Floating License Deployment Across Clouds With Unified Usage Metering
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Solution Overview
Problem
There are no mechanisms in place to support arbitrage and usage monitoring of metered software in multi-cloud deployments, making it difficult to measure the extent of software feature usage, duration, and infrastructure utilization across different clouds.
Innovation Solution
Implementing systems and methods for licensed virtualization system component deployment that take and combine resource usage measurements across multiple computing clouds, utilizing floating licenses and matching workload characteristics to cloud capabilities to optimize deployment and reduce non-optimal workload instantiation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If virtualization software is deployed across multiple cloud infrastructures to handle peak demand, then computing flexibility and scalability are improved, but the ability to monitor and measure software usage across different clouds deteriorates due to lack of unified mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal usage measurement mechanism that functions across multiple cloud infrastructures (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.). The system provides a single unified interface for monitoring virtualization software usage regardless of which cloud provider's infrastructure is being used, enabling cross-cloud arbitrage while maintaining precise measurement capabilities through a standardized measurement framework that works universally across different cloud environments
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary measurement system that sits between the virtualization software and the cloud infrastructures. This intermediary layer captures usage data from multiple cloud providers and presents it in a unified format, enabling precise measurement of software usage across heterogeneous cloud environments without requiring changes to the underlying cloud infrastructures
2Measurement precision
If metered licensing is implemented to track software usage across clouds, then usage monitoring capability is improved, but system complexity increases due to need to track usage across multiple independent cloud infrastructures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple cloud-specific usage measurement systems into a single unified measurement system. Instead of implementing separate tracking mechanisms for each cloud provider, the system combines usage data from multiple clouds into a unified measurement framework that presents a single view of software usage across all cloud infrastructures, thereby reducing system complexity while maintaining comprehensive monitoring capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal usage measurement system that handles multiple cloud infrastructures through a single standardized interface. This universal system performs the function of tracking usage across AWS, Azure, GCP and other cloud providers simultaneously through one cohesive mechanism, reducing the complexity that would arise from implementing separate tracking systems for each cloud provider
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and computer program products for flexible virtualization system deployment into different cloud computing environments. A set of floating licenses to virtualization system software components is established. The set of floating licenses are configured to permit usage of the virtualization system software components on different cloud computing infrastructures. Workload parameters of a workload to be deployed to one of the different cloud computing infrastructures is considered with respect to cloud attributes corresponding to the different cloud computing infrastructures. One or more candidate target cloud computing infrastructures are selected based upon a comparison between workload attributes of a computing workload and cloud attributes of the candidate target cloud computing infrastructures. Virtualization system software components are deployed into the selected target cloud computing infrastructures. Licenses to the virtualization system software components can float between any combination of different cloud computing infrastructures, including floating the licenses between private clouds and public clouds.