Policy Engine Entity Protection Across Availability Zones
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional virtual computing systems face inefficiencies in protecting entities across multiple availability zones, as protection policies are typically defined at the cluster level, leading to cumbersome and time-consuming processes that cannot be customized at the entity level, resulting in slow and inefficient protection mechanisms.
Innovation Solution
A policy engine creates a protection policy definition that assigns common tags to entities, allowing for centralized protection across multiple clusters and availability zones, enabling efficient replication and snapshot management based on recovery point objectives, thereby simplifying the protection of entities across zones.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If protection policies are defined at the cluster level, then protection coverage is provided, but the process becomes cumbersome and time-consuming with inability to customize at entity level
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments protection policies into hierarchical levels: global policies at the availability zone level, cluster-level policies, and entity-level policies. This segmentation allows customization at the entity level while maintaining manageable complexity through automatic inheritance and composition of policies from multiple levels.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new dimensional organization by adding the availability zone level as an additional layer above the traditional cluster level. This creates a multi-dimensional policy structure (zone → cluster → entity) that enables both broad coverage and fine-grained customization without proportionally increasing complexity.
2Productivity
If protection policies are defined at the cluster level, then protection is provided, but the process is slow and inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-defining protection policy templates at the availability zone level and cluster level before entities are created. When entities are added, they automatically inherit these pre-configured policies, eliminating the need for manual policy creation and significantly reducing policy application time.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-service by allowing entities to automatically receive appropriate protection policies through inheritance mechanisms. New entities automatically inherit policies from their parent clusters and availability zones without requiring manual intervention, making the protection mechanism efficient and autonomous.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for protecting entities of an availability zone include creating, by a policy engine associated with a virtual computing system, a protection policy definition for replicating a first set of entities of a first availability zone of the virtual computing system to a second availability zone of the virtual computing system. Each of the first set of entities is associated with a first common tag and the first set of entities are spread across first multiple clusters of the first availability zone. The system and method further include capturing, by the policy engine, a first plurality of snapshots of each of the first set of entities in the first availability zone in accordance with a first recovery point objective parameter and storing, by the policy engine, at least one copy of the first plurality of snapshots in the second availability zone.