Interconnection platform for real-time configuration and management of a cloud-based services exchange

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9886267-B2
Application number	US-201514927451-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 29, 2015
Priority date	Oct 30, 2014
Publication date	Feb 6, 2018
Grant date	Feb 6, 2018

Abstract

In one example, a cloud-based services exchange comprises a plurality of interconnection assets configured to connect a customer of the cloud-based services exchange to one or more cloud service providers, the plurality of interconnection assets including a virtual circuit by which the customer accesses a cloud service from the one or more cloud service providers; and an orchestration engine configured to modify the plurality of interconnection assets.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A cloud-based services exchange comprising:
a network data center that includes respective ports of a switching fabric to which a plurality of networks connect, each of the networks having a different network address space and associated with a different one of a plurality of customers and cloud service providers, and wherein each network associated with a cloud service provider comprises customer computing resources, co-located within the network data center, that provide at least one cloud service to one or more of the networks associated with the plurality of customers;
a plurality of interconnection assets within the network data center and configured to connect, through the switching fabric of the network data center, each of the networks associated with the plurality of customers of the cloud-based services exchange to one or more of the networks associated with the cloud service providers, the plurality of interconnection assets including a respective set of one or more virtual circuits for each of the networks associated with the plurality of customers and providing network connectivity within the network data center to enable access by the networks associated with the plurality of customers to cloud services executing within the networks associated with the plurality of cloud service providers; and
an interconnection platform configured for execution by one or more management devices within the network data center and presenting a software interface configured to, in response to receiving a request from an application, access the plurality of interconnection assets to satisfy the request.

2. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein the software interface comprises a discovery application programming interface comprising at least one method configured to, in response to the request from the application, return a description of the plurality of interconnection assets.

3. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein the software interface comprises a transact application programming interface comprising at least one method configured to, in response to the request from the application, provision one of the virtual circuits, validate one of the virtual circuits, and confirm deletion of one of the virtual circuits.

4. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein the software interface comprises a use application programming interface comprising at least one method configured to, in response to the request from the application, return one of recommended setup information for cloud services, customized analytics regarding competitor presence, cloud service presence, cloud service availability, customer presence, customer availability, and usage statistics for cloud services.

5. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 ,
wherein the request specifies a customer of the customers, and
wherein the software interface comprises a support application programming interface comprising at least one method configured to, in response to the request from the application, perform at least one of managing accounts, bill the customer, validate credit of the customer, configure a profile of an entity associated with the application, and configure a policy of an entity associated with the application.

6. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 ,
wherein the software interface comprises a Representational State Transfer (RESTful) interface, and
wherein the request comprises application data that specifies an interface method and a resource identifier for an interconnection asset of the plurality of interconnection assets.

7. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of the interconnection assets further include at least one of a port, a location, an order, a cloud service, a bandwidth of the virtual circuit, and the virtual circuit.

8. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein the interconnection platform comprises:
an orchestration engine configured to execute at least one cloud exchange platform service for managing the interconnection assets;
an application programming interface gateway configured to:
execute the software interface to receive the request;
invoke the at least one cloud exchange platform service to access the plurality of interconnection assets to satisfy the request;
receive, from the cloud exchange platform service, a response; and
send, to the application, a representation of the response.

9. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein the interconnection platform comprises:
a plurality of microservices configured to execute cloud exchange services; and
an orchestration engine configured to orchestrate the plurality of microservices to execute the cloud exchange services according to a workflow to satisfy the request.

10. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 9 ,
wherein the orchestration engine is configured to identify the workflow by applying a at least one of policies and cloud service profiles to a customer identifier included in the request,
wherein the workflow comprises a series of requests for the plurality of cloud exchange services.

11. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein to access the plurality of interconnection assets to satisfy the request, the interconnection platform is configured to provision one of the virtual circuits.

12. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein the interconnection platform comprises:
a cloud service query service;
an orchestration engine;
an application programming interface gateway configured to, in response to receiving the request, invoke the orchestration engine to obtain a description of a cloud service,
wherein the orchestration engine generates and executes a workflow to invoke the cloud service query service,
wherein the cloud service query service returns the description of the cloud service to the orchestration engine,
wherein the orchestration engine returns the description of the cloud service to the application programming interface gateway, and
wherein, responsive to the request, the application programming interface gateway returns the description of the cloud service to the application.

13. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 , wherein the interconnection platform further comprises:
a virtual circuit query service;
an orchestration engine;
an application programming interface gateway configured to, in response to receiving the request, invoke the orchestration engine to obtain a description of a virtual circuit,
wherein the orchestration engine generates and executes a workflow to invoke the virtual circuit query service,
wherein the virtual circuit query service returns the description of the virtual circuit to the orchestration engine,
wherein the orchestration engine returns the description of the virtual circuit to the application programming interface gateway, and
wherein, responsive to the request, the application programming interface gateway returns the description of the virtual circuit to the application.

14. The cloud-based services exchange of claim 1 ,
wherein the request comprises a request to provision a virtual circuit to provide a customer with access to a cloud service provider network,
wherein the interconnection platform further comprises:
a network service provisioning service;
an orchestration engine;
an application programming interface gateway configured to, in response to receiving the request, invoke the orchestration engine to provision the virtual circuit,
wherein the orchestration engine generates and executes a workflow to invoke the netw

Assignees

• Equinix Inc

Inventors

• Maheshwari Gagan
• Kumar Parveen
• Jeyapaul Jaganathan
• Lillie Brian J

Classifications

• G06F9/5072

  Grid computing · CPC title

• H04L67/1097 Primary

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · 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

• H04L41/20

  Network management software packages · CPC title

• G06F8/70 Primary

  Software maintenance or management · CPC title