This disclosure relates generally to cloud computing and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for sharing cloud resources in a multi-tenant system using self-referencing adapter.
Virtualizing computer systems provides benefits such as the ability to execute multiple computer systems on a single hardware computer, replicating computer systems, moving computer systems among multiple hardware computers, and so forth. “Infrastructure-as-a-Service” (also commonly referred to as “IaaS”) generally describes a suite of technologies provided by a service provider as an integrated solution to allow for elastic creation of a virtualized, networked, and pooled computing platform (sometimes referred to as a “cloud computing platform”). Enterprises may use IaaS as a business-internal organizational cloud computing platform (sometimes referred to as a “private cloud”) that gives an application developer access to infrastructure resources, such as virtualized servers, storage, and networking resources. By providing ready access to the hardware resources required to run an application, the cloud computing platform enables developers to build, deploy, and manage the lifecycle of a web application (or any other type of networked application) at a greater scale and at a faster pace than ever before.
Cloud computing environments may be composed of many processing units (e.g., servers). The processing units may be installed in standardized frames, known as racks, which provide efficient use of floor space by allowing the processing units to be stacked vertically. The racks may additionally include other components of a cloud computing environment such as storage devices, networking devices (e.g., switches), etc.
In general, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts. The figures are not to scale. As used herein, connection references (e.g., attached, coupled, connected, and joined) may include intermediate members between the elements referenced by the connection reference. As such, connection references do not necessarily infer that two elements are directly connected and/or in fixed relation to each other.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, descriptors such as “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., are used herein without imputing or otherwise indicating any meaning of priority, physical order, arrangement in a list, and/or ordering in any way, but are merely used as labels and/or arbitrary names to distinguish elements for ease of understanding the disclosed examples. In some examples, the descriptor “first” may be used to refer to an element in the detailed description, while the same element may be referred to in a claim with a different descriptor such as “second” or “third.” In such instances, it should be understood that such descriptors are used merely for identifying those elements distinctly that might, for example, otherwise share a same name. As used herein, “approximately” and “about” refer to dimensions that may not be exact due to manufacturing tolerances and/or other real world imperfections. As used herein “substantially real time” refers to occurrence in a near instantaneous manner recognizing there may be real world delays for computing time, transmission, etc. Thus, unless otherwise specified, “substantially real time” refers to real time+/−1 second.
As used herein, the phrase “in communication,” including variations thereof, encompasses direct communication and/or indirect communication through one or more intermediary components, and does not require direct physical (e.g., wired) communication and/or constant communication, but rather additionally includes selective communication at periodic intervals, scheduled intervals, aperiodic intervals, and/or one-time events.
As used herein, “processor circuitry” is defined to include (i) one or more special purpose electrical circuits structured to perform specific operation(s) and including one or more semiconductor-based logic devices (e.g., electrical hardware implemented by one or more transistors), and/or (ii) one or more general purpose semiconductor-based electrical circuits programmed with instructions to perform specific operations and including one or more semiconductor-based logic devices (e.g., electrical hardware implemented by one or more transistors). Examples of processor circuitry include programmed microprocessors, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) that may instantiate instructions, Central Processor Units (CPUs), Graphics Processor Units (GPUs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), XPUs, or microcontrollers and integrated circuits such as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). For example, an XPU may be implemented by a heterogeneous computing system including multiple types of processor circuitry (e.g., one or more FPGAs, one or more CPUs, one or more GPUs, one or more DSPs, etc., and/or a combination thereof) and application programming interface(s) (API(s)) that may assign computing task(s) to whichever one(s) of the multiple types of the processing circuitry is/are best suited to execute the computing task(s).
Cloud computing is based on the deployment of many physical resources across a network, virtualizing the physical resources into virtual resources, and provisioning the virtual resources to perform cloud computing services and applications. In some instances, a virtual machine is generated based on a compilation of the virtual resources in which the virtual resources are based on the virtualization of corresponding physical resources. A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating system and applications. An operating system installed on a virtual machine is referred to as a guest operating system. Because each virtual machine is an isolated computing environment, virtual machines (VMs) can be used as desktop or workstation environments, as testing environments, to consolidate server applications, etc. Virtual machines can run on hosts or clusters. The same host can run a plurality of VMs, for example. Virtual cloud computing uses networks of remote servers, computers and/or computer programs to manage access to centralized resources and/or services, to store, manage, and/or process data. Virtual cloud computing enables businesses and large organizations to scale up information technology (IT) requirements as demand or business needs increase. Virtual cloud computing relies on sharing resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale over a network. In some example cloud computing environments, an organization may store sensitive client data in-house on a private cloud application, but interconnect to a business intelligence application provided on a public cloud software service. In such examples, a cloud may extend capabilities of an enterprise, for example, to deliver a specific business service through the addition of externally available public cloud services. In some examples, cloud computing permits multiple users to access a single server to retrieve and/or update data without purchasing licenses for different applications.
Prior to cloud computing, as resources and data increased based on increased business needs or demands, computing systems required the addition of significantly more data storage infrastructure. Virtual cloud computing accommodates increases in workflows and data storage demands without significant efforts of adding more hardware infrastructure. For example, businesses may scale data storage allocation in a cloud without purchasing additional infrastructure.
Cloud computing comprises a plurality of key characteristics. First, cloud computing allows software to access application programmable interfaces (APIs) that enable machines to interact with cloud software in the same way that a traditional user interface (e.g., a computer desktop) facilitates interaction between humans and computers. Second, cloud computing enables businesses or large organizations to allocate expenses on an operational basis (e.g., on a per-use basis) rather than a capital basis (e.g., equipment purchases). Costs of operating a business using, for example, cloud computing, are not significantly based on purchasing fixed assets but are instead more based on maintenance of existing infrastructure. Third, cloud computing enables convenient maintenance procedures because computing applications are not installed on individual users' physical computers but are instead installed at one or more servers forming the cloud service. As such, software can be accessed and maintained from different places (e.g., from an example virtual cloud).
Information technology (IT) is the application of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and/or manipulate data, often in the context of a business or other enterprise. For example, databases store large amounts of data to enable quick and accurate information storage and retrieval. IT service management refers to the activities (e.g., directed by policies, organized and structured in processes and supporting procedures) that are performed by an organization or part of an organization to plan, deliver, operate and control IT services that meet the needs of customers. IT management may, for example, be performed by an IT service provider through a mix of people, processes, and information technology. In some examples, an IT system administrator is a person responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems; especially multi-user computers, such as servers that seek to ensure uptime, performance, resources, and security of computers meet user needs. For example, an IT system administrator may acquire, install and/or upgrade computer components and software, provide routine automation, maintain security policies, troubleshoot technical issues, and provide assistance to users in an IT network. An enlarged user group and a large number of service requests can quickly overload system administrators and prevent immediate troubleshooting and service provisioning.
Cloud provisioning is the allocation of cloud provider resources to a customer when a cloud provider accepts a request from a customer. For example, the cloud provider creates a corresponding number of virtual machines and allocates resources (e.g., application servers, load balancers, network storage, databases, firewalls, IP addresses, virtual or local area networks, etc.) to support application operation. In some examples, a virtual machine is an emulation of a particular computer system that operates based on a particular computer architecture, while functioning as a real or hypothetical computer. Virtual machine implementations may involve specialized hardware, software, or a combination of both. Example virtual machines allow multiple operating system environments to co-exist on the same primary hard drive and support application provisioning. Before example virtual machines and/or resources are provisioned to users, cloud operators and/or administrators determine which virtual machines and/or resources should be provisioned to support applications requested by users.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (also commonly referred to as IaaS) generally describes a suite of technologies provided by a service provider as an integrated solution to allow for elastic creation of a virtualized, networked, and pooled computing platform (sometimes referred to as a “cloud computing platform”). Enterprises may use IaaS as a business-internal organizational cloud computing platform that gives an application developer access to infrastructure resources, such as virtualized servers, storage, and networking resources. By providing ready access to the hardware resources required to run an application, the cloud computing platform enables developers to build, deploy, and manage projects at a greater scale and at a faster pace than ever before.
Examples disclosed herein can be used with one or more different types of virtualization environments. Three example types of virtualization environments are: full virtualization, paravirtualization, and operating system (OS) virtualization. Full virtualization, as used herein, is a virtualization environment in which hardware resources are managed by a hypervisor to provide virtual hardware resources to a virtual machine (VM). In a full virtualization environment, the VMs do not have access to the underlying hardware resources. In a typical full virtualization, a host OS with embedded hypervisor (e.g., a VMWARE® ESXI® hypervisor, etc.) is installed on the server hardware. VMs including virtual hardware resources are then deployed on the hypervisor. A guest OS is installed in the VM. The hypervisor manages the association between the hardware resources of the server hardware and the virtual resources allocated to the VMs (e.g., associating physical random-access memory (RAM) with virtual RAM, etc.). Typically, in full virtualization, the VM and the guest OS have no visibility and/or access to the hardware resources of the underlying server. Additionally, in full virtualization, a full guest OS is typically installed in the VM while a host OS is installed on the server hardware. Example virtualization environments include VMWARE® ESX® hypervisor, Microsoft HYPER-V® hypervisor, and Kernel Based Virtual Machine (KVM).
Paravirtualization, as used herein, is a virtualization environment in which hardware resources are managed by a hypervisor to provide virtual hardware resources to a VM, and guest Oss are also allowed to access some or all the underlying hardware resources of the server (e.g., without accessing an intermediate virtual hardware resource, etc.). In a typical paravirtualization system, a host OS (e.g., a Linux-based OS, etc.) is installed on the server hardware. A hypervisor (e.g., the XEN® hypervisor, etc.) executes on the host OS. VMs including virtual hardware resources are then deployed on the hypervisor. The hypervisor manages the association between the hardware resources of the server hardware and the virtual resources allocated to the VMs (e.g., associating RAM with virtual RAM, etc.). In paravirtualization, the guest OS installed in the VM is configured also to have direct access to some or all of the hardware resources of the server. For example, the guest OS can be precompiled with special drivers that allow the guest OS to access the hardware resources without passing through a virtual hardware layer. For example, a guest OS can be precompiled with drivers that allow the guest OS to access a sound card installed in the server hardware. Directly accessing the hardware (e.g., without accessing the virtual hardware resources of the VM, etc.) can be more efficient, can allow for performance of operations that are not supported by the VM and/or the hypervisor, etc.
OS virtualization is also referred to herein as container virtualization. As used herein, OS virtualization refers to a system in which processes are isolated in an OS. In a typical OS virtualization system, a host OS is installed on the server hardware. Alternatively, the host OS can be installed in a VM of a full virtualization environment or a paravirtualization environment. The host OS of an OS virtualization system is configured (e.g., utilizing a customized kernel, etc.) to provide isolation and resource management for processes that execute within the host OS (e.g., applications that execute on the host OS, etc.). The isolation of the processes is known as a container. Thus, a process executes within a container that isolates the process from other processes executing on the host OS. Thus, OS virtualization provides isolation and resource management capabilities without the resource overhead utilized by a full virtualization environment or a paravirtualization environment. Example OS virtualization environments include Linux Containers LXC and LXD, the DOCKER™ container platform, the OPENVZ™ container platform, etc.
