Container Placement Rules Using Failure Correlation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing software application placement rules, such as affinity and anti-affinity rules, are difficult to enforce when computing resources are managed by containers that are not directly accessible to management devices, leading to undesired consequences like co-location of affined applications or failure to place anti-affined applications due to limited resource containers.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves determining failure correlations between computing resources and delegating the enforcement of placement rules to computing resource containers, where affined applications are co-located and anti-affined applications are separated by selecting resources with low failure correlation, and providing placement rules to the containers to ensure compliance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If placement rules are enforced by the management device alone, then placement control is simple, but enforcement is infeasible when resources are managed by containers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces computing resource containers as intermediaries between the management device and hardware devices. The containers receive placement rules from the management device and autonomously enforce them when allocating software applications to hardware devices, bridging the control gap created by abstracted resource management.
2Adaptability or versatility
If affined software applications are placed in the same computing resource container, then affinity rule is satisfied at container level, but hardware device level co-location is not guaranteed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the placement rule enforcement into two levels: container-level enforcement (coarse-grained) and hardware device-level enforcement (fine-grained). The container provides initial placement control, while the hardware device allocation process within the container provides precise enforcement, ensuring both flexibility and precision.
3Reliability
If anti-affined software applications are placed in different computing resource containers, then anti-affinity rule is satisfied at container level, but placement feasibility is reduced due to limited containers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent adds a new dimension to anti-affinity enforcement by operating at the hardware device level within containers, rather than only at the container level. This allows multiple anti-affined applications to share the same container as long as they are allocated to different hardware devices, significantly increasing placement feasibility while maintaining reliability.
4Ease of operation
If software applications are placed on different hardware devices, then basic separation is achieved, but correlated failures may still occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces computing resource containers as intermediaries that provide failure correlation information to the management device. The management device uses this information to make informed placement decisions, selecting hardware devices with low failure correlation to ensure true independence of software application instances.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments associate software applications with computing resource containers based on a placement rule and a selected failure correlation. A placement rule indicates that a first software application is to be co-located with a second software application during execution of the first and second software applications. The placement rule also indicates that the first software application is to be separated from the second software application during execution of the first and second software applications. Failure correlations are determined for a plurality of computing resources associated with the first software application. A computing resource with a lowest failure correlation is selected from the plurality of computing resources, and the second software application is associated with the selected computing resource despite the association violating the placement rule.