Multi-Cloud Hardware Inventory for Bare-Metal Capacity Allocation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Managed service providers face challenges in managing hardware capacity across multi-cloud environments, particularly in BYOH models, where customers procure their own hardware, leading to inefficiencies in auto-scaling, lifecycle management, and SLA compliance due to the need for manual ordering and installation of physical hardware.
Innovation Solution
A hardware inventory service manages an inventory of customer-procured physical servers, enabling efficient allocation and reservation of hardware capacity across multiple clouds, automating the process of scaling, lifecycle operations, and break-fix operations through a centralized management system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If customers procure physical hardware in BYOH model, then customer has control over hardware capacity, but managed service provider cannot access capacity for auto-scaling and lifecycle management operations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a hardware inventory service as an intermediary layer between the customer's procured hardware and the managed service provider's management systems. This service discovers, inventories, and manages the customer-owned hardware capacity, enabling the managed service provider to access and utilize the hardware for auto-scaling and lifecycle management operations while maintaining customer ownership and control. The intermediary resolves the contradiction by facilitating dual access rights without compromising ownership.
2Quantity of substance
If customer orders additional hardware capacity, then hardware capacity increases, but ordering and installation process is time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by maintaining a pre-discovered and inventoried pool of hardware capacity that is already available for immediate allocation. Instead of requiring customers to order and install hardware when needed, the system proactively discovers and inventories available hardware in advance, creating a ready-to-use capacity pool that can be rapidly allocated to meet scaling demands, thus eliminating the time-consuming ordering and installation process.
3Quantity of substance
If managed service provider pre-purchases physical hardware, then hardware capacity is available, but capacity allocation is limited to pre-purchased amount
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies universality by creating a unified hardware inventory service that manages diverse hardware sources (customer-procured hardware, managed service provider-pre-purchased hardware, and third-party vendor hardware) through a single platform. This universal management system allocates hardware capacity flexibly across multiple customers and workloads based on demand, rather than being constrained by pre-purchased allocations for individual customers, thus achieving both capacity availability and allocation flexibility.
4Adaptability or versatility
If customer distributes hardware across multiple clouds, then deployment flexibility increases, but hardware capacity management complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the management of hardware capacity across multiple cloud environments (on-premises data centers, co-location data centers, and public clouds) into a single unified hardware inventory service. This consolidation allows the system to discover, inventory, and manage distributed hardware resources through one centralized platform, reducing management complexity while preserving the deployment flexibility of having hardware distributed across multiple clouds.
Data Source
AI summary
An example method of managing hardware capacity in a multi-cloud computing system includes: obtaining, by a hardware inventory service executing in the multi-cloud computing system, hardware information for physical servers, in a public cloud, for which a customer has a subscription entitling bare-metal management of the physical servers; maintaining, by the hardware inventory service, an inventory of hardware capacity comprising a physical server pool that includes the physical servers; receiving, at the hardware inventory service, a request to consume the hardware capacity; and providing, by the hardware inventory service, a response to the request that identifies the physical server pool for deploying software to execute therein.