In some examples, a data center (or pool of linked data centers) can include multiple different virtualization environments. For example, a data center can include hardware resources that are managed by a full virtualization environment, a paravirtualization environment, an OS virtualization environment, etc., and/or a combination thereof. In such a data center, a workload can be deployed to any of the virtualization environments. In some examples, techniques to monitor both physical and virtual infrastructure, provide visibility into the virtual infrastructure (e.g., VMs, virtual storage, virtual or virtualized networks and their control/management counterparts, etc.) and the physical infrastructure (e.g., servers, physical storage, network switches, etc.).
Example physical racks are a combination of computing hardware and installed software that may be utilized by a customer to create and/or add to a virtual computing environment. For example, the physical racks may include processing units (e.g., multiple blade servers), network switches to interconnect the processing units and to connect the physical racks with other computing units (e.g., other physical racks in a network environment such as a cloud computing environment), and/or data storage units (e.g., network attached storage, storage area network hardware, etc.). The example physical racks are prepared by the system integrator in a partially configured state to enable the computing devices to be rapidly deployed at a customer location (e.g., in less than 2 hours). For example, the system integrator may install operating systems, drivers, operations software, management software, etc. The installed components may be configured with some system details (e.g., system details to facilitate intercommunication between the components of two or more physical racks) and/or may be prepared with software to collect further information from the customer when the virtual server rack is installed and first powered on by the customer.
The example virtual server rack 104 is configured to configure example physical hardware resources 112, 114 (e.g., physical hardware resources of the one or more physical racks), to virtualize the physical hardware resources 112, 114 into virtual resources, to provision virtual resources for use in providing cloud-based services, and to maintain the physical hardware resources 112, 114 and the virtual resources. The example architecture 100 includes an example virtual imaging appliance (VIA) 116 that communicates with the hardware layer 106 to store operating system (OS) and software images in memory of the hardware layer 106 for use in initializing physical resources needed to configure the virtual server rack 104. In the illustrated example, the VIA 116 retrieves the OS and software images from a virtual system provider image repository 118 via an example network 120 (e.g., the Internet). For example, the VIA 116 is to configure new physical racks for use as virtual server racks (e.g., the virtual server rack 104). That is, whenever a system integrator wishes to configure new hardware (e.g., a new physical rack) for use as a virtual server rack, the system integrator connects the VIA 116 to the new hardware, and the VIA 116 communicates with the virtual system provider image repository 118 to retrieve OS and/or software images needed to configure the new hardware for use as a virtual server rack. In the illustrated example, the OS and/or software images located in the virtual system provider image repository 118 are configured to provide the system integrator with flexibility in selecting to obtain hardware from any of a number of hardware manufacturers. As such, end users can source hardware from multiple hardware manufacturers without needing to develop custom software solutions for each hardware manufacturer. Further details of the example VIA 116 are disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0013974, filed on Jun. 26, 2015, and titled “Methods and Apparatus for Rack Deployments for Virtual Computing Environments,” which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The example hardware layer 106 of
In the illustrated example of
The example virtualization layer 108 includes an example virtual rack manager (VRM) 126. The example VRM 126 communicates with the HMS 122 to manage the physical hardware resources 112, 114. The example VRM 126 creates the example virtual server rack 104 out of underlying physical hardware resources 112, 114 that may span one or more physical racks (or smaller units such as a hyper-appliance or half rack) and handles physical management of those resources. The example VRM 126 uses the virtual server rack 104 as a basis of aggregation to create and provide operational views, handle fault domains, and scale to accommodate workload profiles. The example VRM 126 keeps track of available capacity in the virtual server rack 104, maintains a view of a logical pool of virtual resources throughout the SDDC life-cycle, and translates logical resource provisioning to allocation of physical hardware resources 112, 114. The example VRM 126 interfaces with components of a virtual system solutions provider, such as an example VMware vSphere® virtualization infrastructure components suite 128, an example VMware vCenter® virtual infrastructure server 130, an example ESXi™ hypervisor component 132, an example VMware NSX® network virtualization platform 134 (e.g., a network virtualization component or a network virtualizer), an example VMware NSX® network virtualization manager 136, and an example VMware vSAN™ network data storage virtualization component 138 (e.g., a network data storage virtualizer). In the illustrated example, the VRM 126 communicates with these components to manage and present the logical view of underlying resources such as hosts and clusters. The example VRM 126 also uses the logical view for orchestration and provisioning of workloads.
The VMware vSphere® virtualization infrastructure components suite 128 of the illustrated example is a collection of components to setup and manage a virtual infrastructure of servers, networks, and other resources. Example components of the VMware vSphere® virtualization infrastructure components suite 128 include the example VMware vCenter® virtual infrastructure server 130 and the example ESXi™ hypervisor component 132.
The example VMware vCenter® virtual infrastructure server 130 provides centralized management of a virtualization infrastructure (e.g., a VMware vSphere® virtualization infrastructure). For example, the VMware vCenter® virtual infrastructure server 130 provides centralized management of virtualized hosts and virtual machines from a single console to provide IT administrators with access to inspect and manage configurations of components of the virtual infrastructure.
The example ESXi™ hypervisor component 132 is a hypervisor that is installed and runs on servers in the example physical hardware resources 112, 114 to enable the servers to be partitioned into multiple logical servers to create virtual machines.
The example VMware NSX® network virtualization platform 134 (e.g., a network virtualization component or a network virtualizer) virtualizes network resources such as physical hardware switches to provide software-based virtual networks. The example VMware NSX® network virtualization platform 134 enables treating physical network resources (e.g., switches) as a pool of transport capacity. In some examples, the VMware NSX® network virtualization platform 134 also provides network and security services to virtual machines with a policy driven approach.
The example VMware NSX® network virtualization manager 136 manages virtualized network resources such as physical hardware switches to provide software-based virtual networks. In the illustrated example, the VMware NSX® network virtualization manager 136 is a centralized management component of the VMware NSX® network virtualization platform 134 and runs as a virtual appliance on an ESXi host. In the illustrated example, a VMware NSX® network virtualization manager 136 manages a single vCenter server environment implemented using the VMware vCenter® virtual infrastructure server 130. In the illustrated example, the VMware NSX® network virtualization manager 136 is in communication with the VMware vCenter® virtual infrastructure server 130, the ESXi™ hypervisor component 132, and the VMware NSX® network virtualization platform 134.
The example VMware vSAN™ network data storage virtualization component 138 is software-defined storage for use in connection with virtualized environments implemented using the VMware vSphere® virtualization infrastructure components suite 128. The example VMware vSAN™ network data storage virtualization component clusters server-attached hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) to create a shared datastore for use as virtual storage resources in virtual environments.
Although the example VMware vSphere® virtualization infrastructure components suite 128, the example VMware vCenter® virtual infrastructure server 130, the example ESXi™ hypervisor component 132, the example VMware NSX® network virtualization platform 134, the example VMware NSX® network virtualization manager 136, and the example VMware vSAN™ network data storage virtualization component 138 are shown in the illustrated example as implemented using products developed and sold by VMware, Inc., some or all of such components may alternatively be supplied by components with the same or similar features developed and sold by other virtualization component developers.
The virtualization layer 108 of the illustrated example, and its associated components are configured to run virtual machines. However, in other examples, the virtualization layer 108 may additionally or alternatively be configured to run containers. A virtual machine is a data computer node that operates with its own guest operating system on a host using resources of the host virtualized by virtualization software. A container is a data computer node that runs on top of a host operating system without the need for a hypervisor or separate operating system.
The virtual server rack 104 of the illustrated example enables abstracting the physical hardware resources 112, 114. In some examples, the virtual server rack 104 includes a set of physical units (e.g., one or more racks) with each unit including physical hardware resources 112, 114 such as server nodes (e.g., compute+storage+network links), network switches, and, optionally, separate storage units. From a user perspective, the example virtual server rack 104 is an aggregated pool of logic resources exposed as one or more vCenter ESXi™ clusters along with a logical storage pool and network connectivity. In examples disclosed herein, a cluster is a server group in a virtual environment. For example, a vCenter ESXi™ cluster is a group of physical servers in the physical hardware resources 112, 114 that run ESXi™ hypervisors (developed and sold by VMware, Inc.) to virtualize processor, memory, storage, and networking resources into logical resources to run multiple virtual machines that run operating systems and applications as if those operating systems and applications were running on physical hardware without an intermediate virtualization layer.
In the illustrated example, the example OAM component 110 is an extension of a VMware vCloud® Automation Center (VCAC) that relies on the VCAC functionality and also leverages utilities such as a cloud management platform (e.g., a vRealize Automation® cloud management platform) 140, Log Insight™ log management service 146, and Hyperic® application management service 148 to deliver a single point of SDDC operations and management. The example OAM component 110 is configured to provide different services such as heat-map service, capacity planner service, maintenance planner service, events and operational view service, and virtual rack application workloads manager service.
In the illustrated example, the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 is a cloud management platform that can be used to build and manage a multi-vendor cloud infrastructure. The vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 provides a plurality of services that enable self-provisioning of virtual machines in private and public cloud environments, physical machines (install OEM images), applications, and IT services according to policies defined by administrators. For example, the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 may include a cloud assembly service to create and deploy machines, applications, and services to a cloud infrastructure, a code stream service to provide a continuous integration and delivery tool for software, and a broker service to provide a user interface to non-administrative users to develop and build templates for the cloud infrastructure when administrators do not need full access for building and developing such templates. The example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 may include a plurality of other services, not described herein, to facilitate building and managing the multi-vendor cloud infrastructure. In some examples, the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 may be offered as an on-premise (e.g., on-prem) software solution wherein the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 is provided to an example customer to run on the customer servers and customer hardware. In other examples, the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 may be offered as a Software as a Service (e.g., SaaS) wherein at least one instance of the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 is deployed on a cloud provider (e.g., Amazon Web Services).
In the illustrated example, a heat map service of the OAM component 110 exposes component health for hardware mapped to virtualization and application layers (e.g., to indicate good, warning, and critical statuses). The example heat map service also weighs real-time sensor data against offered service level agreements (SLAs) and may trigger some logical operations to make adjustments to ensure continued SLA.
In the illustrated example, the capacity planner service of the OAM component 110 checks against available resources and looks for potential bottlenecks before deployment of an application workload. The example capacity planner service also integrates additional rack units in the collection/stack when capacity is expanded.
In the illustrated example, the maintenance planner service of the OAM component 110 dynamically triggers a set of logical operations to relocate virtual machines (VMs) before starting maintenance on a hardware component to increase the likelihood of substantially little or no downtime. The example maintenance planner service of the OAM component 110 creates a snapshot of the existing state before starting maintenance on an application. The example maintenance planner service of the OAM component 110 automates software upgrade/maintenance by creating clones of machines, upgrading software on clones, pausing running machines, and attaching clones to a network. The example maintenance planner service of the OAM component 110 also performs rollbacks if upgrades are not successful.
In the illustrated example, an events and operational views service of the OAM component 110 provides a single dashboard for logs by feeding to a Log Insight™ log management service 146. The example events and operational views service of the OAM component 110 also correlates events from the heat map service against logs (e.g., a server starts to overheat, connections start to drop, lots of HTTP/503 from App servers). The example events and operational views service of the OAM component 110 also creates a business operations view (e.g., a top down view from Application Workloads=>Logical Resource View=>Physical Resource View). The example events and operational views service of the OAM component 110 also provides a logical operations view (e.g., a bottom up view from Physical resource view=>vCenter ESXi Cluster View=>VM's view).
