Remote provisioning of hosts in public clouds

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12190122-B2
Application number	US-202117403399-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 16, 2021
Priority date	Sep 30, 2016
Publication date	Jan 7, 2025
Grant date	Jan 7, 2025

Abstract

Examples provide for automatically provisioning hosts in a cloud environment. A cloud daemon generates a cloud host-state configuration, for a given cloud instance of a host, stored on a cloud metadata service prior to first boot of the given cloud instance of the host. A first boot of a plurality of cloud instances of hosts is performed using a stateless, master boot image lacking host-specific configuration data. On completion of the first boot of a given cloud instance of a host, the cloud host-state configuration is installed on the master boot image to generate a self-configured boot image including host-specific configuration data for the given cloud instance of the host. A second boot is performed on the given cloud instance of the host by executing the self-configured boot image to automatically provision the given cloud instance of the host in the cloud environment.

First claim

We claim:

1. A system, comprising:
at least one processor, and;
at least one non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions executable by the at least one processor to cause the system to:
generate a host profile for the cloud instance;
perform a first boot of the cloud instance using a stateless boot image;
install a cloud host-state configuration, from the generated host profile, onto the stateless boot image to generate a self-configured boot image; and
based on determining that the first boot is complete, modify the first boot script to prevent the first boot script from executing during the second boot; and
perform the second boot of the cloud instance using the self-configured boot image to provision the cloud instance in the cloud environment.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further executable to cause the system to:
determine that the second boot is complete; and
based on the determining that the second boot is complete, join the cloud instance to a virtual controller.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the cloud host-state configuration is retrieved from a cloud storage by the first boot script.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the cloud environment is a hybrid cloud environment.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions are further executable to cause the system to:
determine that data associated with the cloud host-state configuration has changed; and
update the cloud host-state configuration based on the change in the data associated with the cloud host-state configuration.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the instructions are further executable to cause the system to:
retrieve the updated cloud host-state configuration;
replace the cloud host-state configuration on the self-configured boot image with the updated cloud host-state configuration to generate an updated boot image; and
perform a third reboot of the cloud instance of the host using the updated boot image.

7. A method, comprising:
generating a host profile for the cloud instance;
performing a first boot of the cloud instance using a stateless boot image;
installing a cloud host-state configuration, from the generated host profile, onto the stateless boot image to generate a self-configured boot image; and
based on determining that the first boot is complete, modifying the first boot script to prevent the first boot script from executing during the second boot; and
performing the second boot of the cloud instance using the self-configured boot image to provision the cloud instance in the cloud environment.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
determining that the second boot is complete; and
based on the determining that the second boot is complete, joining the cloud instance to a virtual controller.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the cloud host-state configuration is retrieved from a cloud storage by the first boot script.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the cloud environment is a hybrid cloud environment.

11. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
determining that data associated with the cloud host-state configuration has changed; and
updating the cloud host-state configuration based on the change in the data associated with the cloud host-state configuration.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
retrieving the updated cloud host-state configuration;
replacing the cloud host-state configuration on the self-configured boot image with the updated cloud host-state configuration to generate an updated boot image; and
performing a third reboot of the cloud instance of the host using the updated boot image.

13. The method of claim 7 , wherein the cloud instance in the cloud environment includes at least one nested virtual computing environment running on the cloud instance of the host.

14. One or more non-transitory computer readable media having stored thereon instructions executable by at least one processor to cause at least one computer to:
generate a host profile for a cloud instance;
perform a first boot of the cloud instance using a stateless boot image;
install a cloud host-state configuration, from the generated host profile, onto the stateless boot image to generate a self-configured boot image;
based on determining that the first boot is complete, modify the first boot script to prevent the first boot script from executing during a second boot; and
perform the second boot of the cloud instance using the self-configured boot image to provision the cloud instance in a cloud environment.

15. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 14 ,
wherein the instructions are executable by the at least one processor to cause the at least one computer to:
determine that the second boot is complete; and
based on the determining that the second boot is complete, join the cloud instance to a virtual controller.

16. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 14 , wherein the cloud host-state configuration is retrieved from a cloud storage by the first boot script.

17. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 14 , wherein the cloud environment is a hybrid cloud environment.

18. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 14 , wherein the instructions are executable by the at least one processor to cause the at least one computer to:
determine that data associated with the cloud host-state configuration has changed; and
update the cloud host-state configuration based on the change in the data associated with the cloud host-state configuration.

19. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 14 , wherein the instructions are executable by the at least one processor to cause the at least one computer to:
retrieve the updated cloud host-state configuration;
replace the cloud host-state configuration on the self-configured boot image with the updated cloud host-state configuration to generate an updated boot image; and
perform a third reboot of the cloud instance of the host using the updated boot image.

20. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 14 , wherein the cloud instance in the cloud environment includes at least one nested virtual computing environment running on the cloud instance of the host.

Assignees

• Vmware Inc
• VMware LLC

Inventors

• Warkentin Andrei
• Tuch Harvey
• Lam William

Classifications

• G06F2009/45562

  Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F8/63

  Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order · CPC title

• G06F2009/45595

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

• G06F2009/4557

  Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing · CPC title

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title