Application Director Policy Compliance for Cloud Deployment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current cloud computing deployment systems lack a standardized and portable method for deploying multi-tier applications across different cloud environments, often resulting in inefficiencies and compliance issues due to varying infrastructure and policies.
Innovation Solution
The deployment system uses an application director to create application blueprints that define infrastructure components and dependencies, generating deployment plans that are infrastructure-agnostic, allowing for compliance checking with policies before executing the deployment in a cloud environment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If deployment systems use standardized application blueprints with infrastructure-agnostic topology definitions, then adaptability across different cloud environments is improved, but device complexity increases due to the need for policy compliance checking mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The deployment system is segmented into distinct functional modules: application blueprint definition, policy retrieval, compliance determination, and deployment execution. This segmentation allows the system to handle complex multi-cloud deployments through manageable, independent components that can be developed and maintained separately.
Solution Approach 2:
A policy compliance checking mechanism acts as an intermediary between the application blueprint and the deployment execution. This intermediary validates deployment plans against organizational policies before execution, enabling adaptability across different cloud environments while maintaining control through policy enforcement without requiring complex custom logic in each deployment scenario.
2Reliability
If the system implements comprehensive policy compliance checking across multiple nested object levels, then reliability of deployment is improved, but processing time increases due to traversing multiple policy hierarchies
Solution Approach 1:
Policies are retrieved and validated against the deployment plan before deployment execution begins. By performing compliance checking in advance, the system ensures reliable policy enforcement while allowing the actual deployment process to proceed efficiently without repeated validation delays during execution.
Solution Approach 2:
The policy hierarchy is structured as nested levels (deployment plan level, cloud environment level, and infrastructure level), where policies at each level are applied in sequence. This nested structure allows the system to systematically traverse and enforce policies at appropriate granularities without requiring a flat, monolithic validation process, improving both reliability and efficiency.
3Manufacturing precision
If the deployment system traverses nested object levels to retrieve and apply policies at each level, then manufacturing precision of deployment compliance is improved, but productivity decreases due to the multi-level traversal process
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary policy retrieval and compliance determination at each nested level before deployment execution. This preliminary action ensures high precision in compliance checking by validating all policies in advance, while the actual deployment execution proceeds efficiently without repeated validation overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The policy traversal process dynamically adapts to the structure of the nested deployment objects, retrieving and applying policies at each relevant level only when necessary. This dynamic approach maintains high compliance precision by checking policies at appropriate granularities while avoiding unnecessary traversal steps that would reduce deployment productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
A deployment system enables a developer to define a logical, multi-tier application blueprint that can be used to create and manage (e.g., redeploy, upgrade, backup, patch) multiple applications in a cloud infrastructure. The deployment system supports the use of nested policies to manage a deployment plan. Upon determining compliance to the nested policies, the application can be deployed according to an application blueprint, which means any needed VMs are provisioned from the cloud infrastructure, and application components and software services are installed.