In the illustrated example, the virtual rack application workloads manager service of the OAM component 110 uses vCAC and vCAC enterprise services to deploy applications to vSphere hosts. The example virtual rack application workloads manager service of the OAM component 110 uses data from the heat map service, the capacity planner service, the maintenance planner service, and the events and operational views service to build intelligence to pick the best mix of applications on a host (e.g., not put all high CPU intensive apps on one host). The example virtual rack application workloads manager service of the OAM component 110 optimizes applications and virtual storage area network (vSAN) arrays to have high data resiliency and the best possible performance achievable at the same time.
In the illustrated example of
Although the example VCAC, the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140, the example Log Insight™ log management service 146, the example Hyperic® application management service 148, and the example cloud provider circuitry 170 are shown in the illustrated example as implemented using products developed and sold by VMware, Inc., some or all of such components may alternatively be supplied by components with the same or similar features developed and sold by other virtualization component developers. For example, the utilities leveraged by the cloud automation center may be any type of cloud computing platform and/or cloud management platform that delivers and/or provides management of the virtual and physical components of the architecture 100.
The example first company 208 includes an example service provider 210, an example first tenant 212 (e.g., the finance tenant), and an example second tenant 214 (e.g., the information technology operations tenant). The example first tenant 212 includes an example first endpoint user device 216, an example second endpoint user device 218, and an example third endpoint user device 220. The example endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220 represent devices or computers used by people (users) (e.g., employed by or registered with the first tenant 212). However, examples disclosed herein may be implemented with any other numbers of tenants and/or endpoint users. In the example of
The example cloud providers (e.g., the first cloud provider 202, the second cloud provider 204, the third cloud provider 206, etc.) provide (e.g., offer) cloud infrastructure resources for provisioning. Examples of the cloud providers include VMware vSphere cloud provider, Microsoft Azure Cloud Service, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Alibaba Cloud, and VMware vCloud Director cloud service delivery platform, etc. In some examples, the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 includes adapters to access (e.g., integrate with) the example cloud providers. For example, the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 may include adapters for Microsoft Azure Cloud Services, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, VMware vSphere cloud provider, Alibaba Cloud, and VMware vCloud Director cloud service delivery platform. The example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 use different methods of cloud provisioning. To interact with the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 using their respective cloud provisioning methods, the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 uses multiple different cloud provider-specific adapters for the individual cloud providers 202, 204, 206. The cloud provider-specific adapters are shown in
The example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 also includes a cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 (shown in
The example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 is provided with the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 to manage and store account login credentials for different ones of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 and to manage (e.g., generate, grant, expire, delete, etc.) access tokens (e.g., login tokens) for different ones of the tenants 212, 214 to access resources in different ones of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206. The example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 is provided with a cloud credential database 230 and separate tenant credential databases 234, 236. The example cloud credential database 230 is provided to store cloud provider account login credentials registered with different ones of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206. Using the cloud provider account login credentials, the example service provider 210, the example first tenant 212, and/or the example second tenant 214 can log into (e.g., sign-in to) the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 and access cloud resources of the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 without needing to create multiple different cloud provider account login credentials for each of the example service provider 210, the example first tenant 212, and the example second tenant 214 for each of the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206. For example, by storing a single set of credentials for the first cloud provider 202 in the cloud credential database 230, the example service provider 210, the example first tenant 212, and the example second tenant 214 do not need to create and manage their own separate cloud provider account login credentials to access the example first cloud provider 202. Instead, the example service provider 210, the example first tenant 212, and the example second tenant 214 share a single set of cloud provider account login credentials of the example service provider 210 to access the example first cloud provider 202. To use the cloud credential database 230 in this manner, the example service provider 210 has access to the first cloud-specific adapter 222, the second cloud-specific adapter 224, and the third cloud-specific adapter 226, and allows the example tenants 212, 214 to impersonate the service provider 210 by using the cloud credentials in the cloud credential database 230 and the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228. By impersonating the service provider 210, the example tenants 212, 214 are able to request cloud infrastructure resources from the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 through the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 based on the cloud provider account login credentials of the service provider 210. When such requests are made by the tenants 212, 214 to the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228, the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 communicates with the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 via corresponding ones of the cloud-specific adapters 222, 224, 226.
The example tenant credential databases 234, 236 are provided in the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 to store internal login credentials also referred to herein as tenant login credentials or enterprise login credentials. As used herein, internal login credentials are usernames and passwords that are used inside the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 between the different internal entities (e.g., the example service provider 210, the example tenants 212, 214). The example first tenant credential database 234 is to store a dummy account for the example tenants 212, 214. For example, the first tenant credential database 234 may store a finance@enterprise.com account, which allows the first tenant 212 (e.g., the finance tenant) to impersonate the example service provider 210. The example second tenant credential database 236 is to store usernames and passwords that the different endpoint users may use to login (e.g., sign-in) to the different endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220. For example, an account stored by the example first tenant credential database 234 for a tenant 212, 214 is referred to as a dummy account because the endpoint users of the example tenants 212, 214 may all access the dummy account, as there is no “finance user.”
In the example of
Using examples disclosed herein, accessing cloud infrastructure resources of different ones of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 is a seamless experience for the endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220 and the example tenants 212, 214 in that the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 appear as a single cloud provider to the endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220 and the example tenants 212, 214 because the example tenants 212, 214 do not need to be configured with specific information or methods to interact with the different cloud providers 202, 204, 206. In examples disclosed herein, the service provider 210 enables the example tenants 212, 214 to access cloud infrastructure resources across different ones of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 without the example tenants 212, 214 needing to create or manage separate login credentials to access the multiple cloud providers 202, 204, 206 and/or without the example tenants 212, 214 needing to be configured with different information or methods (e.g., API calls) to access the multiple cloud providers 202, 204, 206. For example, from the perspective of the service provider 210, the example tenants 212, 214 access the cloud infrastructure resources of the multiple cloud providers 202, 204, 206 through a cloud provider interface account (e.g., an account created in VMware's Cloud Assembly service, which may be implemented by the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228) of the service provider 210 using corresponding cloud provider account login credentials stored in the cloud credential database 230. For example, the cloud infrastructure resources are enumerated and the service provider 210 shares the cloud infrastructure resources (e.g., software-defined-data-center (SDDC) infrastructure resources) for access by the example tenants 212, 214 with guardrails and agnostic constructs determined by the example service provider 210. The example tenants 212, 214 are able to use the cloud infrastructure resources, according to the guardrails set by the example service provider 210 without modifying the underlying cloud infrastructure resources to suit the needs of the example tenants 212, 214. As used herein, “guardrails” are resource-to-tenant definitions that specify which resources from which cloud providers 202, 204, 206 are accessible by different tenants 212, 214. For example, the service provider 210 generates guardrails by selecting (e.g., assigning) different ones of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 from which resources will be provisioned for different ones of the example tenants 212, 214. For example, if the tenants 212, 214 desire access to a fourth cloud provider not selected by the example service provider 210, the guardrails set by the example service provider 210 restrict the example tenants 212, 214 from using resources from the fourth cloud provider. In another example restriction that may be imposed by guardrails, if the service provider 210 exposes a first instance type of one gigabyte of random access memory (RAM) and two central processing units (CPUs) to the example tenants 212, 214, the example tenants 212, 214 are unable to modify the exposed first instance type to a second instance type of two gigabytes of RAM and four CPUs.
As used herein, “agnostic constructs” refer to configuration information such as resource enumerations that make accesses to cloud resources by the tenants 212, 214 agnostic of exactly which cloud provider 202, 204, 206 is providing those cloud resources. For example, if a first tenant 212 requests provisioning of cloud infrastructure resources as a virtual machine, the first tenant 212 is not aware of which specific cloud provider 202, 204, 206 provides the cloud infrastructure resources of the provisioned virtual machine. While the example first cloud provider 202 is a different entity than the example second cloud provider 204 and may operate differently than the example second cloud provider 204, the first cloud provider 202 and the second cloud provider 204 both provide cloud infrastructure resources to provision virtual machines. Using examples disclosed herein, the tenants 212, 214 need not establish and manage separate cloud accounts with the different cloud providers 202, 204, 206 and need not be configured with specific information or methods (e.g., API calls) of accessing the cloud infrastructure resources in accordance with the specific methods of the different cloud providers 202, 204, 206.
In the example of
The first row is {id: 1, orgId: 2, data: {“providerOrgId”: “1”, “project”: “3”, “user”: finance@enterprise.com, “password”: “Passw0rd123”}}.
The second row is {id: 2, orgId: 1, data: {“accessKeyId”: “ServiceProviderAccount@firstcloudprovider.com”, “secretAccessKey”: “ServiceKey456”}}.
The example first row above contains a project identification (e.g., “3”) which is a project (e.g., location) that the example tenant 212 (e.g., the finance tenant) can access cloud infrastructure resources. The example project is further described below in connection with
The example first row above contains a username (e.g., finance@enterprise.com) and a password (e.g., “Passw0rd123”) for enterprise login credentials of the first tenant 212 (e.g., a finance tenant).
The example second row above contains an access key identifier (e.g., “ServiceProviderAccount@firstcloudprovider.com”) and a secret access key (e.g., “ServiceKey456”) for cloud provider account login credentials of the example service provider 210 for accessing the first cloud provider 202. In some examples, the cloud provider account login credentials of the example service provider 210 are referred to as service-provider-credentials.
To obtain the cloud provider account login credentials of the second row above, the first tenant 212 submits its enterprise login credentials of the first row above to the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228. In response, the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 verifies the received enterprise login credentials against the first row above in the cloud credential database 230 and provides the first tenant 212 with access to the cloud provider account login credentials of the second row above. In this manner, the first tenant 212 can use the cloud provider account login credentials to impersonate the example service provider 210 to access cloud resources of the first cloud provider 202 via the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228. In examples disclosed herein, the username and password (e.g., the enterprise login credentials) collectively define first authorization state data that the example tenants 212, 214 may use to access second authorization state data. In examples disclosed herein, the access key identifier and the secret access key collectively define second authorization state data that the example tenants 212, 214 may use to impersonate the example service provider 210 to example cloud providers 202, 204, 206. In some examples, the first authorization state data is called service-provider-credentials. In some examples, the second authorization state data is called an access token.
An example of accessing cloud resources of the first cloud provider 202 includes the first endpoint user device 216 in the first tenant 212 using the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform API 144 to request a virtual machine (e.g., a workload) to be provisioned with two gigabytes of memory (e.g., random access memory (RAM)) and a Windows 10 operating system. The example provisioning circuitry 160 determines the cloud zone (e.g., as represented by the cloud providers 202, 204, 206) in which the virtual machine is to be provisioned based on setup configuration criteria. As used herein, the setup configuration criteria includes a placement policy and a capability tag. For example, a placement policy specifies cloud providers from which different resources can be provisioned. Example placement policies may be based on geographic restrictions (e.g., shortest distance from tenant, national restrictions due to data sensitivity, etc.), cloud providers with least monetary costs for certain resources, cloud providers with better performance for some resources, etc. Capability tags may be used to identify resource capabilities of different cloud providers. For example, a cloud provider may have a capability tag indicative of that cloud provider having graphic processor units (GPUs) that satisfy a particular performance threshold, while other cloud providers do not have such a capability tag. In some examples, setup configuration criteria include that the example cloud zones per project might have different cloud administration properties as defined by the example service provider 210 (e.g., a cloud administrator of the example service provider 210). In some examples, the individual cloud zones have a total limit (e.g., a total, a maximum number) on allowed number of virtual machines, memory, storage and CPU which is not modifiable by the example tenants 212, 214. In some examples, the individual projects (irrespective of the number of cloud zones included in the example project) has a placement policy defined (e.g., place virtual machines in the first applicable zone or place virtual machines based on a smallest ratio of number of virtual machines to the number of hosts, etc.).
