Distributed Dependency Management via Automated Discovery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Large-scale networked systems face challenges in managing dependencies between distributed computing infrastructure components, leading to difficulties in assessing, understanding, and ensuring the reliability of these systems due to ad hoc approaches and lack of comprehensive dependency management.
Innovation Solution
A dependency management system that includes a dependency service manager with collectors, a standard name provider, and a dependency aggregator to automatically discover, build, and analyze dependencies, generating dependency data that can be stored and accessed via a data graph representation for user analysis and operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If ad hoc approaches are used for managing dependencies between distributed computing infrastructure components, then implementation flexibility is maintained, but system reliability and comprehensiveness of dependency management deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The dependency management system is segmented into distinct functional components: dependency service manager, collectors, standard name provider, and dependency aggregator. Each component has a specific responsibility, allowing the system to manage complex dependencies reliably while maintaining modularity and reducing overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The dependency service manager acts as an intermediary that coordinates between collectors (which gather dependency data) and the dependency aggregator (which processes the data). This mediator structure enables reliable dependency management by standardizing communication and data flow between system components.
2Loss of information
If automated dependency discovery and analysis is implemented, then dependency management comprehensiveness is improved, but system complexity and resource requirements worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The dependency service manager provides multiple functions within a single system architecture: it manages collectors, interacts with the standard name provider, coordinates with the dependency aggregator, and handles dependency data flow. This multi-functional approach ensures comprehensive dependency information capture without proportionally increasing system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables automated self-discovery of dependencies through collectors that automatically gather dependency data from infrastructure components. This self-service capability ensures complete dependency information is captured without manual intervention, reducing information loss while maintaining manageable system complexity through automation.
3Measurement precision
If multiple collectors retrieve data at different collection times (design time, deployment time, runtime), then dependency data accuracy is improved, but data management complexity and processing overhead worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary dependency data collection at design time and deployment time before runtime operations. This preliminary action ensures accurate dependency information is captured early, allowing the runtime system to operate with pre-established dependency knowledge, thereby improving accuracy without excessive runtime processing overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The dependency management system maintains continuous dependency tracking across all three collection times (design, deployment, and runtime). This continuity ensures dependency data accuracy is improved through multiple measurement points while the automated nature of continuous collection reduces the perceived processing time burden.
Data Source
AI summary
Various methods and systems for implementing dependency management for an infrastructure are provided. A dependency service manager of the dependency management system includes a plurality of dependency management system components that facilitate automatically discovering and analyzing data to generate dependency data. The dependency data includes dependencies and dependents of dependency service tenants which are tenant services of the infrastructure. The dependency data is generated based on data retrieved by a plurality of collectors. A collector from the plurality of collectors is an agent that retrieves data associated with dependency service tenants based on a corresponding collection time attribute of the collector. A collector accesses data for generating the dependency data at one of the following collection times: design time, deployment time and runtime. The dependency data that is generated is then stored in a data store and communicated to a dependency service interface for user access to the dependency data.