Deployment management of composite applications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9967325-B2
Application number	US-201514876996-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 7, 2015
Priority date	Oct 8, 2014
Publication date	May 8, 2018
Grant date	May 8, 2018

Abstract

A source IT-infrastructure hosts a composite application including multiple functional modules connected to each other via communication links. An abstract pattern includes first nodes and first links representing the functional modules and communication links and lacks resource-related data enabling a deployment engine to instantiate a resource for providing a runtime environment. A target IT-infrastructure has assigned a resource catalog including, for each resource available in the target IT-infrastructure, a specification of the resource's capabilities, and includes second nodes and links, each second node being a representation of one or more of the resources of the target IT-infrastructure and including an indication of the capabilities of one or more resources represented by the second node. The first nodes and links of the abstract pattern are iteratively supplemented by the second nodes and second links.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method of managing deployment of a composite application, the composite application comprising multiple functional modules connected to each other via communication links, the computer-implemented method comprising:
providing an abstract pattern comprising a plurality of first nodes connected to each other via first links, wherein:
each first node represents one of the functional modules;
each first link represents one of the communication links;
the first nodes and the first links have assigned requirements in respect to a runtime environment used for at least one of instantiating or operating the functional modules and the communication links; and
the abstract pattern lacks resource-related data enabling a deployment engine to instantiate one or more resources for providing the runtime environment for the functional modules and the communication links;

providing a resource catalog of a target-IT-infrastructure, the resource catalog comprising:
for each resource of said target IT-infrastructure, a specification of said resource's capabilities to provide the runtime environment with predefined functional or structural features;
second nodes, each second node being a representation of one or more of the resources of the target IT-infrastructure and comprising an indication of one or more capabilities of said one or more resources represented by said second node; and
second links, each second link being, alone or in combination with other second links or second nodes, a more concrete version of one of the first links or of another second link, the second links being supported by the resources of the target IT-infrastructure; and

iteratively evaluating the resource catalog for supplementing at least one first node of the abstract pattern with one or more of the second nodes and second links, wherein iterations are repeated until the at least one first node and first link is supplemented with one or more of the second nodes which comprise an indication of capabilities of the one or more resources represented by said one or more second nodes which meet requirements assigned to one supplemented first node or first link, wherein in each of two or more iterations an intermediate pattern is generated as a result of said iteration, whereby in each iteration at least one of the one or more second nodes or second links inherit requirements assigned to the first nodes and first links directly from said first nodes and first links or indirectly via other second nodes and second links, the other second nodes and second links being already contained in one of the intermediate patterns generated in a previous iteration, the other second nodes having been added to said intermediate pattern for supplementing said first nodes and first links.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
performing the iterative supplementation for transforming the abstract pattern into an executable concrete pattern, wherein in the concrete pattern each first node and first link of the abstract pattern is supplemented by one or more of the second nodes, said one or more of the second nodes comprising specifications of one or more of the resources of the target IT-infrastructure which are represented by said one or more second nodes and which meet requirements having been inherited directly or indirectly from said first nodes and first links; and
executing the concrete pattern, thereby automatically deploying the functional modules of the composite application in accordance with the concrete pattern to the target IT-infrastructure.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein the concrete pattern comprises an interface for each of the resources of the target IT-infrastructure, the method further comprising:
using interfaces specified in the concrete pattern to automatically perform one of at least one of instantiate, start, stop, restart or configure one or more of the resources of the target IT-infrastructure for at least one of enabling the automated deployment of the composite application to the target IT-infrastructure, or for enabling the automated instantiation or control of the composite application in the target IT-infrastructure.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising:
based on deploying the composite application to the target IT-infrastructure, receiving a notification that a first resource of the resources of the target IT-infrastructure is to be replaced by a second resource of the resources, wherein said second resource differs from the replaced first resource in one or more of the following features: a version number of the resource, a manufacturer of the resource, a device type number of the resource, or a number or type of patches having been applied to the resource;
re-executing, in simulation mode, at least one of the providing the abstract pattern, the providing the resources catalog or the iteratively executing, thereby supplementing at least one of the first nodes with one of the second nodes representing said second resource instead of supplementing said at least one first node with the one of the second nodes representing said first resource, thereby evaluating whether capabilities indicated by the second node representing the second resource meet inherited requirements of said at least one first node; and
based on one of said requirements being violated, outputting a warning.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein the re-execution in simulation mode comprises transforming the abstract pattern into an updated concrete pattern, wherein in the updated concrete pattern first nodes and first links of the abstract pattern are supplemented by specifications of one or more of the resources available in the target IT-infrastructure and meeting inherited requirements of said first nodes or first links, the computer-implemented method further comprising:
based on none of said requirements being violated, automatically replacing the concrete pattern with the updated concrete pattern.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the first nodes and the second nodes are specified in accordance with an object oriented model that includes inheritance of requirements.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the performing a first one of the iterations for creating a first one of the intermediate patterns from the abstract pattern comprises supplementing at least one first node of the abstract pattern with a second node being incapable of enabling a deployment engine to instantiate the one or more resources represented by that second node.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the performing the at least one of the second or a further one of the iterations comprises replacing at least one second node of the second nodes of a previously generated intermediate pattern by one or more other second nodes of the resource catalog, the replaced at least one second node being incapable of enabling a deployment engine to instantiate the one or more resources represented by said replaced at least one second node, each of the one or more other second nodes being capable or incapable of enabling the deployment engine to instantiate the one or more resources represented by the replaced second node.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the first nodes of the abstract pattern is supplemented by one of the second nodes that has assigned additional requirements; and wherein requirements inherited from the at least one first node and additional requirements of the one second node are both inherited in a further one of the iterations to another one of the second nodes, the other

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Bacher Utz
• Lueck Einar
• Raspl Stefan
• Spatzier Thomas

Classifications

• G06F8/10

  Requirements analysis; Specification techniques · CPC title

• G06F8/60

  Software deployment · CPC title

• H04L67/10 Primary

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• G06F9/50

  Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU] · CPC title

• G06F8/70

  Software maintenance or management · CPC title