When deploying a blueprint to a specific project, the actual blueprint definition is used by the example provisioning circuitry 160 to determine which cloud zone should be used in provisioning. For example, in a blueprint, an admin has hardcoded that instance type should be “small” and “small” is defined only in the example region 508 of the example first cloud zone 416 (e.g., a small instance type is only defined in the European-West region that corresponds to the first cloud zone 416).
In some examples, the provisioning circuitry 160 may use a first placement policy that distributes cloud infrastructure resources across clusters based on availabilities of the clusters. For example, the provisioning circuitry 160 may use a second placement policy that places (e.g., provisions) the cloud infrastructure resources on the most loaded host (e.g., server host) that has enough available resources to run the virtual machine (e.g., before provisioning resources on another host). For example, the provisioning circuitry 160 may use a capability tag to provision cloud infrastructure resources to a pre-selected cloud zone. In some examples, the provisioning circuitry 160 determines that the virtual machine is to be provisioned on the first cloud zone, while in the example of
Because the example provisioning circuitry 160 determined to provision the virtual machine on the cloud interface cloud zone, the example provisioning circuitry 160 calls the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 and delivers details regarding the virtual machine (e.g., a workload) such as the memory capacity and the operating system to the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228. The example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 retrieves a corresponding first authorization state data (e.g., the enterprise login credentials, the username and password), which the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 obtained from the request payload from the example provisioning circuitry 160. In examples disclosed herein, the first authorization state is defined collectively by the example enterprise login credentials listed in the example first row of the above cloud credential database 230. The example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 requests a cloud provider interface access token (e.g., first authorization state data, service-provider-credentials) from the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180. As used herein, the cloud provider interface access token is the username and password in the first row of the cloud credential database 230 (e.g., finance@enterprise.com; Passw0rd123).
The example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 uses the cloud provider interface access token (e.g., first authorization state data) to call the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform API 144 for a provisioning request. Using the cloud provider interface access token, the first tenant 212 is able to impersonate the example service provider 210 as the entity accessing the first cloud provider 202. That is, when the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform API 144 receives the cloud provider interface access token from the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228, the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform API 144 determines (e.g., believes) that the provisioning call originated from the example service provider 210. The example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 has, using an enumeration process described below in connection with
To determine the cloud zone (e.g., one of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206) in which the virtual machine is to be provisioned, the example provisioning circuitry 160 checks for which cloud zone is identified in a project of the first tenant 212. For example, each tenant 212, 214 is associated with one or more projects, and each project is assigned one or more cloud zones (e.g., each cloud zone is implemented by one of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206). By identifying cloud zones in projects, the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 are exposed to the first tenant 212 by the example service provider 210. As described in more detail below in connection with
After the example provisioning circuitry 160 determines the first cloud zone (e.g., the first cloud provider 202) is where the requested virtual machine (e.g., the workload) is to be provisioned, the example provisioning circuitry 160 uses (e.g., calls) the first cloud-specific adapter 222 to access the first cloud provider 202. To request this access, the example first cloud-specific adapter 222 retrieves corresponding example second authorization state data (e.g., the access key identifier and the secret access key) from the second row of the cloud credential database 230 described above (e.g., “accessKeyId”: “ServiceProviderAccount@firstcloudprovider.com”, “secretAccessKey”: “ServiceKey456”), and uses the second authorization state data to provision the virtual machine (e.g., the workload) in the first cloud zone corresponding to the first cloud provider 202. The second authorization state data allows the example first tenant 212 to impersonate the example service provider 210 when accessing the example first cloud provider 202 so that the example first tenant 212 can access cloud infrastructure resources of the first cloud provider 202 that implement the requested virtual machine (e.g., the workload).
The example cloud provider circuitry 170 accesses cloud infrastructure resources from the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206. The example cloud provider circuitry 170 includes example cloud provider interface circuitry 302, example tenant management circuitry 304, example project generation circuitry 306, example policy management circuitry 308, and example project management circuitry 310. In example
The example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 is in communication with the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 through the example cloud-specific adapters 222, 224, 226. The example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 is provided to enable the example cloud provider circuitry 170 to integrate with the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206. In some examples, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 allows a direct connection to the cloud infrastructure resources of the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 (e.g., VMware vSphere cloud provider, Microsoft Azure Cloud Services, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Alibaba Cloud, VMware vCloud Director cloud service delivery platform, etc.). In example
To avoid the need for the example service provider 210 and/or the tenants 212, 214 to be configured with information (e.g., protocols), software, methods (e.g., API calls) specific to each of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 connects cloud-specific adapters (e.g., the first cloud-specific adapter 222, the second cloud-specific adapter 224, the third cloud-specific adapter 226) for the cloud providers 202, 204, 206 to a tenant-facing adapter implemented by the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228. In this manner, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 interprets available cloud infrastructure resources and management constructs defined in the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 for the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 to enable the example service provider 210 and/or the example tenants 212, 214 to access the resources in the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 by communicating with the single cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 using access protocols and methods for the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 while the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 relays corresponding resource access requests to the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206 via corresponding ones of the example cloud-specific adapters 222, 224, 226.
In some examples, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 is used by (e.g., called from) the example first tenant 212 to generate a new layer of cloud infrastructure resource references to refer to the cloud infrastructure resources of the first cloud provider 202. The layer of cloud infrastructure resource references facilitates access to the cloud infrastructure resources by, for example, the example endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220 of the example first tenant 212.
The example tenant management circuitry 304 is in communication with the example first tenant 212 and the example second tenant 214. The example tenant management circuitry 304 is used by the example service provider 210 to allow the example first tenant 212 to access the cloud infrastructure resources based on a tenant account (e.g., corresponding to the first row of the cloud credential database 230 described above) that includes one or more permissions or settings to allow the first tenant 212 to access the selected cloud infrastructure resources. The example first tenant 212 uses the tenant account to access the cloud infrastructure resources, which are selected by the example service provider 210 and are offered by the first cloud provider 202. In other examples, the cloud infrastructure resources accessed by the first tenant 212 are provided by multiples ones of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206. The example tenant management circuitry 304 generates the tenant account based on user credentials that include one or more of an address of the cloud provider account, an organization identification, a project identification, a username and a password, as shown in the first row of the cloud credential database 230 described above. In some examples, the tenant management circuitry 304 generates the tenant account with a resource permission to impersonate the example service provider 210 by using the credentials of the example service provider 210 shown in the second row of the cloud credential database 230 described above.
The example project generation circuitry 306 generates an example project. In some examples, a project includes cloud zone objects and users. As used herein, a project is used by a service provider 210 to organize and govern what users can do (e.g., via the endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220 of
The example policy management circuitry 308 is to allow the tenant user (e.g., either the first tenant 212 or endpoint users via the endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220 of the first tenant 212) to use the cloud infrastructure resources without modifying the guardrails or agnostic constructs set by the example service provider 210. In some examples, the policy management circuitry 308 allows the tenant user to modify the agnostic constructs. For example, the policy management circuitry 308 determines whether access to a project (e.g., the project 412 of
The example project management circuitry 310 is to manage the project. The example project management circuitry 310 can assign users (e.g., tenants, members, endpoint users) to projects created by the project generation circuitry 306. In some examples, the example project management circuitry 310 resource-tags (e.g., tags, labels, designates) the cloud infrastructure resources, which allows for easier record keeping and billing and accounting. For example, if the first tenant 212 provisions more resources than the example second tenant 214, the resource-tagging of the example project management circuitry 310 facilitates tracking that the first tenant 212 contributes to more cloud infrastructure resources usage than the second tenant 214. In some examples, the resource-tagging is used to bill the example first tenant 212 more than the example second tenant 214, in response to the example first tenant 212 using more resources. In some examples, the project management circuitry 310 stores a resource tag in a record in association with the cloud infrastructure resource.
The example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 is to generate access tokens based on user credentials (e.g., a username, a password, a organization identifier, etc.). The example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 generates valid access tokens for a specific period of time which may be used by the example first tenant 212 and/or the example second tenant 214 to impersonate the example service provider 210 when accessing cloud resources of the cloud providers 202, 204, 206. In some examples, the cloud provider hub circuitry 180 stores user credentials in the example first tenant credential database 234 (e.g., service provider database) and the example second tenant credential database 236 (e.g., tenant database). The example service provider 210 uses the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 to store tenant account records in the example first tenant credential database 234. The example first tenant credential database 234 is accessible by the example service provider 210. The example service provider 210 may determine that the first tenant 212 and the second tenant 214 are to access the cloud infrastructure resources based on permissions or settings in corresponding tenant account records. The example first tenant 212 uses the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 to store endpoint user accounts in the example second tenant credential database 236, where the example second tenant credential database 236 is accessible by the example first tenant 212. Endpoint users corresponding to the first endpoint user device 216 (
In some examples, apparatus disclosed herein include(s) means for selecting cloud infrastructure resources. For example, the means for selecting cloud infrastructure resources may be implemented by the cloud provider interface circuitry 302. In some examples, the cloud provider interface circuitry 302 may be instantiated by processor circuitry such as the example processor circuitry 1512 of
In some examples, apparatus disclosed herein include(s) means for generating a tenant account. For example, the means for generating a tenant account may be implemented by tenant management circuitry 304. In some examples, the tenant management circuitry 304 may be instantiated by processor circuitry such as the example processor circuitry 1512 of
In some examples, apparatus disclosed herein include(s) means for generating a project. For example, the means for generating a project may be implemented by project generation circuitry 306. In some examples, the project generation circuitry 306 may be instantiated by processor circuitry such as the example processor circuitry 1512 of
While an example manner of implementing the cloud provider circuitry 170 of
The example first tenant 212 (e.g., the finance tenant) has access to cloud accounts 410 which include a first tenant cloud account 406 and a second tenant cloud account 408. The first tenant cloud account 406 is a cloud provider interface account which can be used by the example first tenant 212 to access the example project 412 and through accessing the project 412, the cloud provider interface account is to access multiple cloud providers 202, 204 of
The example first tenant 212 (e.g., finance tenant) uses the first tenant cloud account 406 (e.g., the cloud provider interface account) as a way to access the cloud infrastructure resources selected by the example service provider 210. The example service provider 210 places the selected cloud infrastructure resources in the example project 412 as the first cloud zone 416 (e.g., corresponding to the first cloud provider 202) and the second cloud zone 418 (e.g., corresponding to the second cloud provider 204). The example project 412 includes a members list 414 that includes usernames of accounts that can access the project 412.
The example service provider 210 generates the example project 412 (e.g., project finance) using the example project generation circuitry 306 of
The example project 412 includes a first cloud zone 416 (e.g., corresponding to the first cloud provider 202 which may be implemented by a vSphere cloud provider) and a second cloud zone 418 (e.g., corresponding to the second cloud provider 204 which may be implemented by an AWS cloud provider). In some examples, the access configuration data 428 is a resource permission to allow the example first tenant 212 (e.g., finance tenant) to access cloud infrastructure resources.
