Live Pipeline Templates for Cloud Deployment Standardization
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Solution Overview
Problem
The complexity of deploying and managing computing services in cloud environments leads to inefficient use of engineering resources, as engineers spend significant time configuring and updating systems, resulting in inconsistent results and a lack of standardization across deployment pipelines.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of live pipeline templates, which are inheritable and extensible source code templates that encapsulate best practices for configuring and deploying services, allowing for the automatic generation and management of continuous deployment pipelines, reducing configuration time and ensuring consistency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If engineers manually configure and provision each system and service for deployment pipelines, then deployment pipelines can be customized to specific needs, but the time and resources required for configuration and maintenance increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the copying principle by creating template-based deployment pipelines that can be replicated and instantiated multiple times. Instead of manually configuring each deployment pipeline from scratch, engineers can copy proven templates and customize them for specific needs, dramatically reducing configuration time while maintaining consistency and quality standards across all pipelines.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-configuring deployment pipelines with best practices, standard configurations, and proven workflows before they are needed. Templates are prepared in advance with all necessary configurations, security settings, and process definitions, so when a new deployment pipeline is required, it can be quickly instantiated rather than built from scratch.
2Adaptability or versatility
If engineers manually manage deployment pipelines without templates, then flexibility in customization is maintained, but consistency and standardization across different pipelines deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by allowing customization at the local level while maintaining global standards. Templates define consistent core configurations and best practices that ensure quality across all pipelines, while permitting localized customizations for specific deployment needs. This ensures that each pipeline can be adapted to local requirements without sacrificing overall consistency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements universality by creating reusable deployment pipeline templates that can serve multiple purposes and different deployment scenarios. A single template can be instantiated multiple times for different services, environments, or teams, ensuring consistent practices are applied universally while allowing specific customizations where needed.
3Reliability
If deployment pipelines are updated to incorporate new best practices, then quality and reliability improve, but the effort and time required to update and maintain pipelines increase
Solution Approach 1:
When best practices need to be updated, changes are made to the template definition once, and then automatically propagated to all instantiated pipelines through the copy mechanism. This ensures that quality improvements are replicated across all deployment pipelines simultaneously, maintaining high reliability without requiring manual updates to each individual pipeline.
Solution Approach 2:
The template approach allows best practices to be updated in advance and tested in the template definition before being propagated to production pipelines. This preliminary action ensures that quality improvements are validated before widespread deployment, maintaining reliability while improving update efficiency through centralized template management.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are presented for managing a deployment pipeline using an inheritable and extensible source code template—generally referred to as a live pipeline template (LPT). As described, live pipeline templates may be used to manage deployment pipelines which, in turn, are used to launch, maintain, and update the services and systems used to host and provide computing services.