Facilitating deployment of customizations of enterprise applications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9251498-B2
Application number	US-87420807-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 18, 2007
Priority date	Oct 23, 2006
Publication date	Feb 2, 2016
Grant date	Feb 2, 2016

Abstract

A management system facilitating deployment of customizations of an enterprise application, with the enterprise application containing software modules pre-installed on a set of servers. In an embodiment, the management system first receives a set of deployment units each containing data defining a manner of configuration affecting the operation of at least some of the software modules to attain the desired customizations, and an enterprise profile indicating the specific subset of deployment units to be deployed in each of the servers. Management system then orchestrates the configuration of the software modules installed on the set of servers according to the data specified in the set of deployment units and the enterprise profile.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions for causing a management system to facilitate deployment of a plurality of customizations of an enterprise application, a plurality of software modules constituting entire software instructions of said enterprise application, wherein said plurality of software modules includes a first software module pre-installed in a state suitable for execution on a first server and a second server of said plurality of servers, wherein execution of said one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors contained in said management system causes said management system to perform the actions of:
receiving a plurality of deployment units, each of said plurality of deployment units containing data defining a manner of configuration of at least some of said software modules already installed on corresponding servers to attain said plurality of customizations of said enterprise application according to the requirements of an enterprise, wherein said plurality of deployment units includes a first deployment unit for customizing said first software module;
receiving an enterprise profile indicating a corresponding set of deployment units to be used in customizing said enterprise application in corresponding one of said plurality of servers according to the requirements of said enterprise, wherein a portion of said enterprise profile indicates that said first deployment unit is to be used to customize said enterprise application in both of said first server and said second server; and
orchestrating the configuration of said plurality of software modules already installed on said plurality of servers according to the data specified in said plurality of deployment units and said enterprise profile, wherein said orchestrating orchestrates the configuration of said first software module already installed on both of said first server and said second server in the corresponding manner according to the data specified in said first deployment unit and said portion of said enterprise profile, such that said enterprise application having said plurality of software modules pre-installed in said state suitable for execution is further adapted according to the requirements of said enterprise, said orchestrating comprises:
receiving a level of parallelism specifying a number of deployment units that may be simultaneously deployed on said plurality of servers;
examining a dependency data indicating a first set of deployment units which need to be deployed prior to deployment of a first deployment unit, wherein said first set of deployment unit and said first deployment unit are contained in said plurality of deployment units; and
performing configuration of said plurality of software modules based on said first set of deployment units before performing configuration based on said first deployment unit in response to said examining,
wherein said performing ensures that the maximum number of deployment units deployed simultaneously on said plurality of servers does not exceed said number of deployment units.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein said level of parallelism is specified associated with a type of deployment units, wherein said number of deployment units is all of said type, wherein said dependency data and said level of parallelism are specified in said enterprise profile.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising one or more instructions for:
receiving an activation indication that the configuration of specific ones of said plurality of software modules is to be activated before the configuration by a corresponding deployment unit is operative in said enterprise application; and
activating only the configurations caused by said specific ones of said plurality of deployment units in response to receiving said activation indication.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 3 , wherein a first deployment unit causes data to be changed in a database server, wherein said activating clears a cache of said database server,
wherein a second deployment unit causes a change in the operation of a software module executing on an application server, wherein said activating restarts said application server,
wherein a third deployment unit causes a file to be copied to a location in a web server, wherein said activating causes a user to reconnect to said web server,
wherein said first deployment unit, said second deployment unit and said third deployment unit are contained in said specific ones of said plurality of deployment units, and said database server, said application server and said web server are contained in said plurality of servers.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein said orchestrating further comprises one or more instructions for:
receiving a first indication to stop the configuration of said plurality of software modules in said state suitable for execution during the configuration;
stopping the configuration in response to receiving said first indication;
receiving a second indication to resume the configuration;
determining, in response to receiving said second indication, a subset of said plurality of deployment units which have not yet been used for configuring said plurality of software modules; and
performing configuration using said subset of said plurality of deployment units,
whereby a user can control resumption of orchestrating after said stopping, by sending said second indication.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1 , wherein said orchestrating further comprises one or more instructions for:
receiving a sequence of indications indicating corresponding stages, wherein each of said sequence of indications specifies a corresponding set of servers and a corresponding set of deployment units; and
performing configuration on the set of servers using the corresponding set of deployment unit specified in a stage only after configuration on the set of servers using the corresponding set of deployment units specified in a previous stage, wherein said stage and said previous stage are indicated by said sequence of indications.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 6 , wherein the set of servers in said previous stage comprises a database server and a deployment unit of said previous stage contains a data of interest to be deployed on said database server,
wherein the set of servers in said stage comprises a first server and a deployment unit of said stage provides configuration of a software module executing in said first server, wherein said configuration of said software module requires said data of interest in said database server for operation,
wherein said data of interest is copied to said database server in said previous stage before configuration of said software module on said first server in said stage.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 6 , wherein said stage specifies a subset of said plurality of servers without specifying any deployment units, wherein all of said plurality of deployment units are deployed only on said subset of said plurality of servers in said stage.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 6 , wherein said stage specifies a subset of said plurality of deployment units without specifying any servers, and said subset of said plurality of deployment units are deployed on all of said plurality of servers in said stage.

10. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 9 , wherein all of said subset of said plurality of deployment units are of a same type, wherein said same type is one of

Assignees

• Khasnis Abhijit Suresh
• G Ramesha Sheernali
• Shaik Bakash
• Shang Yilun
• Tian Mancang
• Wu Jiaren
• Su Xiangyang
• Kedefors Hans
• Hong Chin-Heng
• Alyan Ashraf Sayed
• Li Hongxing
• Oracle Int Corp

Inventors

• Khasnis Abhijit Suresh
• G Ramesha Sheernali
• Shaik Bakash
• Shang Yilun
• Tian Mancang
• Wu Jiaren
• Su Xiangyang
• Kedefors Hans
• Hong Chin-Heng
• Alyan Ashraf Sayed
• Li Hongxing

Classifications

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06Q10/10 Primary

  Office automation; Time management · 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

• G06F8/61

  Installation · CPC title