System to generate a deployment plan for a cloud infrastructure according to logical, multi-tier application blueprint

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11941452-B2
Application number	US-201514733948-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 8, 2015
Priority date	Mar 2, 2012
Publication date	Mar 26, 2024
Grant date	Mar 26, 2024

Abstract

A deployment system enables a developer to generate a deployment plan according to a logical, multi-tier application blueprint defined by application architects. The deployment plan includes tasks to be executed for deploying application components on virtual computing resource provided in a cloud infrastructure. The deployment plan includes time dependencies that determine an execution order of the tasks according to dependencies between application components specified in the application blueprint. The deployment plan enables system administrators to view the application blueprint as an ordered workflow view that facilitates collaboration between system administrators and application architects.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of managing a deployment of an application in a cloud environment having virtual computing resources, the method comprising:
creating a virtual machine in the cloud environment based on a deployment plan, wherein an application director is external to the cloud environment;
receiving, by the application director, an application blueprint that specifies the virtual machine and three or more application components of the application, and defines a topology of the three or more application components to execute on the virtual machine, the topology specifying one or more explicit dependencies between application components on different virtual machines and one or more implicit dependencies between the three or more application components, wherein the one or more implicit dependencies are based on nested or layered relationships between the three or more application components, and wherein the one or more explicit dependencies and the one or more implicit dependencies indicate a deployment order during execution of tasks of the deployment plan of the application components onto the virtual machine;
determining, by the application director, tasks for the application components to be executed for deploying the application components on the virtual machine;
instantiating the virtual machine in the cloud environment according to the application blueprint;
establishing a communication with a deployment director contained within the application director;
receiving, from the virtual machine, a request for an application package containing a deployment agent from the deployment director, wherein the deployment agent includes configurations specific to the virtual machine;
transmitting, by the deployment director, the application package to the virtual machine responsive to receiving the request for the application package;
establishing encrypted communication with the deployment agent using the configurations and receiving a request from the deployment agent;
authenticating, by the deployment director, the virtual machine based on the received request from the deployment agent using the configurations;
generating, by the deployment director, a secure file based on the authentication and transmitting the secure file to the deployment agent;
receiving a status of the virtual machine from the deployment agent;
executing, by the application director, the tasks according to the deployment plan;
deploying the application components onto the virtual machine; and
executing the deployed application components on the virtual machine.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more implicit dependencies define that a first set of tasks in a first application component cannot be completed prior to execution of a second set of tasks in a second application component via a nested or layered relationship between the first application component and the second application component.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein executing the tasks further comprises: determining that all tasks for deploying the first application component are to be completed prior to execution of any task of the second application component, wherein the topology of the three or more application components specifies that the second application component is contained within the first application component.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the three or more application components are on different virtual computing resources.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the one or more implicit dependencies are between the three or more application components on a same virtual computing resource.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtual computing resources include at least on virtual machine.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the nested or layered relationship between the three or more application components implicitly define the one or more implicit dependencies between the three or more application components.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed in a computing device perform the steps of:
creating a virtual machine in a cloud environment based on a deployment plan, wherein an application director is external to the cloud environment;
receiving an application blueprint that specifies virtual computing resources and three or more application components of the application, and defines a topology of the application components to execute on the virtual computing resources, the topology specifying one or more explicit dependencies between application components on different virtual computing resources and one or more implicit dependencies between the three or more application components on a same virtual computing resource, wherein the one or more implicit dependencies are based on nested or layered relationships between the three or more application components, and wherein the one or more explicit dependencies and the one or more implicit dependencies indicate order of the application components into the virtual computing resource;
determining tasks for the application components to be executed for deploying the application components on the virtual computing resources;
establishing a communication with a deployment director contained within the application director;
receiving, from the virtual machine, a request for an application package containing a deployment agent, wherein the deployment agent including configurations specific to the virtual machine;
transmitting the application package to the virtual machine responsive to receiving the request for the application package;
establishing encrypted communication with the deployment agent using the configurations and receiving a request from the deployment agent authenticating the virtual machine based on the received request from the deployment agent using the configurations;
generating a secure file based on the authentication and transmitting the secure file to the deployment agent;
receiving a status of the virtual machine from the deployment agent executing the tasks according to the deployment order;
deploying the application components onto the virtual computing resources; and
executing the deployed application components on the virtual computing resources.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the instructions for executing the deployment plan further comprise instructions for: instantiating the virtual computing resources in the cloud environment according to the application blueprint.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the instructions for executing the tasks further comprise instructions for: determining that all tasks for deploying the first application component are to be completed prior to execution of any task of the second application component, wherein the topology of the three or more application components specifies that the second application component is contained within the first application component.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein the three or more application components are on different virtual computing resources.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the one or more implicit dependencies are between the at least three or more application components on a same virtual computing resource.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the instructions for determining the tasks further comprise instructions for: retrieving at least one script configured to deploy an application component, wherein the script is defined in a catalog of predefined applicati

Assignees

• VMware LLC
• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Mangtani Komal
• Jalagam Sesh
• Nagaraja Vishwas
• Winterfeldt David

Classifications

• 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

• G06F9/5038

  considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration (scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups) · CPC title

• G06F9/5072 Primary

  Grid computing · CPC title