Flexible Cloud Namespace for Granular Resource Scaling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current cloud infrastructure as a service offerings require customers to purchase and manage hardware infrastructure in units of hosts, leading to inefficiencies such as minimum purchase requirements, complex management solutions, and inflexible capacity planning, which can be costly and cumbersome for customers with varying resource needs.
Innovation Solution
The system provides a flexible cloud namespace in a software-defined data center (SDDC) that allows customers to create a logical construct with resources, enabling the deployment of virtual computing instances without direct interaction with underlying infrastructure. This approach allows customers to purchase cloud computing capacity in small increments, reducing costs and simplifying management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If customers purchase hardware infrastructure in units of hosts, then they can access cloud computing resources, but they face minimum purchase requirements and high costs for small resource needs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the cloud computing infrastructure from the hardware host level down to individual virtual computing instance levels. Customers can purchase and manage individual virtual instances rather than entire hosts, enabling granular resource acquisition. This segmentation allows entry-level customers to purchase minimal resources (e.g., single virtual instances) without being forced to buy minimum host configurations, directly resolving the contradiction between resource quantity flexibility and purchase constraints.
2Ease of operation
If customers directly interact with underlying infrastructure, then they can manage their applications, but they face complexity of management solutions and life cycle management
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary layer (the cloud platform's virtualization and management system) between the customer and the underlying hardware infrastructure. Customers interact with simplified virtual computing instances and high-level management interfaces rather than directly with complex hardware and low-level virtualization components. This intermediary abstracts away the complexity of infrastructure management, life cycle operations, and hardware interactions while preserving essential application management capabilities, thus resolving the contradiction between operational ease and management complexity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If customers deploy applications on specific public cloud instances, then they can meet initial requirements, but they face migration costs and downtime when instance types need to change
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic instance management capabilities that allow customers to modify, scale, and migrate virtual computing instances without significant downtime or cost. The system supports hot migration, instance type changes, and flexible scaling operations while maintaining service continuity. This dynamic approach enables customers to adapt to changing requirements (e.g., upgrading instance types, responding to EOL notices) without the rigid constraints of traditional deployments, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and migration time loss.
4Reliability
If cloud system requires minimum two hosts, then infrastructure reliability is improved, but cost effectiveness deteriorates for entry level customers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments cloud resource purchasing from the host level to the virtual instance level, allowing customers to purchase only the resources they need. Entry-level customers can start with minimal resources (single virtual instances) while the underlying infrastructure maintains reliability through shared multi-tenant architectures and platform-level redundancy. This segmentation enables cost-effective access for small customers without sacrificing infrastructure reliability, as the reliability mechanisms operate at the platform level rather than requiring each customer to provision minimum hosts.
Data Source
AI summary
System and method for provide a computing infrastructure as a service creates a flexible cloud namespace in a software-defined data center (SDDC) in response to a first instruction from a user and deploys virtual computing instances in the flexible cloud namespace in response to a second instruction from the user. The flexible cloud namespace comprises a logical construct with resources in the SDDC that are supported by underlying SDDC management entities, where the virtual computing instances execute in the flexible cloud namespace of the SDDC using the resources.