The example service provider 210 is registered for the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 and has an active organization (e.g., a tenant) assigned. The example service provider 210 uses the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 to onboard the example first tenant 212 (e.g., finance tenant) as a new tenant in the cloud management platform (e.g., the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 of
In the example of
The example cloud zones 416, 418 are assigned to the example project 412 by the project generation circuitry 306 of the example cloud provider circuitry 170 shown in
The example service provider 210 provides access configuration data 428 to the example first tenant 212 to access the generated example project 412. The example access configuration data 428 includes an organization identification 430 (e.g., Provider: Enterprise Tenant ID), a project identification 432 (e.g., Project: Project Finance ID), and user credentials (e.g., a username 434 and password 436 for the finance@enterprise.com account). Based on example access configuration data 428, the example first tenant 212 has access to the example project 412. The example first tenant 212 creates a new cloud account of a first cloud zone type (e.g., a Cloud Assembly type, a cloud provider interface type) corresponding to the first cloud zone 416 based on the provided access configuration data 428 (e.g., the organization identification 430, the project identification 432, and the user credentials (e.g., username 434 and password 436)). In some examples, a first cloud administrator (e.g., a person with access to the example first tenant 212) may create the new cloud account of the first cloud zone type for the example first tenant 212. In some examples, a second cloud administrator (e.g., a person with access to the example service provider 210 and the example first tenant 212) may create the new cloud account for the first cloud zone type for the example first tenant 212 by representing itself as being the example first tenant 212. Creating a new cloud account for the first cloud zone type for the example first tenant 212 is a set-up step that may be performed by either the example first tenant 212 or the example service provider 210. The example second cloud administrator with access to both the example service provider 210 and the example first tenant 212 may have an email (e.g., login credentials) stored in the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 that corresponds to the example service provider 210 and the example first tenant 212.
In response to the generation of the example cloud account of the first cloud zone type, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 performs an enumeration process which relates the cloud infrastructure resources of the first cloud zone 416 (e.g., the cloud provider interface, VMware Cloud Assembly) to the cloud infrastructure resources of the example project 412 generated by the example service provider 210. The cloud infrastructure resources (e.g., data structures) for the first cloud zone 416 are based on mappings between the project 412 and the cloud account of the first cloud zone type.
In the example of
For provisioning with the second tenant cloud account 408 (e.g., the cloud provider account, the Amazon Web Services account), the example endpoint user device 216 of the first tenant 212 is to receive a token from the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 in response to providing a username and password, and selecting an organization on an example user interface/screen. The example endpoint user (e.g., person) uses the endpoint user device 216 to log into the cloud provider interface platform and deploy a cloud agnostic virtual machine by specifying a specific project (e.g., the example project 412). As used herein, the endpoint user device 216 is not aware of a specific cloud provider to deploy the virtual machine (thus the virtual machine is a cloud agnostic virtual machine). In the example of
Based on the determined cloud provider type, the example provisioning circuitry 160 sends a request to the corresponding adapter. For example, the provisioning circuitry 160 sends a request to the first cloud-specific adapter 222 which is configured to access the example second cloud account 424 (e.g., the Amazon Web services adapter is configured to access the Amazon Web Services cloud provider). The request sent to the corresponding adapter includes the identification data and information relating to the specific cloud infrastructure resources to build the virtual machine. The first cloud-specific adapter 222 retrieves a username (e.g., access key identifier, ServiceProviderKey@firstcloudprovider.com) and a password (e.g., secret access key, AccessKey456) from the identification data. The first cloud-specific adapter 222 (e.g., the Amazon Web Services adapter) uses the username and password to access the first cloud provider 202 (e.g., the Amazon Web Services cloud provider) which corresponds to the example second cloud account 424, and the virtual machine is provisioned (e.g., the cloud infrastructure resources are enumerated). In some examples, where the example first tenant 212 uses the example second tenant account 408 to request resource provisioning, the cloud infrastructure resources provisioned are based on the cloud infrastructure resources available (e.g., offered) by the example cloud provider 202. For example, the second tenant account 408 may refer to an Amazon Web Service account, which does not offer projects 1102 (
Instead, the example second tenant account 408 that refers to the Amazon Web Service account, offers regions, availability zones, instance types, machine images, EC2 instances (e.g., virtual machines). Once enumerated, the example endpoint users may create constructs based on the vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 constructs in the example project 412 (e.g., a vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 flavor mapping for a specific AWS region and AWS instance type, a vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 image mapping for specific AWS region and Amazon machine image, and a vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 cloud zone for the specific AWS region).
As used herein, an instance type mapping resource refers to a flavor resource. In some examples, some cloud providers (e.g., Amazon Web Services) refer to this cloud infrastructure resource as “flavors,” while other cloud providers (e.g., VMware, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, etc.) refer to this cloud infrastructure resource as an “instance type mapping.” As used herein, the flavor (e.g., an instance type mapping) is the number of central processing units (CPU) and amount of random access memory (RAM) that are provisioned to a virtual machine. For example, a medium flavor may include four (“4”) CPUs and eight (“8”) gigabytes of RAM as illustrated in
For provisioning with the first tenant cloud account 406 (e.g., the cloud provider interface account, the Cloud Assembly account), the example endpoint user device 216 of the first tenant 212 is to receive a token from the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 in response to providing a username and password, and selecting an organization on an example user interface/screen. The example endpoint user device 216 logs into the cloud provider interface platform and deploys a cloud agnostic virtual machine by specifying a specific project (e.g., the example project 412). As used herein, the endpoint user device 216 is not aware of a specific cloud provider to deploy the virtual machine (thus the virtual machine is a cloud agnostic virtual machine). In the example of
Based on the determined cloud provider type, the example provisioning circuitry 160 sends a request to the corresponding adapter. For example, the provisioning circuitry 160 sends a request to the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 by providing the identification data and information relating to the specific cloud infrastructure resources to build the virtual machine. The cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 retrieves the example service-provider organization identification 430 (e.g., service-provider organization identification), the example project identification 432, the example username 434 (e.g., finance@enterprise.com, service-provider username) and the example password 436 (e.g., Passw0rd123) from the example provisioning database 232. The cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 retrieves a token from the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 using the organization identification 430, the example username 434 and the example password 436.
The example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 uses the token to call the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 to deploy a cloud agnostic virtual machine. Based on the first authorization state data (e.g., first token), the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 because of the authorization state data (e.g., first token) believes the example service provider 210 is requesting a deployment of a cloud agnostic virtual machine. That is, the example tenant 212 is impersonating the example service provider 210 with the retrieved token. The example cloud interface platform 140 specifies the project 412 based on the project identification 432 to deploy the cloud agnostic virtual machine, and the example tenant 212 is able to use the cloud agnostic virtual machine deployed to the project 412. The example tenant 212 is able to use any collection of cloud infrastructure resources deployed to the project 412, because the example tenant 212 is a member of the example project 412. Because the original tenant's request for the cloud agnostic virtual machine includes a description of the cloud infrastructure resources required to build the virtual machine, the virtual machine that the first tenant 212 requests will be provisioned in a location that the first tenant 212 can access the virtual machine.
After the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 determines the project 412 as the location to provision the virtual machine, the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 uses the example provisioning circuitry 160 with similar steps to how the second tenant cloud account 408 was provisioned as described above. The example provisioning circuitry 160 uses an example provisioning database 232 and retrieves cloud account related data, and based on the retrieved cloud account related data, the example provisioning circuitry 160 determines the cloud provider type (e.g., Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure) and the identification data (e.g., credentials document, second authorization state data corresponding to the first cloud provider 202, access configuration data). As used herein, the example cloud account related data includes the type (e.g., cloud provider type) and the identification data (e.g., second authorization state data corresponding to the first cloud provider 202).
Based on the determined cloud provider type, the example provisioning circuitry 160 sends a request to the corresponding adapter (e.g., one of the cloud-specific adapters 222, 224, 226). For example, the provisioning circuitry 160 sends a request to the example first cloud-specific adapter 222 which is configured to access the example second cloud account 424 (e.g., the Amazon Web services adapter is configured to access the Amazon Web Services cloud provider). The request sent to the corresponding adapter includes the identification data and information relating to the specific cloud infrastructure resources to build the virtual machine. The example first cloud-specific adapter 222 retrieves a username (e.g., access key identifier, ServiceProviderKey@firstcloudprovider.com) and a password (e.g., secret access key, AccessKey456) from the identification data. The example first cloud-specific adapter 222 (e.g., the Amazon Web Services adapter) uses the username and password to access the first cloud provider 202 (e.g., the Amazon Web Services cloud provider) which corresponds to the example second cloud account 424, and the virtual machine is provisioned on the example project 412. By using the example first tenant cloud account 406 (e.g., cloud provider interface account), and by impersonating the example service provider 210, the example tenant 212 does not require multiple cloud provider accounts for endpoint users of the endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220 to access provisioned virtual machines or other resources provided by the multiple cloud providers 202, 204, 206.
In the example of
The example service provider 210 has a first cloud account 422 which accesses cloud infrastructure resources from the example first cloud provider 202 of
As used herein, a region is defined by a datacenter that is placed in a geographic location on the Earth that supports the cloud account. For example, a first region may be the North-American-Data-Center that supports a first cloud provider 202 (e.g., vSphere as developed and sold by VMware, Inc.).
As used herein, cloud accounts have regions. For example, the second cloud account 424 (e.g., an Amazon Web Services cloud account) may have a European-Union-West-1 region, a United-States-East-2 region. The example third cloud account 426 (e.g., a Google Cloud Platform cloud account) may have a Europe-West-1 region and an Asia-East-1 region. The example first cloud account 422 (e.g., a vSphere cloud account) may have a Datacenter-21 region and a Datacenter-30 region.
As used herein, a cloud zone is a construct in vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 which maps to a region of one of the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206. The example service provider 210 may have multiple cloud zones defined for the same region, one cloud zone per region, or no cloud zones for some regions. The example provisioning circuitry 160 uses the example cloud zones to determine in which region to provision the cloud infrastructure resources (e.g., virtual machines, workloads).
The example service provider 210 has assigned an example first tenant cloud account (e.g., cloud provider interface account) and an example second tenant cloud account 408 (e.g., cloud provider account) to the example first tenant 212. The example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 includes an example infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS) API 506. By using an example IAAS API 506 with the example first tenant cloud account 406 (e.g., cloud provider interface account), the example first tenant 212 is able to access the first cloud zone 416 in the example project 412 and the example second cloud zone 418 in the example project 412. Because the example tenant 212 has access to the cloud zones 416, 418 through the example IAAS API 506, the example first tenant 212 has access to an example first region 508 (e.g., a VMware vSphere region) corresponding to the example first cloud zone 416 and to an example second region 510 (e.g., an Amazon Web Service region) corresponding to the example second cloud zone 418.
