Network-Based Resource Configuration Discovery Service

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017093640-A1
Application number	US-201514871701-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 30, 2015
Priority date	Sep 30, 2015
Publication date	Mar 30, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

A network-based discovery system and service are disclosed that provide client discovery services to a number of clients over a network. The network-based discovery system includes a database that stores discovery information of client network-based resource configurations. The discovery information may be obtained from client resources by client-side discovery components that are placed on client resources, obtain the discovery information and that send the information to the discovery system. The discovery system analyzes the discovery information to determine the client network-based resource configurations and generates client network-based resource configuration representations for the respective clients. The client network-based resource configuration representation may include a description of, and dependencies among, a plurality of computer-based resources. The discovery service may operate across a client network that spans both of a client's enterprise data networks as well as resources that are operated on behalf of the same client by a service provider network.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system, comprising:
one or more computing devices configured to implement a network-based discovery service configured to provide client resource discovery services for a plurality of clients over one or more networks; a data store configured to store discovery information for client network-based resource configurations; wherein the discovery service is configured to:
provide, over the one or more networks for respective clients of the plurality of clients, one or more client-side discovery components configured to execute at a respective client network-based resource configuration and collect discovery information about the respective client network-based resource configuration;
receive, over the one or more networks, the collected discovery information from the respective discovery components for the respective clients;
store the received discovery information in the data store for the respective clients;
analyze the discovery information to determine respective client network-based resource configurations for the respective clients; and
generate representations of the determined respective client network-based resource configuration for the respective clients, wherein each respective client network-based resource configuration representation comprises: a description of a plurality of computer-based resources, and dependencies between at least some of the computer-based resources.

2 . The system as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
a provider network configured to provide a plurality of network-based services, wherein the plurality of network-based services comprise one or more virtual compute or storage services configured to host at least part of one or more of the client network-based resource configurations; and wherein the network-based discovery service is one of the services provided by the provider network and is further configured to receive discovery information from discovery components at one or more client network-based resource configurations hosted by the provider network in addition to one or more client network-based resource configurations implemented external to the provider network.

3 . The system as recited in claim 2 ,
wherein at least one of the client network-based resource configurations is implemented at least in part by the one or more virtual compute or storage services of the provider network and at least in part at a client network external to the provider network, and wherein the network-based discovery service is configured to aggregate discovery information from both the provider network and the client network to determine a client network-based resource configuration representation for the same client network-based resource configuration across the provider network and the client network.

4 . The system as recited in claim 1 ,
wherein the one or more client-side discovery components comprise one or more connector components and a plurality of agent components, wherein each agent of the plurality of agents is configured to be installed on a different computer system at a client network and collect configuration information pertaining to the computer system on which it is installed; and wherein the one or more connector components are configured to be installed at the client network, receive configuration information from the plurality of agents, aggregate the configuration information, and transmit the configuration information over the one or more networks to the discovery service.

5 . The system as recited in claim 4 , wherein the configuration information collected by each of the plurality of agents for the respective computer system on which the agent is installed comprises identification of one or more of: software packages installed on the computer system, processes running on the computer system, type of server running on the computer system, type of operating system on the computer system, source entities for network communications received at the computer system, or destination entities for network communications sent from the computer system

6 . The system as recited in claim 4 , wherein additional information collected by each of the plurality of agents for the respective computer system on which the agent is installed comprises security information, content of network communications received at the computer system, performance of the computer system, or performance of a process running on the computer system.

7 . A method, comprising:
performing, by a network-based discovery service implemented by one or more computing devices comprising one or more hardware processors;
providing to a client of the network-based discovery service, over one or more networks, one or more client-side discovery components configured to:
execute at a network-based resource configuration of the client at a client network, and
collect discovery information about the network-based resource configuration of the client;

receiving, over the one or more networks, the collected discovery information from the one or more client-side discovery components;
storing the received discovery information in a data store;
analyzing the discovery information to determine the network-based resource configuration of the client; and
generating a representation of the network-based resource configuration of the client, wherein the representation comprises: a description of a plurality of computer-based resources, and dependencies between at least some of the computer-based resources.

8 . The method as recited in claim 7 ,
wherein the representation of the network-based resource configuration of the client identifies:
the plurality of computer-based resources,
one or more applications, servers or processes running on the plurality of computer-based resources, and
the dependencies between at least some of the computer-based resources, and
wherein the dependencies comprise network connectivity at least some of the computer-based resources.

9 . The method as recited in claim 8 ,
wherein said generating the representation further comprises generating a graphical representation of the network-based resource configuration of the client, wherein the graphical representation comprises:
a plurality of nodes representing the plurality of computer-based resources, applications or processes, and
connections between the plurality of nodes according to the dependencies.

10 . The method as recited in claim 9 , further comprising:
providing the graphical representation to the client; receiving, from the client, one or more modifications to the representation of the network-based resource configuration; and modifying the representation of the network-based resource configuration in response to the one or more modifications.

11 . The method as recited in claim 8 ,
wherein said analyzing comprises, based at least in part on the discovery information, mapping one or more relationships between the plurality of computer-based resources, applications, servers or processes of the network-based resource configuration of the client, wherein the one or more relationships are determined according to one or more of the network connectivity or commonality of type of computer-based resources, wherein the one or more relationships comprise one or more of membership in a network subnet, membership in a server cluster, or membership in a load balancing group, and wherein the dependencies are determined based in least in part on the mapping of the one or more relationships.

12 . The method as recited in claim 7 , further comprising:
receiving discovery information for an additional network-based re

Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Subramanian Hariharan
• Zipkin David Samuel
• Lyon Derek Avery
• Gafton Cristian Gabriel

Classifications

• H04L41/12 Primary

  Discovery or management of network topologies · CPC title

• H04L67/16

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L41/0806 Primary

  for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play · CPC title

• H04L67/51

  Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services · CPC title

• H04L41/5058

  Service discovery by the service manager · CPC title