System and method for supporting partitions in a multitenant application server environment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11477278-B2
Application number	US-201514748094-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 23, 2015
Priority date	Jun 24, 2014
Publication date	Oct 18, 2022
Grant date	Oct 18, 2022

Abstract

In accordance with an embodiment, described herein is a system and method for supporting partitions in a multitenant application server environment. In accordance with an embodiment, an application server administrator (e.g., a WLS administrator) can create or delete partitions; while a partition administrator can administer various aspects of a partition, for example create resource groups, deploy applications to a specific partition, and reference specific realms for a partition. Resource groups can be globally defined at the domain, or can be specific to a partition. Applications can be deployed to a resource group template at the domain level, or to a resource group scoped to a partition or scoped to the domain. The system can optionally associate one or more partitions with a tenant, for use by the tenant.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for supporting partitions in an application server environment, comprising:
one or more computers, wherein each of the one or more computers includes a processor and an application server environment that enables deployment and execution of software applications, wherein the application server environment operates according to a domain configuration that defines, at runtime,
a domain for execution of the software applications,
a plurality of partitions of the domain, including a first partition and a second partition, wherein each partition defines configuration data which operates to bind a configuration of resources deployable within the domain to specific values for use with the partition and applications deployed thereto, and
one or more domain-level resource groups shareable by the plurality of partitions,
wherein each partition, of the plurality of partitions, is associated with a partition identifier and a partition configuration, and provides an administrative and runtime subdivision of the domain, and includes a partition-level resource group, and
wherein each resource group, of the domain-level resource groups and partition-level resource groups, is a collection of deployable applications or resources defined, respectively, at domain or partition level;

wherein a partition including a resource group is configurable to reference a resource group template that includes one or more applications shareable among the plurality of partitions, together with resources upon which those applications depend, wherein the resource group provides properties for configuration data that enables the partition to act as a binding of resources defined in the resource group template, to specific values for use with the resource group in that partition;
wherein each partition-level resource group within a partition is associated with a virtual target information that defines a target to which that resource group is deployed, including that:
the first partition includes a first partition-level resource group that contains one or more applications for use with the first partition and wherein the first partition-level resource group is accessible via a first virtual target, and
the second partition includes a second partition-level resource group that contains one or more applications for use with the second partition and wherein the first partition-level resource group is accessible via a second virtual target;

wherein each partition, of the plurality of partitions, that includes a resource group that references a resource group template, operates to provide configuration data by binding the resources of the resource group template to partition-specific values associated with that partition,
wherein starting a partition with reference to the resource group template causes the system to activate a software application represented by the resource group template using the partition-specific values defined for the partition, including that a partition object containing the resource group sets the value of tokens in the resource group template,
wherein when the system activates the resource group template using a referencing resource group, it replaces the tokens with values set in the partition object containing the resource group; and

wherein the first and second virtual targets that are associated with the first and second partition-level resource groups are mapped to one or more servers, for use in directing requests to the first and second partitions, including that each partition is associated with
a partition-specific database resource within a database environment, and
credentials usable to establish or switch a connection for the partition to its partition-specific database resource; and
software applications deployed to a particular partition execute at a virtual target and with the resources associated with the particular partition, including that a received request is associated with a partition invocation context for use with the particular partition, wherein the system uses the partition identifier associated with the partition to provide a connection with a partition context, before executing the request at its partition-specific database resource.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system enables one or more partitions to be associated with a tenant, for use by the tenant.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein a particular resource group can reference a resource group template that includes one or more applications shareable among the plurality of partitions, together with resources upon which those applications depend;
wherein a partition including the particular resource group provides properties for configuration data that enables the partition to act as a binding of resources defined in the resource group template, to specific values for use with the particular resource group in that partition.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein each partition, of the plurality of partitions, can be associated with a local namespace.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein each partition identifier enables the system to determine a partition context so that requests can be communicated to appropriate partitions.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system is provided within a cloud environment, to enable multiple tenants to be associated with partitions within the cloud environment.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein for each particular resource group, or particular partition that includes a particular resource group, the web tier component includes a routing information that maps the virtual target associated with the particular resource group or particular partition to its corresponding target, so that requests for the particular partition are directed to the corresponding target.

8. The system of claim 1 , whereupon a request is received for use with the particular partition, its partition identifier is stored in a request execution context, whereupon an authentication or authorization action is required, the partition identifier stored in the request execution context is used to determine a security realm to use in processing the request.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein each particular partition of the domain includes a virtual target information that defines, for the particular partition, one or more partition-specific virtual targets associated with at least one of a host name or uniform resource locator; and
whereupon an incoming request matches any of the host name or uniform resource locator associated with the partition-specific virtual targets defined for the particular partition, a determination is made that the request is directed to software applications in the particular partition, and the request is routed accordingly.

10. The system of claim 1 , whereupon the particular partition having one or more resource groups that reference a resource group template, the particular partition defines a configuration data which operates to bind deployable resources defined in the resource group template, to specific values for use with that partition.

11. The system of claim 1 ;
wherein each of the first and second virtual targets that provide access respectively to the first and second partitions are associated respectively with first and second hostnames;
wherein the system provides a mapping of hostnames to partitions;
wherein the system receives, at a web tier, requests directed to particular hostnames;
wherein in response to a received request being directed to a particular hostname, a networking layer determines a target partition for the received request, adds the partition identifier associated with the target partition to the received request's exec

Assignees

• Oracle Int Corp

Inventors

• Mordani Rajiv
• Islam Nazrul
• Dipol Joseph
• Bower Peter
• Quinn Timothy
• Feigen Lawrence
• Kumar Abhijit

Classifications

• G06F9/5072 Primary

  Grid computing · CPC title

• H04L67/1097

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title

• G06F9/5077 Primary

  Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources (specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455) · CPC title

• H04L47/783

  Distributed allocation of resources, e.g. bandwidth brokers · CPC title

• H04L67/1025 Primary

  Dynamic adaptation of the criteria on which the server selection is based · CPC title