Application Awareness in Virtual Infrastructure via Agentless Discovery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems lack an efficient method to identify and manage applications running on virtual entities within enterprise computing environments without deploying agents on these entities, limiting effective data protection, resource allocation, and monitoring capabilities.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for gathering information about applications in a virtual infrastructure using an application discovery component and application probe, which transmit program instructions to virtual entities to collect data on application presence and configuration, utilizing standard operating system protocols to establish control paths and query application registries or search for traces of applications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If agents are deployed on virtual entities to determine application information, then application identification capability is improved, but system complexity and resource overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the application identification functionality from the virtual entities themselves and consolidates it into a centralized application awareness system. Instead of deploying agents on each virtual entity, the system uses a central controller that receives data from multiple sources (virtualization management system, operating system, application layer) to determine application information, thereby reducing distributed complexity while maintaining identification capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an application awareness system as an intermediary layer between the virtual infrastructure and the management system. This intermediary consolidates application information from multiple sources and presents a unified view to the virtualization management system, reducing the need for direct agent deployment on each virtual entity while maintaining accurate application identification
2Loss of information
If agents are deployed on virtual entities to collect application data, then data collection accuracy is improved, but resource overhead and deployment complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a multi-functional application awareness system that serves multiple purposes: collecting application information, determining application presence, identifying application configurations, and providing data to multiple consumers (virtualization management system, operating system, application layer). This universal system replaces multiple specialized agents, reducing overall resource overhead while maintaining comprehensive data collection accuracy
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables various system components (virtualization management system, operating system, application layer) to contribute application data themselves through existing interfaces and protocols. This self-service approach allows components to provide their own application information without requiring external agents, reducing resource overhead while maintaining accurate data collection
3Adaptability or versatility
If comprehensive application information is collected from virtual entities, then management capability is improved, but processing time and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by having the application awareness system continuously collect and process application information in advance, maintaining an up-to-date application awareness database. When management decisions are needed, the system can quickly query this pre-processed information rather than collecting data in real-time, reducing processing time while maintaining comprehensive management capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the application information collection and processing into distinct modular components: data collection from multiple sources, data processing and correlation, and data delivery to consumers. This segmentation allows each component to operate independently and efficiently, reducing overall processing time while maintaining comprehensive management capability through the coordinated work of specialized modules
Data Source
AI summary
An application awareness system for a virtualized infrastructure. The application awareness system may use commands in standardized protocols to obtain data from virtual entities in the virtualized infrastructure. The data may be processed to indicate applications on specific virtual entities. The application awareness system may interact with those applications to gain information about the configuration of the application, or for a distributed application, components of the application on each of the plurality of virtual entities. These techniques may be applied to both virtual machines and containers, generating data that may be used in any of multiple management functions performed on the virtual infrastructure, such as backup, monitoring and resource allocation.