Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Jose Bernabeu-Auban

Yousef A Khalidi

Frank V Peschel-Gallee

Stephen E Dossick

Stephan Zachwieja

Jeff L Havens

Vamshidhar Radha Kommineni

Paul Matthew Pietrek

Christopher Marsh

Richard E Wilbur

Eric P Traut

Richard Bruce Ward

Frederick Justus Smith

Saad Syed

Sushant Pramod Rewaskar

Mark Robbin Brown

Suyash Sinha

Madhusudhan Talluri

Anil A Ingle

Chetan S Shankar

Luis Irun-Briz

Adam D Stritzel

Tahsin Erdogan

Adriaan W Canter

Darryl E Havens

Ben Newman

Stephan J Zachweija

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for automating deployment of service applications by exposing environmental constraints in a service model are provided. In general, the methods are performed in the context of a general purpose platform configured as a server cloud to run various service applications distributed thereon. Accordingly, the general purpose platform may be flexibly configured to manage varying degrees of characteristics associated with each of the various service applications. Typically, these characteristics are provided in the service model that governs the environmental constraints under which each component program of the service application operates. As such, hosting environments are selected and adapted to satisfy the environmental constraints associated with each component program. Adapting the hosting environments includes installing parameters transformed from configuration settings of each component program via map constructs, thereby refining the hosting environment to support operation of the component program.

Automating deployment of service applications by exposing hosting environment constraints

The resources needed by an application to execute are declared by the application. When the application is activated, only the declared resources are made available to the application because only the declared resources are connected to the execution environment. Accessibility to resources may be controlled by the operating system by making the resource visible or invisible to the executing software by mapping a local name used by the executing software to a global resource, possibly limiting the type of access allowed. Because the executing software relies on the mapping function performed by the operating system for access to resources, and the operating system only maps names declared by the software, the operating system can isolate the software, and prevent the application from accessing undeclared global resources.

Operating system context isolation of application execution

Systems, methods and computer storage media for operating a scalable computing platform are provided. A service description describing a requested service is received. Upon receiving the service description a determination of the required resources and the available resources is made. An instance description is produced. The resources required to sustain the deployment of the service are mapped to the available resources of the computing platform so the service may be deployed. The instance description is amended with each deployment of the service to allow for sustained deployment of the service.

System and method for describing applications for manageability and efficient scale-up deployment

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for monitoring information passed from instances of role(s) of a service application installed on a distributed computing platform and for indexing and analyzing the information within a data store are provided. Monitoring involves a monitoring agent that is integrated within an operating system of computing devices that make up the distributed computing platform. In operation, the monitoring agent retrieves information from the role instances and converts the information into parameters that are assembled to documents. Generally, the parameters are assembled to a uniform-structured format in accordance with a schema imposed by the distributed computing platform. Accordingly, each of the documents across the platform have a common format that promotes processing and analysis without a need for reconfiguration. Accordingly, the health of the service application, although dispersed throughout the distributed computing environment, may be observed and evaluated in a consistent manner.

Monitoring agent programs in a distributed computing platform

Applications, such as cloud services, may be deployed within a network environment (e.g., a cloud computing environment). Unfortunately, when the applications are instantiated within the network environment, they have the ability to compromise the security of other applications and/or the infrastructure of the network environment. Accordingly, as provided herein, a security scheme may be applied to a network environment within which an application is to be instantiated. The security scheme may comprise one or more security layers (e.g., virtual machine level security, application level security, operating system level security, etc.) derived from an application service model describing the application and/or resources allocated to the application.

Model based security for cloud services

The operating system organizes software so the set of extensions for an extendable application can be dynamically discovered and the extension can be run securely. Extensions are run as separate applications instead of within the extendable application's process. Extensions are discoverable to an activated extendable application by querying a category catalog. A category provides at least a partial description of a contract between an activating software entity and a software entity that is activated by the activating software entity. The category may enumerate a set of configuration settings associated with the contract that may be used to set up an isolated execution environment for the activated software entity. The category may also specify one or more extension points to be used for communication between the activating and activated software entities. The category may also include a list of software entities that implement the category.

