Tenant-controlled cloud updates

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018136960-A1
Application number	US-201615578967-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 10, 2016
Priority date	Jun 12, 2015
Publication date	May 17, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

Systems and methods are taught for providing customers of a cloud computing service to control when updates affect the services provided to the customers. Because multiple customers share the cloud's infrastructure, each customer may have conflicting preferences for when an update and associated downtime occurs. Preventing and resolving conflicts between the preferences of multiple customers while providing them with input for scheduling a planned update may reduce the inconvenience posed by updates. Additionally, the schedule for the update may be transmitted to customers so that they can prepare for the downtime of services associated with the update.

First claim

1 . A system for providing tenant-control in a cloud update, comprising:
a processing unit; and a memory including instructions, which when executed by the processing unit provide:
a tenant control engine including:
a communication module, operable to receive tenant-control communications from customers providing tenant-control for the cloud update, the tenant-control communications including preferences for each of the customers providing tenant-control;
a scheduling module, operable to determine when host machines that host Virtual Machines (VMs) for the customers providing tenant-control can be taken offline to perform the cloud update and to create a schedule for the cloud update using the time preferences without violating an update constraint that restricts a first host machine from being offline while a second host machine is offline when a given tenant has instances of VMs hosted by the first host machine and the second host machine;
a domain manager, operable to control when the host machines are taken offline to perform the cloud update per the schedule; and
a migration module, operable to migrate instances of VMs hosted by a given host machine to a different host machine to resolve conflicts between a first customer providing tenant-control's time preferences and a second customer providing tenant-control's time preferences on the given host machine.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein a given customer's preference specifies a time range that the given customer prefers for the cloud update to be performed.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein a given customer's preference specifies a time range that the given customer prefers for the cloud update to not be performed.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the preferences specify that a given customer will accept migration of VMs to the different host machine or will not accept migration of VMs to the different host machine.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein a given customer is enabled to provide tenant-control via the preferences for a time range or a refusal of migration as mutually exclusive alternatives.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein if a given customer specifies a migration preference to update in place, no other customers that are tenants of the host machines that the given customer has VMs hosted on are able to specify a migration preference to update in place.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the tenant control engine reserves time slots in which the customers cannot specify preferences for time ranges to perform the update.

8 . The system of claim 1 , wherein if the migration module cannot resolve the conflicts by migrating the VMs of the first customer or the second customer, the first customer and the second customer are notified of the conflicts and queried for secondary preferences by the communication module.

9 . A method for providing tenant-control in a cloud update, comprising:
receiving time preferences from a plurality of customers providing tenant-control of the cloud update for a data center, wherein the data center includes a plurality of host machines providing instances of VMs to the plurality of customers as tenants, wherein a given host machine of the plurality of host machines is subject to update constraints; checking for conflicts among the time preferences from the plurality of customers, wherein the conflicts include at least one of:
a first customer specifying a positive time preference for a given range of time and a second customer specifying a negative time preference for the given range of time, and
the first customer specifying a negative time preference for a reserved time period;
resolving any conflicts by at least one of:
migrating at least one customer to a different host machine;
receiving a secondary preference from at least one customer to substitute for the time preference of the at least one customer; and
setting the time preference for at least one customer to the reserved time period;
creating a schedule based on the time preferences that specifies an order and a time range that each host machine in the data center will be taken offline when the cloud update is performed, wherein the time range specified for a first UD sharing at least one tenant in common with a second UD does not overlap with the time range specified for the second UD; and performing the cloud update per the schedule.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the schedule is transmitted to the tenants prior to performing the cloud update per the schedule.

11 . The method of claim 9 , wherein all updates are performed in place, wherein no customers of the plurality of customers are migrated to resolve any conflicts.

12 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
receiving migration preferences from the plurality of customers providing tenant-control of the cloud update for the data center, wherein the migration preferences specify whether a given customer will accept migrating to the different host machine to resolve any conflicts, wherein the given customer specifying that it does not accept migrating to the different host machine to resolve any conflicts will not be migrated to resolve any conflicts.

13 . The method of claim 9 , wherein migrating at least one customer to a different host machine further comprises:
selecting the different host machine based on the different host machine's tenants' time preferences, such that the at least one customer's time preference does not conflict with the different host machine's tenants' time preferences.

14 . A memory including instructions, which when executed by a processing unit of a host machine providing tenant-control in a cloud update, provide:
a host machine providing virtual machines to tenants, wherein the host machine is associated with a time range in which the host machine will be taken offline during an update or maintenance event, such that the time range is not during a different time range associated with a second host machine, wherein the second host machine shares at least one tenant in common with the host machine, and wherein the host machine is operable to receive time preferences from the tenants of the host machine to set the time range.

15 . The memory of claim 14 , wherein the host machine uses conformance methods to set the time range based on the time preferences received from the tenants, wherein each tenant's time preferences are compared to form a consensus time range for the host machine.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Zhang Jiaxing
• Moscibroda Thomas
• Wang Haoran
• Willis Jurgen Aubrey
• Chen Yang
• Yan Ying
• Johnson Jr James E
• Mani Ajay

Classifications

• G06F9/4856

  resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration (G06F9/5088 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06F8/656

  while running · CPC title

• G06F9/5072

  Grid computing · CPC title

• G06F9/4881

  Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues · CPC title

• G06F9/5088 Primary

  involving task migration · CPC title