In the example of
Techniques disclosed herein improve operating efficiencies of computing systems relative to prior techniques because, rather than the example service provider 210 providing (i) the example second tenant cloud account 408, (ii) the example first cloud account 422, and (iii) the example second cloud account 424 to the example first tenant 212, the example service provider 210 can provide (i) the example second tenant cloud account 408 and (iv) the example first tenant cloud account 406 (e.g., providing two separate entities (i) the second tenant cloud account 408 and (iv) the example first tenant cloud account 406 instead of providing three separate entities (i) the example second tenant cloud account 408, (ii) the example first cloud account 422, and (iii) the example second cloud account 424 to the example first tenant 212) so that the example first tenant cloud account 406 can grant access to the example first cloud zone 416 in the form of the example first region 508 and grant access to the example second cloud zone 418 in the form of the example second region 510. By granting access to the example first cloud zone 416, techniques disclosed herein allow similar access to the example first cloud account 422, because the example first cloud zone 416 is based on the example first cloud account 422.
Techniques disclosed herein relate to different usage examples between the example service provider 210 and the example first tenant 212. In some examples, the example service provider 210 can onboard (e.g., generate an account with, sign-up for, register for, etc.) a software defined data center (SDDC) as a cloud account in the organization of the example service provider 210. By onboarding the SDDC as a cloud account, the example service provider 210 has access to an example provisioning service as a cloud provider. For example, the SDDC may implement the example provisioning service as a cloud provider by using the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 (
In some examples, the service provider 210 creates cloud zones in the provider organization—to allocate to tenants, and the example cloud provider circuitry 170 (e.g., the provisioning service as a cloud provider) is able to follow the standard workflow to add cloud accounts. For each tenant (e.g., client), a dedicated project is created and available cloud zones are assigned to the dedicated project. In these examples, the project is the structure used by the example service provider 210 to define what is available for the example first tenant 212.
In some examples, the service provider 210 creates flavor (e.g., instance type) mappings, image mappings, network and storage profiles to provide the information needed for the cloud zone to be usable. As used herein, an instance type mapping resource refers to a flavor resource. In some examples, some cloud providers (e.g., Amazon Web Services) refer to this cloud infrastructure resource as “flavors,” while other cloud providers (e.g., VMware, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, etc.) refer to this cloud infrastructure resource as an “instance type mapping.” As used herein, the flavor (e.g., an instance type mapping) is the number of central processing units (CPU) and amount of random access memory (RAM) that are provisioned to a virtual machine. For example, a medium flavor may include four (“4”) CPUs and eight (“8”) gigabytes of RAM as illustrated in
In such examples, the example cloud provider circuitry 170 (e.g., the provisioning service as a cloud provider) performs an enumeration process which creates these constructs for the example first tenant 212. The example service provider 210 configures the available shared cloud infrastructure resources in the cloud provider interface service account (e.g., Cloud Assembly account) and is to determine which cloud infrastructure resources are to be shared (e.g., available) for the example first tenant 212 to access. Based on the definitions created by the example service provider 210, mapping definitions are created by the example first tenant 212. For example, a project is enumerated as a cloud account, a cloud zone is enumerated as a region, a flavor mapping is enumerated as a new entry in flavor mapping, and an image mapping is enumerated as a new entry in image mapping. In addition, the network profile of the service provider 210 is used to enumerate the specific networks inside the network profile, for the example first tenant 212, but the network profile itself is not enumerated to the example first tenant 212. The storage profile of the example service provider 210 is not enumerated for the example first tenant 212, so the example first tenant 212 accesses a default storage setting in order to provision the virtual machines. As used herein, a default storage setting is a storage policy determined by preferences of the example cloud provider 202. Regions from the example first tenant cloud account 406 of
In some examples, the service provider 210 creates capability tags for cloud zones and other provider constructs that provide the guardrails for the example tenants that use the provider constructs and cloud zones. In such examples, the cloud provider circuitry 170 (e.g., the provisioning service as a cloud provider) is able to follow the standard process provided by a cloud provider interface service (e.g., Cloud Assembly cloud provider interface service) for which a cloud administrator for the example service provider 210 executes the process.
In some examples, the service provider 210 allocates a cloud zone-to-tenant organization in a shared mode or in a dedicated mode, in which VPC-based isolation (e.g., virtual private cloud-based isolation) is created in a SDDC (e.g., Software-Defined Data Center) platform or an NSX (e.g., Network Security Virtualization) platform. In such examples, the cloud provider circuitry 170 (e.g., the provisioning service as a cloud provider) is able to create a new cloud account of type cloud assembly by selecting (e.g., referencing, pointing to) the dedicated project in the service provider 210. The enumeration process is used by the provisioning circuitry 160 (
In some examples, the service provider 210 views all the on-boarded cloud accounts and cloud zones with a list of the tenants currently allocated to the zones. In such examples, the cloud provider circuitry 170 (e.g., the provisioning service as a cloud provider) is to use a tagging solution to track the on-boarded cloud accounts, despite that there is not a direct API call (e.g., function, method) to return the tracked data from the example vRealize Automation® cloud management platform 140 (e.g., server) to the service provider 210.
In some examples, the service provider 210 views provider-allocated cloud zones. In such examples, names or identifiers of the provider-allocated cloud zones are the only information that can be seen by the first tenant 212 without cloud account visibility. Also in such examples, the cloud provider circuitry 170 (e.g., the provisioning service as a cloud provider) is able to use a policy to obscure the specifics of the underlying cloud account of the example service provider 210, while allowing the first tenant 212 to view all the allocated cloud zones as regions for the cloud account that the first tenant 212 has created. In these examples, the cloud zones may be from various cloud providers.
The example first tenant 212 accesses the service-provider-project 1102 based on a cloud account 1114 enumerated by the cloud provider interface circuitry 302. In operation, the example service provider 210 accesses the service-provider-project 1102, while the example first tenant 212 accesses the cloud account 1114. In example
The example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 enumerates the example service-provider network profile 1110 as exposed networks 1122 for the first tenant 212. For example, the service-provider network profile 1110 includes explicitly defined user-included networks. During enumeration, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 enumerates the networks that define the service-provider network profile 1110 as the exposed networks 1122 to the example first tenant 212, but the actual service-provider network profile 1110 is not enumerated to the example first tenant 212. In this manner, the example service provider 210 can control which specific networks in the example service-provider network profile 1110 are exposed to the example first tenant 212 as the exposed networks 1122.
In the illustrated example of
Flowcharts representative of example hardware logic circuitry, machine readable instructions, hardware implemented state machines, and/or any combination thereof for implementing the cloud provider circuitry 170 of
The machine readable instructions described herein may be stored in one or more of a compressed format, an encrypted format, a fragmented format, a compiled format, an executable format, a packaged format, etc. Machine readable instructions as described herein may be stored as data or a data structure (e.g., as portions of instructions, code, representations of code, etc.) that may be utilized to create, manufacture, and/or produce machine executable instructions. For example, the machine readable instructions may be fragmented and stored on one or more storage devices and/or computing devices (e.g., servers) located at the same or different locations of a network or collection of networks (e.g., in the cloud, in edge devices, etc.). The machine readable instructions may require one or more of installation, modification, adaptation, updating, combining, supplementing, configuring, decryption, decompression, unpacking, distribution, reassignment, compilation, etc., in order to make them directly readable, interpretable, and/or executable by a computing device and/or other machine. For example, the machine readable instructions may be stored in multiple parts, which are individually compressed, encrypted, and/or stored on separate computing devices, wherein the parts when decrypted, decompressed, and/or combined form a set of machine executable instructions that implement one or more operations that may together form a program such as that described herein.
In another example, the machine readable instructions may be stored in a state in which they may be read by processor circuitry, but require addition of a library (e.g., a dynamic link library (DLL)), a software development kit (SDK), an application programming interface (API), etc., in order to execute the machine readable instructions on a particular computing device or other device. In another example, the machine readable instructions may need to be configured (e.g., settings stored, data input, network addresses recorded, etc.) before the machine readable instructions and/or the corresponding program(s) can be executed in whole or in part. Thus, machine readable media, as used herein, may include machine readable instructions and/or program(s) regardless of the particular format or state of the machine readable instructions and/or program(s) when stored or otherwise at rest or in transit.
The machine readable instructions described herein can be represented by any past, present, or future instruction language, scripting language, programming language, etc. For example, the machine readable instructions may be represented using any of the following languages: C, C++, Java, C#, Perl, Python, JavaScript, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Structured Query Language (SQL), Swift, etc.
As mentioned above, the example operations of
“Including” and “comprising” (and all forms and tenses thereof) are used herein to be open ended terms. Thus, whenever a claim employs any form of “include” or “comprise” (e.g., comprises, includes, comprising, including, having, etc.) as a preamble or within a claim recitation of any kind, it is to be understood that additional elements, terms, etc., may be present without falling outside the scope of the corresponding claim or recitation. As used herein, when the phrase “at least” is used as the transition term in, for example, a preamble of a claim, it is open-ended in the same manner as the term “comprising” and “including” are open ended. The term “and/or” when used, for example, in a form such as A, B, and/or C refers to any combination or subset of A, B, C such as (1) A alone, (2) B alone, (3) C alone, (4) A with B, (5) A with C, (6) B with C, or (7) A with B and with C. As used herein in the context of describing structures, components, items, objects and/or things, the phrase “at least one of A and B” is intended to refer to implementations including any of (1) at least one A, (2) at least one B, or (3) at least one A and at least one B. Similarly, as used herein in the context of describing structures, components, items, objects and/or things, the phrase “at least one of A or B” is intended to refer to implementations including any of (1) at least one A, (2) at least one B, or (3) at least one A and at least one B. As used herein in the context of describing the performance or execution of processes, instructions, actions, activities and/or steps, the phrase “at least one of A and B” is intended to refer to implementations including any of (1) at least one A, (2) at least one B, or (3) at least one A and at least one B. Similarly, as used herein in the context of describing the performance or execution of processes, instructions, actions, activities and/or steps, the phrase “at least one of A or B” is intended to refer to implementations including any of (1) at least one A, (2) at least one B, or (3) at least one A and at least one B.
As used herein, singular references (e.g., “a”, “an”, “first”, “second”, etc.) do not exclude a plurality. The term “a” or “an” object, as used herein, refers to one or more of that object. The terms “a” (or “an”), “one or more”, and “at least one” are used interchangeably herein. Furthermore, although individually listed, a plurality of means, elements or method actions may be implemented by, e.g., the same entity or object. Additionally, although individual features may be included in different examples or claims, these may possibly be combined, and the inclusion in different examples or claims does not imply that a combination of features is not feasible and/or advantageous.
At block 1304, the example tenant management circuitry 304 (
At block 1306, the example project generation circuitry 306 generates a project (e.g., the project 412). For example, the project generation circuitry 306 may generate the project 412 which includes members on the example members list 414 and cloud zones 416, 418, by assigning (i) at least one of the example tenants 212, 214 as the members on the example members list 414 and (ii) cloud zones corresponding to cloud providers 202, 204, 206 to the project 412. As used herein, the example project 412 is used to provision cloud infrastructure resources (e.g., virtual machines, workloads) and is accessible by endpoint users through the example endpoint user devices 216, 218, 220.
At block 1308, the example project generation circuitry 306 assigns the selected cloud infrastructure resources and the tenant account 403 to the project 412. For example, the project generation circuitry 306 may assign the selected cloud infrastructure resources as a first cloud zone 416 to the project 412 by assigning to the project 412 the first cloud zone 416 that corresponds to the cloud providers 202, 204, 206.
