprises a policy; and
identify each line of the instance configuration file that violates the policy;
wherein deploying the client instance based on the instance configuration file occurs in response to determining that no line of the instance configuration file violates the policy.

12. A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium, comprising machine-readable instructions to:
collect configuration information associated with a client instance;
generate a first instance configuration file corresponding to the client instance as provisioned in a cloud computing system, wherein the first instance configuration file comprises a listing of one or more application servers, one or more database servers, one or more properties of the one or more application servers, one or more properties of the one or more database servers, or any combination thereof, and wherein the first instance configuration file is generated using an instance mapping engine configured to map, generate, and adjust the client instance in the cloud computing system, wherein the first instance configuration file is parameterized using an identifier associated with the client instance, wherein mapping the client instance comprises using an instance mapper configured to receive information associated with the client instance from a configuration management database and mapping the client instance to a second instance configuration file previously generated by the instance mapping engine, wherein the second instance configuration file corresponds to a previous version of the client instance;
receive the second instance configuration file;
identify one or more lines of the first instance configuration file that are different from a one or more corresponding lines of the second instance configuration file; and
generate an instance configuration comparison file listing the one or more lines in the first instance configuration file and the one or more corresponding lines of the second instance configuration file that are different; and
prior to deployment of the client instance and based on the instance configuration comparison file, determine an error associated with the client instance deployed using the first instance configuration file based on a difference identified in the instance configuration comparison file.

13. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable-medium of claim 12 , wherein the instance configuration comparison file comprises each line in the first instance configuration file and the second instance configuration file, wherein each line in the first instance configuration file and the second instance configuration file that is determined to be different is encoded to be visually marked when displaying the i

Assignees

• Servicenow Inc

Inventors

• Goudarzi Khashayar
• Vaddempudi Sharath

Classifications

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/45575

  Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F9/44505 Primary

  Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files · CPC title

• G06F2009/45562

  Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances · CPC title