Distributed Process Engine for Container Coordination
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current distributed computing systems lack a standardized mechanism for coordinating and managing containerized deployment units, leading to suboptimal resource management and increased operational costs due to the lack of coordination across deployment units and their relationships with the parent process.
Innovation Solution
A centralized distributed process engine that schedules and coordinates the execution of deployment units, provides communication channels between them, and performs administration tasks such as aborting, restarting, and resuming processes, while also tracing execution and managing resources to reduce costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If deployment units are deployed separately to enable flexible container-based execution, then adaptability and execution flexibility are improved, but coordination complexity and lack of standardized management mechanisms worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a process engine as an intermediary component that mediates between deployment units and the distributed computing environment. This process engine provides standardized mechanisms for coordinating deployment units, managing their relationships with parent processes, and handling communication channels, thereby resolving the coordination complexity issue while preserving container-based deployment flexibility
Solution Approach 2:
The process engine is designed as a universal management mechanism that handles multiple functions including scheduling, coordination, administration tasks (aborting, restarting, resuming), tracing execution, and resource management. This multi-functional approach consolidates what would otherwise be multiple separate coordination mechanisms into a single standardized system
2Ease of operation
If deployment units operate independently to simplify individual execution, then ease of operation is improved, but resource management efficiency and operational costs worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The process engine implements feedback mechanisms that monitor deployment unit execution and provide information back to the resource management system. This enables intelligent resource allocation and optimization based on actual execution patterns, improving resource management efficiency while maintaining the simplicity of independent unit execution through standardized interfaces
3Reliability
If centralized process management is implemented to improve coordination, then reliability and execution accuracy are improved, but system complexity and management overhead worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the centralized management function into a distributed process engine that operates across multiple nodes in the distributed computing environment. This segmentation allows centralized coordination capabilities to be maintained while distributing the actual management overhead across multiple components, reducing single-point complexity and improving system reliability
Data Source
AI summary
A distributed computing environment can include a distributed process engine. For example, a computing device can receive, by a process engine distributed across a plurality of nodes of a distributed computing environment, a description of a process comprising a plurality of deployment units. The process can be associated with a graph representing a plurality of tasks to be performed to complete the process. The description can define relationships between the plurality of deployment units. The computing device can deploy, by the process engine, the plurality of deployment units in the distributed computing environment. The computing device can cause, by the process engine, an action associated with an execution of one or more deployment units of the plurality of deployment units.