At block 1310, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 receives a request from the example first tenant 212 to access the cloud infrastructure resources. For example, the cloud provider interface circuitry 302 may receive a request via a network communication from the first tenant 212 to access or employ one of the cloud infrastructure resources selected at block 1302.
At decision block 1312, the example policy management circuitry 308 determines whether access can be granted. For example, the policy management circuitry 308 determines whether access to the project 412 and the cloud infrastructure resources can be granted to the example first tenant 212 in response to the request received at block 1310. For example, the policy management circuitry 308 may determine to grant the first tenant 212 access to the project 412 based on the example first tenant 212 having the first authorization state data (e.g., service-provider-credentials) corresponding to the example service provider 210. Alternatively, the example policy management circuitry 308 may determine to deny the first tenant 212 access to the project 412 based on the example first tenant 212 not having the first authorization state data (e.g., service-provider-credentials) corresponding to the example service provider 210. In some examples, the policy management circuitry 308 may determine to grant the example first tenant 212 access based on the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 accessing an infrastructure resource identifier from the request and comparing the identifier to infrastructure resource identifiers stored in a database to determine whether the infrastructure resource identified by the request is accessible by the first tenant 212 according to the guardrails set by the example service provider 210. In response to the example policy management circuitry 308 determining access can be granted to the example first tenant 212 (e.g., “YES”), control advances to block 1316. In response to the example policy management circuitry 308 determining access is not to be granted to the example first tenant 212 (e.g., “NO”), control advances to block 1314.
At block 1314, the permission is not granted, and the example policy management circuitry 308 denies access by sending an access denied message. For example, the service provider 210 may revoke access to the example project 412 or deny a provisioning of a specific workload based on the example first tenant 212 not having the first authorization state. The example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 which grants the first authorization state may not grant the first authorization state and deny access. Examples for the denied access include that there are incorrect credentials, an expired token, or not enough permissions (e.g., the second tenant 214 tries to access the project 412 which is provisioned to the first tenant 212). In some examples, the provisioning circuitry 160 may deny access to the provisioning request based on a determination that a requested workload requires too many cloud infrastructure resources. Control returns to block 1310 to receive another request to access the cloud infrastructure resources.
At block 1316, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 allows the first tenant 212 to access the selected cloud infrastructure resources assigned to the project 412 based on the tenant account 403. For example, the cloud provider interface circuitry 302 may allow the first tenant 212 access by using the example second authorization state data, which is used by the example provisioning circuitry 160 and by the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 to represent the example first tenant 212 as the example service provider 210 to the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206. In some examples, the example first tenant 212 impersonates the example service provider 210 by using the example second authorization state data and the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 to represent itself as the example service provider 210.
At block 1318, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 enumerates the cloud infrastructure resources of the service provider 210 for the first tenant 212. For example, the cloud provider interface circuitry 302 may enumerate the cloud infrastructure resources of the service provider 210 for the first tenant 212 by enumerating the service-provider-cloud-zone 1104 (
At block 1402, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 (
At block 1403, the example provisioning circuitry 160 (
At block 1404, the example provisioning circuitry 160 (
At block 1406, the example provisioning circuitry 160 determines if the cloud account type is a cloud provider interface type. For example, the provisioning circuitry 160 uses the results of block 1404 to determine whether the cloud account type is a cloud provider interface type. As used herein, if the cloud account type is not of cloud provider interface type, the cloud account type is of a cloud provider type such as the first cloud provider 202 (e.g., Amazon Web Services), the second cloud provider 204 (e.g., Google Cloud Platform), or the example third cloud provider 206 (e.g., Microsoft Azure). In response to determining that the cloud account type is not of cloud provider interface type (e.g., block 1406: “NO”), control flows to block 1418.
At block 1418, the example provisioning circuitry 160 uses the determined cloud-specific adapter 222 to start enumeration of the cloud infrastructure resources. For example, the provisioning circuitry 160 may use the example first cloud-specific adapter 222, which corresponds to the first cloud provider 202, to enumerate a subset of the cloud infrastructure resources. For example, the subset of the cloud infrastructure resources first enumerated may be the project resource 1102 (
In response to determining at block 1406 that the cloud account type is of type cloud provider interface (block 1406: “YES”), control advances to block 1407. In response to determining the cloud account type is cloud provider interface type, (and not a cloud provider type) the example provisioning circuitry 160 does not directly provision the cloud infrastructure resources according to the determined cloud provider type.
At block 1407, the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302 obtains service-provider-credentials. For example, the cloud provider interface circuitry 302 may obtain (e.g., access) service-provider-credentials (e.g., first authorization state data) from the example the first tenant credential database 234. Control advances to block 1408.
At block 1408, the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 impersonates the service provider 210 with first authorization state data (e.g., the service-provider-credentials). For example, the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 may impersonate the service provider 210 to the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180 (
At block 1410, the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 uses the first authorization state data (e.g., access configuration data 428) to retrieve an access token from example cloud provider hub circuitry 180. For example, the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 may request the second authorization state data (e.g., access token) from cloud provider hub circuitry 180. Since the access token corresponds to credentials that match the credentials of the example service provider 210 in the access configuration data 428, the cloud provider hub circuitry 180 generates an access token corresponding to the service provider 210 for access of one of the example cloud providers 202, 204, 206. In some examples, the access token may be the second authorization state data corresponding to the first cloud provider 202 as described in connection in
At block 1412, the example provisioning circuitry 160 requests a deployment of cloud infrastructure resources. For example, the provisioning circuitry 160 may request a deployment of cloud infrastructure resources based on the access token (e.g., example second authorization state data corresponding to the example first cloud provider 202). Since the example first tenant 212 is in possession of the access token based on the service provider credentials, the cloud infrastructure resources are deployed to a project 412 of the service provider 210.
At block 1414, the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 enumerates the project 412 (e.g., the project 1102 of
At block 1416, the example cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 enumerates the cloud zone of the service provider 210 as a region for the example tenant 212. For example, the cloud-agnostic interface adapter 228 may use the first cloud-specific adapter 222 to provision the cloud zone 1104 (
At block 1420, the example provisioning circuitry 160 uses the corresponding adapter for the corresponding cloud provider (e.g., the first cloud-specific adapter 222 and the first cloud provider 202 in
The processor platform 1500 of the illustrated example includes processor circuitry 1512. The processor circuitry 1512 of the illustrated example is hardware. For example, the processor circuitry 1512 can be implemented by one or more integrated circuits, logic circuits, FPGAs, microprocessors, CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, and/or microcontrollers from any desired family or manufacturer. The processor circuitry 1512 may be implemented by one or more semiconductor based (e.g., silicon based) devices. In this example, the processor circuitry 1512 implements the example cloud provider interface circuitry 302, the example tenant management circuitry 304, the example project generation circuitry 306, the example policy management circuitry 308, the example project management circuitry 310, and the example cloud provider hub circuitry 180.
The processor circuitry 1512 of the illustrated example includes a local memory 1513 (e.g., a cache, registers, etc.). The processor circuitry 1512 of the illustrated example is in communication with a main memory including a volatile memory 1514 and a non-volatile memory 1516 by a bus 1518. The volatile memory 1514 may be implemented by Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), RAMBUS® Dynamic Random Access Memory (RDRAM®), and/or any other type of RAM device. The non-volatile memory 1516 may be implemented by flash memory and/or any other desired type of memory device. Access to the main memory 1514, 1516 of the illustrated example is controlled by a memory controller 1517.
The processor platform 1500 of the illustrated example also includes interface circuitry 1520. The interface circuitry 1520 may be implemented by hardware in accordance with any type of interface standard, such as an Ethernet interface, a universal serial bus (USB) interface, a Bluetooth® interface, a near field communication (NFC) interface, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interface, and/or a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) interface.
In the illustrated example, one or more input devices 1522 are connected to the interface circuitry 1520. The input device(s) 1522 permit(s) a user to enter data and/or commands into the processor circuitry 1512. The input device(s) 1522 can be implemented by, for example, an audio sensor, a microphone, a camera (still or video), a keyboard, a button, a mouse, a touchscreen, a track-pad, a trackball, an isopoint device, and/or a voice recognition system.
One or more output devices 1524 are also connected to the interface circuitry 1520 of the illustrated example. The output device(s) 1524 can be implemented, for example, by display devices (e.g., a light emitting diode (LED), an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a liquid crystal display (LCD), a cathode ray tube (CRT) display, an in-place switching (IPS) display, a touchscreen, etc.), a tactile output device, a printer, and/or speaker. The interface circuitry 1520 of the illustrated example, thus, typically includes a graphics driver card, a graphics driver chip, and/or graphics processor circuitry such as a GPU.
The interface circuitry 1520 of the illustrated example also includes a communication device such as a transmitter, a receiver, a transceiver, a modem, a residential gateway, a wireless access point, and/or a network interface to facilitate exchange of data with external machines (e.g., computing devices of any kind) by a network 1526. The communication can be by, for example, an Ethernet connection, a digital subscriber line (DSL) connection, a telephone line connection, a coaxial cable system, a satellite system, a line-of-site wireless system, a cellular telephone system, an optical connection, etc.
The processor platform 1500 of the illustrated example also includes one or more mass storage devices 1528 to store software and/or data. The one or more mass storage devices 1528 include the cloud credential database 230, the provisioning database 232, the first tenant credential database 234, and the second tenant credential database 236. Examples of such mass storage devices 1528 include magnetic storage devices, optical storage devices, floppy disk drives, HDDs, CDs, Blu-ray disk drives, redundant array of independent disks (RAID) systems, solid state storage devices such as flash memory devices and/or SSDs, and DVD drives.