Method for organizing software so the set of extensions for an extendable application can be run securely

Multiple software component identifiers are maintained in a catalog of an operating system running on a device. Each of these software component identifiers corresponds to one of multiple software components installed on the device. The catalog is accessed in response to a request regarding one of the multiple software components, and the request is responded to based at least in part on information included in the catalog. Additionally, two or more versions of a software component that are installed on the computing device can be identified. Which one of the two or more versions of the software component is an active version of the software component to be run is determined. In response to requests for information regarding the software component, information regarding the active version of the software component is returned.

Catalog-based software component management

Embodiments described herein are directed to updating the various software associated with a distributed application in a piecemeal fashion. All instances of the software are analyzed and separated into different portions, called 'roles.' Each instance of a role is strategically assigned to an update domain based on the structural information included in the service model of the distributed application. The distributed application is upgraded one update at a time by selecting an update or host update domain, bringing the roles assigned thereto offline, updating the offline roles, bringing the roles back online, and repeating for other update or host update domains.

Rolling upgrades in distributed applications

The operating system manages software entities by creating a construct called a context that organizes and manages software-related state and configuration settings of applications. A context may comprise an installation service, a configuration service and an activation service. Contexts can be linked or arranged hierarchically to form parent-child relationships. Hierarchies may be used to affect accessibility of software items, to satisfy dependencies, to control the visibility/invisibility of software items, to provide access to configuration settings and to override software availability, dependencies and configuration settings. An override may be applied to set policy when more than one context has a configuration setting, dependency or access to a software entity.

Organization of application state and configuration settings

Methods, systems, and computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform methods in accordance with embodiments hereof, for managing component programs within a service application according to a service model. Initially, configuration settings, which can be administered to the component programs, are extracted from the service model. An instantiation process is initiated to manage the service application in accordance with the changes to a level of load on the service application and/or to specifications within the service model. The instantiation process includes deploying, or identifying as available, the component programs within the data center, and automatically propagating formalized values derived from the configuration settings throughout the deployed component programs. These derived formalized values are installed into the component programs, thereby providing for functionality of the service application consistent with the service model.

Managing component programs within a service application

Software typically changes over its useful lifetime. New versions of software are created to change or improve functionality, to add functionality, to correct coding errors, improve performance, to adapt to new hardware and for many other well-known reasons. The process of delivering new versions of software to users is called servicing the software. The operating system decides which version(s) of a piece of software satisfy dependencies of other software by creation of a context. The context may be used to organize and manage versions of software, to declare activation policies concerning the use of different versions of software and to service the versioned software. The context may include an activation service that maintains and manages resolution polices, resolves dependencies, constructs the environment in which an application runs and initiates the running of the software.

Servicing software through versioning

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for expressing fault correlation constrains to a developer of a service application are provided. Initially, the fault correlation constraints are identified by inspecting an architecture of resources comprising a data center. Based on the resources, sets of nodes that become concurrently unavailable due to a failure mode or update scheme are aggregated. These fault correlation constraints, upon being communicated to the developer, then may be incorporated into a service model produced thereby. Accordingly, the service model is tailored to the specific characteristics of the data center and is provided with instructions as to how to partition instances of the service application throughout the distributed resources of the data center. Thus, the fault correlation constraints provide a developer with insight into rules and structures on which the data center is constructed and assurances of a certain level of fault tolerance upon deploying the service application.

Expressing fault correlation constraints

Systems, products, and methods are disclosed for performing a method of allocating services (functionalities of software applications) across several computing devices that make up various domains of a data center so that the functional aspects will continue to be available to remote users even when, from time to time, different sets of computing devices are unavailable.

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Sammamish, WA, United States of America

Jose Bernabeu-Auban