Cross-cloud management and troubleshooting

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016119202-A1
Application number	US-201514983509-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 29, 2015
Priority date	May 20, 2011
Publication date	Apr 28, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A cloud management system is described herein that provides the ability for an application to span two or more clouds while allowing operation, management, and troubleshooting of the distributed application as a single application. The system provides infrastructure that communicates across datacenters for execution and for centralizing knowledge of instances of an application that are running at different locations. The infrastructure provided by the system monitors both the application and connections between the clouds, with intelligence to know if issues are within the application or because of the connection between the clouds. The system coordinates management functions across multiple cloud platforms/locations. Thus, the cloud management system creates a single monitoring and troubleshooting interface and knowledge and execution fabric across multiple clouds so that applications spread across multiple clouds can be monitored, managed, and debugged more easily.

First claim

I/We claim:

1 . A computer-implemented method to handle a request from a management tool to access application management data from distributed application instances, the method comprising:
receiving from an application management tool a management tool request to access management data related to an application running instances in one or more datacenters; identifying one or more types of management data that satisfy the received request; determining a distribution of the application that includes two or more instances of the application; gathering management data to satisfy the request from each distributed application instance; unifying gathered management data to provide a uniform response to the received management tool request; and reporting the gathered and unified management data in response to the received management tool request, wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the management request comprises receiving the management tool request through a programmatic application programming interface (API) exposed to tools for requesting management data.

3 . The method of claim 2 wherein the API comprises a uniform interface for accessing management data without requiring tools to understand where or at how many locations application instances are running.

4 . The method of claim 1 wherein identifying one or more types of management data comprises determining that the management tool request asks for information that is produced by each instance of the application.

5 . The method of claim 1 wherein identifying one or more types of management data comprises determining which information to gather from each application instance and whether the one or more types of management data is already gathered locally from data pushed to a central location by each application instance.

6 . The method of claim 1 wherein determining the distribution of the application comprises determining where the application is running and where the system will find management data to satisfy the request.

7 . The method of claim 1 wherein gathering management data comprises accessing at least one instance in a private datacenter and at least one instance in a cloud computing facility.

8 . The method of claim 1 wherein gathering management data comprises contacting each instance of the application to satisfy the received management tool request.

9 . The method of claim 1 further comprising sending one or more troubleshooting commands to one or more remote application instances, wherein the remote application instances carry out the troubleshooting commands and report requested data back to a central location where the management tool can access information associated with the reported requested data.

10 . The method of claim 1 wherein unifying gathered data comprises formatting data so that management tools need not be written to include an understanding of the various potential distributions of applications managed by the management tools.

11 . The method of claim 1 wherein unifying gathered data comprises formatting data so that the computer system can freely migrate the application from location to location or to multiple locations as needed to handle application loads, while still providing administrators with a consistent management and troubleshooting experience.

12 . The method of claim 1 wherein reporting the data comprises sending the data to the management tool through an interface on which the management tool request was received

13 . A computer-implemented method for controlling a computer system to report data back from and handle troubleshooting requests at a location of a remote application instance, comprising:
receiving management data at a remote application instance handling a portion of load generated by requests from clients of the application; determining a home location of the application where an administrator can access management data reported by multiple instances of the application running at one or more distributed remote locations, the home location being a location where the application operates under steady conditions; sending the received management data from the remote application instance to the determined home location of the application; receiving a troubleshooting request from a management tool run at the home location to troubleshoot the remote application instance; performing one or more troubleshooting actions in response to the received troubleshooting request; and sending a troubleshooting result to the home location in response to the received troubleshooting request, wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor.

14 . The method of claim 13 wherein the management data includes at least one indication of application operation useful for management of the application.

15 . The method of claim 14 wherein the indication includes at least one of performance data, log information, error details, statistical information, or sales history.

16 . The method of claim 1 3 further comprising:
receiving configuration information from the home location upon creation of the instance.

17 . The method of claim 1 6 further comprising:
receiving information indicating that the instance is a remote instance of the application.

18 . The method of claim 1 3 further comprising:
migrating the application to multiple locations in response to an indication that processing should be performed at multiple locations.

19 . The method of claim 1 3 wherein sending the received management data from the remote instance is migrated from the remote location to the home location on demand.

20 . The method of claim 1 3 wherein sending the received management data is migrated from the remote location to the home location when loads are migrated back to the home location from the remote location.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Iyer Kannan C
• Waston Eric B

Classifications

• G06F11/0709 Primary

  in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems · CPC title

• G06F11/0784

  Routing of error reports, e.g. with a specific transmission path or data flow · CPC title

• G06F11/203

  using migration · CPC title

• G06F11/0772

  Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers · CPC title

• G06F9/5072 Primary

  Grid computing · CPC title