Evaluating distributed application performance in a new environment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9934055-B2
Application number	US-201313970226-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 19, 2013
Priority date	Dec 14, 2012
Publication date	Apr 3, 2018
Grant date	Apr 3, 2018

Abstract

Evaluating the performance of an application when migrated from a first environment in which the application is currently executing to a different second environment includes generating a configuration file using data obtained from the application executing in the first environment, installing the configuration file in a virtual machine residing in the second environment, launching the application in the virtual machine after the installing, and obtaining a metric indicative of the performance from the virtual machine.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium that stores instructions for evaluating a performance of an application when migrated from a first computing environment in which the application is currently executing to a different second computing environment, where the instructions, when executed, cause a processor to perform operations comprising:
generating a configuration file using data obtained from the application executing in the first computing environment, wherein the application is a distributed application in which presentation, application processing, and data management are performed as logically separate processes over a plurality of cooperating servers residing in the first computing environment;
installing the configuration file in a plurality of virtual machines residing in the second computing environment, wherein each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines emulates a corresponding server of the plurality of cooperating servers residing in the first computing environment, and wherein the second computing environment is a cloud computing environment;
launching the application in the plurality of virtual machines after the installing, wherein for each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines a camouflage layer interposed between the application executing on each virtual machine and an operating system of each virtual machine uses the configuration file to intercept messages exchanged between the application executing on each virtual machine and the operating system and to modify the messages by translating an old Internet Protocol address associated with the corresponding server in the first computing environment into a new Internet Protocol address associated with each virtual machine residing in the second computing environment, wherein the application in the second computing environment continues to use the old Internet Protocol address and an old host name used by the application in the first computing environment, and the camouflage layer intercepts the messages and modifies the messages in a manner that is transparent to the application in the second computing environment; and
obtaining a metric indicative of the performance of the application from the plurality of virtual machines.

2. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the data comprises network information and file system information.

3. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 2 , wherein the network information comprises input and output parameters for system calls.

4. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 2 , wherein the file system information comprises file system settings.

5. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 2 , wherein the file system information comprises user account settings.

6. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 2 , wherein the network information comprises environment variables.

7. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 2 , wherein the network information comprises Internet Protocol configurations.

8. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the configuration file further replaces an input parameter of a system call of the application that is related to network setup and tear-down.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the configuration file further replaces an output of a system call of the application that is related to network setup and tear-down.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
copying a file accessed by the application from the first computing environment to a server residing in the second computing environment.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the first computing environment is a computing environment other than a cloud computing environment.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the first computing environment is a cloud computing environment.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the second computing environment comprises a plurality of different cloud computing environments to which different portions of the application are migrated.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein a migration of the application from the first computing environment to the second computing environment results in a new interaction between the application and another application.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the configuration file is implemented in a combination of software and hardware.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the configuration file makes it appear to the application executing in the second computing environment that the application continues to execute in the first computing environment.

17. A system for evaluating a performance of an application when migrated from a first computing environment in which the application is currently executing to a different second computing environment, the system comprising:
a processor; and
a computer readable storage medium that stores instructions which, when executed, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
generating a configuration file using data obtained from the application executing in the first computing environment, wherein the application is a distributed application in which presentation, application processing, and data management are performed as logically separate processes over a plurality of cooperating servers residing in the first computing environment;
installing the configuration file in a plurality of virtual machines residing in the second computing environment, wherein each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines emulates a corresponding server of the plurality of cooperating servers residing in the first computing environment, and wherein the second computing environment is a cloud computing environment;
launching the application in the plurality of virtual machines after the installing, wherein for each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines a camouflage layer interposed between the application executing on each virtual machine and an operating system of each virtual machine uses the configuration file to intercept messages exchanged between the application executing on each virtual machine and the operating system and to modify the messages by translating an old Internet Protocol address associated with the corresponding server in the first computing environment into a new Internet Protocol address associated with each virtual machine residing in the second computing environment, wherein the application in the second computing environment continues to use the old Internet Protocol address and an old host name used by the application in the first computing environment, and the camouflage layer intercepts the messages and modifies the messages in a manner that is transparent to the application in the second computing environment; and
obtaining a metric indicative of the performance of the application from the plurality of virtual machines.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Baset Salman A
• Huang Hai
• Tak Byung Chul
• Tang Chunqiang
• Wang Long

Classifications

• G06F11/3409

  for performance assessment · CPC title

• G06F2201/865

  Monitoring of software · CPC title

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

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