Branching application-release-management pipelines with inter-pipeline dependencies

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017163492-A1
Application number	US-201615063528-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 8, 2016
Priority date	Dec 4, 2015
Publication date	Jun 8, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

The current document is directed to automated application-release-management facilities that, in a described implementation, coordinate continuous development and release of cloud-computing applications. The application-release-management process is specified, in the described implementation, by application-release-management pipelines, each pipeline comprising one or more stages, with each stage comprising one or more tasks. Current application-release-management pipelines are linear, with the stages sequentially ordered within the pipeline. The current document is directed to an automated application-release-management facility that supports branch points within application-release-management pipelines where, as a result of inter-application dependencies, a task within a stage of the first pipeline associated with a first application launches a second pipeline associated with a second application. Branching pipelines and inter-application dependencies provide a significant increase in the scope and power of automated application-release management.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An automated-application-release-management subsystem within a cloud-computing facility having multiple servers, data-storage devices, and one or more internal networks, the automated-application-release-management subsystem comprising:
a dashboard user interface; an automated-application-release-management controller, an interface to a workflow-execution engine within the cloud-computing facility; an artifact-storage-and-management subsystem; and representations of branching application-release-management pipelines, stored in one or more memories within the cloud-computing facility, that include one or more branch points corresponding to one or more corresponding inter-application dependencies.

2 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 1 that is further incorporated in a workflow-based cloud-management system that additionally includes an infrastructure-management-and-administration subsystem and the workflow-execution engine.

3 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 1 wherein the automated-application-release-management controller controls execution of application-release-management pipelines, each application-release-management pipeline representing a sequence of tasks carried out by the automated-application-release-management subsystem to generate a releasable version of an application.

4 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 3 wherein each application-release-management pipeline comprises one or more stages; and wherein each application-release-management-pipeline stage comprises a set of one or more tasks.

5 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 4 wherein the tasks includes tasks of task types selected from among:
initialization tasks;
deployment tasks;
run-tests tasks;
gating-rule tasks; and
finalize tasks.

6 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 4 wherein a task within a stage of a first application-release-management pipeline may include control logic that:
determines whether the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem contains one or more artifacts deposited during execution of a second application-release-management pipeline; and
when the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem does not contain one of the one or more artifacts, launches execution of the second application-release-management pipeline.

7 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 6 wherein, following execution of the second application-release-management pipeline, the control logic again determines whether the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem contains the one or more artifacts deposited during execution of the second application-release-management-pipeline.

8 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 6 wherein, when the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem contains the one or more artifacts, the control logic returns a value indicating that the application dependency represented by the presence or absence of the one or more artifacts in the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem is satisfied: and wherein, when the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem does not contain the one or more artifacts, the control logic returns a value indicating that the application dependency represented by the presence or absence of the one or more artifacts in the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem is not satisfied.

9 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 6 wherein the determination of whether the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem contains the one or more artifacts deposited during execution of a second application-release-management pipeline represents a single-way branch point that connects the first and second application-release-management pipelines together to form a branching application-release-management pipeline.

10 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 6 wherein the automated-application-release-management subsystem prevents further execution of the first application-release-management pipeline until the one or more artifacts are deposited into the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem.

11 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 4 wherein a task within a stage of a first application-release-management pipeline may include control logic that:
determines whether the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem contains one or more artifacts deposited during execution of two or more additional application-release-management pipelines; and
when the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem does not contain the one of the one or more artifacts, launches execution of one or more of the two or more additional application-release-management pipelines.

12 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 11 wherein the determination of whether the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem contains the one or more artifacts deposited during execution of the two or more additional application-release-management pipelines represents a multi-way branch point that connects the first and two or more additional application-release-management pipelines together to form a branching application-release-management pipeline.

13 . The automated-application-release-management subsystem of claim 1 wherein a branching application-release-management pipeline includes one or more single-way branch points and/or multi-way branch points that connect together multiple application-release-management pipelines in the tree-like branching application-release-management pipeline.

14 . A method that connects two or more multiple application-release-management pipelines at one or more branch points to form a branching application-release-management pipeline, the method carried out by an automated-application-release-management subsystem, operating within a cloud-computing facility having multiple servers, data-storage devices, and one or more internal networks, the automated-application-release-management subsystem having a dashboard user interface, an automated-application-release-management controller, an interface to a workflow-execution engine within the cloud-computing facility, an artifact-storage-and-management subsystem, and stored representations of application-release-management pipelines, the method comprising:
including, in a task within a stage of a first application-release-management pipeline, control logic that
determines whether the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem contains one or more artifacts deposited during execution of one or more additional application-release-management pipeline, and
when the artifact-storage-and-management subsystem does not contain one of the one or more artifacts, launches execution of one or more of the one or more additional application-release-management pipelines.

15 . The method of claim 14 wherein the automated-application-release-management controller controls execution of application-release-management pipelines, each application-release-management pipeline representing a sequence of tasks carried out by the automated-application-release-management subsystem to generate a releasable version of an application.

16 . The method of claim 14 wherein each application-release-management pipeline comprises one or more stages; and wherein each application-release-management-pipeline stage comprises a set of one or more tasks.

17 . The method of claim 16 wherein, following execution

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Khazanchi Rajesh
• Singh Servesh
• Singh Kiran
• Saraf Rishi
• Govindaraju Agila
• Jain Vishal
• Mankala Shyam Sundar Rao

Classifications

• H04L41/24 Primary

  using dedicated network management hardware · CPC title

• H04L41/0889

  Techniques to speed-up the configuration process · CPC title

• H04L41/0886 Primary

  Fully automatic configuration · CPC title

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L41/082

  the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality · CPC title