Elastic offload of prebuilt traffic management system component virtual machines

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9569233-B2
Application number	US-201313830425-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 14, 2013
Priority date	Dec 31, 2012
Publication date	Feb 14, 2017
Grant date	Feb 14, 2017

Abstract

Embodiments are directed towards employing a traffic management system (TMS) that is enabled to deploy component virtual machines (CVM) to the cloud to perform tasks of the TMS. In some embodiments, a TMS may be employed with one or more CVMs. In at least one embodiment, the TMS may maintain an image of each CVM. Each CVM may be configured to perform one or more tasks, to operate in specific cloud infrastructures, or the like. The TMS may deploy one or more CVMs locally and/or to one or more public and/or private clouds. In some embodiments, deployment of the CVMs may be based on a type of task to be performed, anticipated resource utilization, customer policies, or the like. The deployment of the CVMs may be dynamically updated based on monitored usage patterns, task completions, customer policies, or the like.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for managing communication over a network, comprising:
employing a traffic management system (TMS) for packet flows over the network, wherein the TMS includes information for deploying one or more component virtual machines (CVM) to a separate cloud infrastructure and locally for execution on the TMS, wherein each deployed CVM is enabled to perform one or more tasks of the TMS;
automatically deploying the one or more CVMs to the separate cloud infrastructure to perform a low security task of the TMS based on one or more of a usage pattern or a CVM deployment policy;
automatically deploying, locally, the one or more CVMs to execute a high security task;
monitoring a periodic heartbeat for each deployed CVM, wherein the heartbeat advertises one or more of being in current communication with the TMS, in current communication with one or more other deployed CVMs, or an ability of a CVM to perform a task; and
monitoring usage patterns associated with each deployed CVM to determine a corresponding workload of each deployed CVM.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
dynamically updating deployment of the one or more deployed CVMs based on the usage patterns and the corresponding workload of each of the deployed CVMs.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more CVMs is optimized to operate in the cloud infrastructure where it is deployed.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more tasks of the TMS comprises one or more of packet protocol management, network protocol communication conversions, security operations, load balancing operations, network traffic optimization operations, network firewall operations, or any other traffic management related task.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the TMS implements a user interface that enables an administrator to manage configuration, deployment, decommissioning, monitoring, and migration of the one or more CVMs.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
employing a remote application programming interface that enables an administrator to manage the TMS's deployment of the one or more CVMs.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
deploying the one or more CVMs based on anticipated usage patterns of the TMS, the anticipated usage patterns comprising at least one of packet traffic flow, a number of maintained connections, resource utilization, a particular task, resource utilization of a particular task, or any other anticipated usage patterns of the TMS.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more CVMs is initially deployed locally for execution on the TMS prior to being deployed to the cloud infrastructure based on a processing load of the one or more CVMs, the TMS or any other processing resource.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the TMS deploys the one or more CVMs locally for execution on a local hypervisor prior to or after deploying the one or more CVMs to the cloud infrastructure.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
deploying a plurality of CVMs to form a CVM cluster, wherein the one or more CVMs in the CVM cluster works cooperatively with one or more other CVMs in one or more of the CVM cluster or another CVM cluster to perform one or more portions of the one or more tasks.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the TMS deploys the CVM based on one or more of deployment policy requirement comprising at least one of task specific, customer specific, server specific, service level specific, permission specific, capacity limits, latency restrictions, security requirements, or any other specific criterion.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more CVMs performs one or more of policy enforcement operations, policy reference operations, charging operations, data storage operations, server health monitoring operations, network monitoring operations, logging operations, reporting operations, encryption operations, compression operations, or any other network/policy enforcement related operation.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more CVMs support one or more different cloud infrastructure application program interfaces.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the TMS load balances the one or more CVMs across one or more cloud infrastructures.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to be capable of performing one or more actions to manage communication over a network, comprising:
employing a traffic management system (TMS) for packet flows over the network, wherein the TMS includes information for deploying one or more component virtual machines (CVM) to a separate cloud infrastructure and locally for execution on the TMS, wherein each deployed CVM is enabled to perform one or more tasks of the TMS;
automatically deploying the one or more CVMs to the separate cloud infrastructure to perform a low security task of the TMS based on one or more of a usage pattern or a CVM deployment policy;
automatically deploying, locally, the one or more CVMs to execute a high security task;
monitoring a periodic heartbeat for each deployed CVM, wherein the heartbeat advertises one or more of being in current communication with the TMS, in current communication with one or more other deployed CVMs, or an ability of a CVM to perform a task; and
monitoring usage patterns associated with each deployed CVM to determine a corresponding workload of each deployed CVM.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , further comprising:
dynamically updating deployment of the one or more deployed CVMs based on the usage patterns and the corresponding workload of each of the deployed CVMs.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the one or more CVMs is optimized to operate in the cloud infrastructure where it is deployed.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the one or more tasks of the TMS comprises one or more of packet protocol management, network protocol communication conversions, security operations, load balancing operations, network traffic optimization operations, network firewall operations, or any other traffic management related task.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the TMS implements a user interface that enables an administrator to manage configuration, deployment, decommissioning, monitoring, and migration of the one or more CVMs.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , further comprising:
employing a remote application programming interface that enables an administrator to manage the TMS's deployment of the one or more CVMs.

21. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , further comprising:
deploying the one or more CVMs based on anticipated usage patterns of the TMS, the anticipated usage patterns comprising at least one of packet traffic flow, a number of maintained connections, resource utilization, a particular task, resource utilization of a particular task, or any other anticipated usage patterns of the TMS.

22. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the one or more CVMs is initially deployed locally for execution on the TMS prior to being deployed to the cloud infrastructure based on a processing load of the one or more CVMs, the TMS or any other proce

Assignees

• F5 Networks Inc

Inventors

• Masters Richard Roderick
• Blood Brent Wayne
• Szabo Paul Imre
• Bollay Benn Sapin

Classifications

• G06F9/4868

  with creation or replication · CPC title

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · 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

• G06F9/4555

  Para-virtualisation, i.e. guest operating system has to be modified · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

  Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing · CPC title