The machine executable instructions 1532, which may be implemented by the machine readable instructions of
The cores 1602 may communicate by a first example bus 1604. In some examples, the first bus 1604 may implement a communication bus to effectuate communication associated with one(s) of the cores 1602. For example, the first bus 1604 may implement at least one of an Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) bus, a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus, a PCI bus, or a PCIe bus. Additionally or alternatively, the first bus 1604 may implement any other type of computing or electrical bus. The cores 1602 may obtain data, instructions, and/or signals from one or more external devices by example interface circuitry 1606. The cores 1602 may output data, instructions, and/or signals to the one or more external devices by the interface circuitry 1606. Although the cores 1602 of this example include example local memory 1620 (e.g., Level 1 (L1) cache that may be split into an L1 data cache and an L1 instruction cache), the microprocessor 1600 also includes example shared memory 1610 that may be shared by the cores (e.g., Level 2 (L2_ cache)) for high-speed access to data and/or instructions. Data and/or instructions may be transferred (e.g., shared) by writing to and/or reading from the shared memory 1610. The local memory 1620 of each of the cores 1602 and the shared memory 1610 may be part of a hierarchy of storage devices including multiple levels of cache memory and the main memory (e.g., the main memory 1514, 1516 of
Each core 1602 may be referred to as a CPU, DSP, GPU, etc., or any other type of hardware circuitry. Each core 1602 includes control unit circuitry 1614, arithmetic and logic (AL) circuitry (sometimes referred to as an ALU) 1616, a plurality of registers 1618, the L1 cache 1620, and a second example bus 1622. Other structures may be present. For example, each core 1602 may include vector unit circuitry, single instruction multiple data (SIMD) unit circuitry, load/store unit (LSU) circuitry, branch/jump unit circuitry, floating-point unit (FPU) circuitry, etc. The control unit circuitry 1614 includes semiconductor-based circuits structured to control (e.g., coordinate) data movement within the corresponding core 1602. The AL circuitry 1616 includes semiconductor-based circuits structured to perform one or more mathematic and/or logic operations on the data within the corresponding core 1602. The AL circuitry 1616 of some examples performs integer based operations. In other examples, the AL circuitry 1616 also performs floating point operations. In yet other examples, the AL circuitry 1616 may include first AL circuitry that performs integer based operations and second AL circuitry that performs floating point operations. In some examples, the AL circuitry 1616 may be referred to as an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU). The registers 1618 are semiconductor-based structures to store data and/or instructions such as results of one or more of the operations performed by the AL circuitry 1616 of the corresponding core 1602. For example, the registers 1618 may include vector register(s), SIMD register(s), general purpose register(s), flag register(s), segment register(s), machine specific register(s), instruction pointer register(s), control register(s), debug register(s), memory management register(s), machine check register(s), etc. The registers 1618 may be arranged in a bank as shown in
Each core 1602 and/or, more generally, the microprocessor 1600 may include additional and/or alternate structures to those shown and described above. For example, one or more clock circuits, one or more power supplies, one or more power gates, one or more cache home agents (CHAs), one or more converged/common mesh stops (CMSs), one or more shifters (e.g., barrel shifter(s)) and/or other circuitry may be present. The microprocessor 1600 is a semiconductor device fabricated to include many transistors interconnected to implement the structures described above in one or more integrated circuits (ICs) contained in one or more packages. The processor circuitry may include and/or cooperate with one or more accelerators. In some examples, accelerators are implemented by logic circuitry to perform certain tasks more quickly and/or efficiently than can be done by a general purpose processor. Examples of accelerators include ASICs and FPGAs such as those discussed herein. A GPU or other programmable device can also be an accelerator. Accelerators may be on-board the processor circuitry, in the same chip package as the processor circuitry and/or in one or more separate packages from the processor circuitry.
More specifically, in contrast to the microprocessor 1700 of
In the example of
The interconnections 1710 of the illustrated example are conductive pathways, traces, vias, or the like that may include electrically controllable switches (e.g., transistors) whose state can be changed by programming (e.g., using an HDL instruction language) to activate or deactivate one or more connections between one or more of the logic gate circuitry 1708 to program desired logic circuits.
The storage circuitry 1712 of the illustrated example is structured to store result(s) of the one or more of the operations performed by corresponding logic gates. The storage circuitry 1712 may be implemented by registers or the like. In the illustrated example, the storage circuitry 1712 is distributed amongst the logic gate circuitry 1708 to facilitate access and increase execution speed.
The example FPGA circuitry 1700 of
Although
In some examples, the processor circuitry 1512 of
A block diagram illustrating an example software distribution platform 1805 to distribute software such as the example machine readable instructions 1532 of
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that example systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture have been disclosed that provision cloud infrastructure resources. Disclosed systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture improve the efficiency of using a computing device by allowing cloud infrastructure resources to be shared which reduces wasting resources by requiring a new compute machine for each endpoint user. The disclosed systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture improve the efficiency of a computing device by allowing an endpoint user to provision virtual machines on specific cloud providers by using a cloud provider interface account without requiring the endpoint user to have a specific cloud provider account for each of the specific cloud providers. Disclosed systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture are accordingly directed to one or more improvement(s) in the operation of a machine such as a computer or other electronic and/or mechanical device.
Example methods, apparatus, systems, and articles of manufacture to for sharing cloud resources in a multi-tenant system using self-referencing adapter are disclosed herein.
Further Examples and Combinations Thereof Include the Following:
Example 1 includes an apparatus to provision cloud infrastructure resources, the apparatus comprising provisioning circuitry to, in response to a first request from a tenant to access cloud infrastructure resources, determine a type of a cloud account, cloud provider interface circuitry to, in response to the type of the cloud account being a cloud provider interface type, access service-provider-credentials, the cloud provider interface circuitry to retrieve a first access token based on the service-provider-credentials, submit a second request for the cloud infrastructure resources to a first cloud provider, the second request corresponding to the tenant impersonating the service provider based on the first access token.
Example 2 includes the apparatus of example 1, wherein the provisioning circuitry is to provision the cloud infrastructure resources corresponding to the first cloud provider based on the second request.
Example 3 includes the apparatus of example 1, wherein the provisioning circuitry is to at least one of (a) enumerate a service-provider-project as a cloud account for the tenant, or (b) enumerate a service-provider-cloud-zone as a region for the tenant.
Example 4 includes the apparatus of example 1, further including tenant management circuitry to generate a tenant account corresponding to the tenant, the tenant account including resource permissions to allow the tenant to (a) access the cloud infrastructure resources from the first cloud provider, and (b) impersonate the service provider to access the cloud infrastructure resources provided by the first cloud provider.
Example 5 includes the apparatus of example 4, further including project generation circuitry to assign the cloud infrastructure resources and the tenant account to a project, the project to be used by the tenant account to deploy the cloud infrastructure resources.
Example 6 includes the apparatus of example 5, further including policy management circuitry to grant the tenant access to the cloud infrastructure resources assigned to the project based on the tenant account and based on the tenant impersonating the service provider.
Example 7 includes the apparatus of example 1, further including policy management circuitry to generate a policy corresponding to tenant access, and store a restriction setting in the policy to prevent the tenant from modifying constraints of the cloud infrastructure resource.
Example 8 includes the apparatus of example 1, wherein the cloud provider interface circuitry is to select the cloud infrastructure resources in response to the provisioning circuitry receiving a third request.
Example 9 includes the apparatus of example 1, further including tenant management circuitry to generate a tenant account based on access data, the access data including at least one of an address of a cloud provider account, an organization identification, a project identification, or user credentials, the user credentials including a username of the cloud provider account of the service provider, and a password of the cloud provider account of the service provider.
Example 10 includes the apparatus of example 9, wherein the tenant management circuitry is to use the user credentials to access the cloud infrastructure resources.
Example 11 includes the apparatus of example 1, further including project management circuitry to store a resource tag in a record in association with the cloud infrastructure resource, and bill the tenant based on the resource tag for accessing the cloud infrastructure resource.
Example 12 includes the apparatus of example 11, wherein the project management circuitry is to resource-tag the cloud infrastructure resources to facilitate resource management and billing.
Example 13 includes a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause processor circuitry to at least in response to a first request from a tenant to access cloud infrastructure resources, determine a type of a cloud account, in response to the type of the cloud account being a cloud provider interface type, access service-provider-credentials, retrieve a first access token based on the service-provider-credentials, submit a second request for the cloud infrastructure resources to a first cloud provider, the second request corresponding to the tenant impersonating the service provider based on the first access token.
Example 14 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 13, wherein the processor circuitry is to provision the cloud infrastructure resources corresponding to the first cloud provider based on the second request.
Example 15 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 13, wherein the processor circuitry is to at least one of (a) enumerate a service-provider-project as a cloud account for the tenant, or (b) enumerate a service-provider-cloud-zone as a region for the tenant.
Example 16 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 13, wherein the processor circuitry is to generate a tenant account corresponding to the tenant, the tenant account including resource permissions to allow the tenant to (a) access the cloud infrastructure resources from the first cloud provider, and (b) impersonate the service provider to access the cloud infrastructure resources provided by the first cloud provider.
Example 17 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 16, wherein the processor circuitry is to assign the cloud infrastructure resources and the tenant account to a project, the project to be used by the tenant account to deploy the cloud infrastructure resources.
Example 18 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 17, wherein the processor circuitry to grant the tenant access to the cloud infrastructure resources assigned to the project based on the tenant account and based on the tenant impersonating the service provider.
Example 19 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 13, wherein the processor circuitry is further to generate a policy corresponding to tenant access, and store a restriction setting in the policy to prevent the tenant from modifying constraints of the cloud infrastructure resource.
Example 20 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 13, wherein the processor circuitry is to select the cloud infrastructure resources in response to the processor circuitry receiving a third request.
Example 21 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 13, wherein the processor circuitry is to generate a tenant account based on access data, the access data including at least one of an address of a cloud provider account, an organization identification, a project identification, or user credentials, the user credentials including a username of the cloud provider account of the service provider, and a password of the cloud provider account of the service provider.
Example 22 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 21, wherein the processor circuitry is to use the user credentials to access the cloud infrastructure resources.
Example 23 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 13, wherein the processor circuitry is to store a resource tag in a record in association with the cloud infrastructure resource, and bill the tenant based on the resource tag for accessing the cloud infrastructure resource.
Example 24 includes the non-transitory computer readable medium of example 23, wherein the processor circuitry is to resource-tag the cloud infrastructure resources to facilitate resource management and billing.
Example 25 includes a method to provision cloud infrastructure resources, the method comprising in response to a first request from a tenant to access cloud infrastructure resources, determining a type of a cloud account based on the cloud zone, in response to the type of the cloud account being a cloud provider interface type, accessing service-provider-credentials, retrieving a first access token based on the service-provider-credentials, submitting a second request for the cloud infrastructure resources to a first cloud provider, the second request corresponding to the tenant impersonating the service provider based on the first access token.
Example 26 includes the method of example 25, further including provisioning the cloud infrastructure resources corresponding to a first cloud provider based on the second request.
Example 27 includes the method of example 25, further including at least one of (a) enumerating a service-provider-project as a cloud account for the tenant, or (b) enumerating a service-provider-cloud-zone as a region for the tenant.
Example 28 includes the method of example 25, further including generating a tenant account corresponding to the tenant, the tenant account including resource permissions to allow the tenant to (a) access the cloud infrastructure resources from the first cloud provider, and (b) impersonate the service provider to access the cloud infrastructure resources provided by the first cloud provider.
Example 29 includes the method of example 28, further including assigning the cloud infrastructure resources and the tenant account to a project, the project to be used by the tenant account to deploy the cloud infrastructure resources.
Example 30 includes the method of example 29, further including granting the tenant access to the cloud infrastructure resources assigned to the project based on the tenant account and based on the tenant impersonating the service provider.
Example 31 includes the method of example 25, further including generating a policy corresponding to tenant access, and storing a restriction setting in the policy to prevent the tenant from modifying constraints of the cloud infrastructure resource.
Example 32 includes the method of example 25, further including selecting the cloud infrastructure resources in response to the provisioning circuitry receiving a third request.
Example 33 includes the method of example 25, further including generating a tenant account based on access data, the access data including at least one of an address of a cloud provider account, an organization identification, a project identification, or user credentials, the user credentials including a username of the cloud provider account of the service provider, and a password of the cloud provider account of the service provider.
Example 34 includes the method of example 25, further including using the user credentials to access the cloud infrastructure resources.
Example 35 includes the method of example 34, further including storing a resource tag in a record in association with the cloud infrastructure resource, and billing the tenant based on the resource tag for accessing the cloud infrastructure resource.
Example 36 includes the method of example 25, further including resource-tagging the cloud infrastructure resources to facilitate resource management and billing.
The following claims are hereby incorporated into this Detailed Description by this reference. Although certain example systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture have been disclosed herein, the scope of coverage of this patent is not limited thereto. On the contrary, this patent covers all systems, methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture fairly falling within the scope of the claims of this patent.