Self-Service Database Administration via Control Plane
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current data storage management in cloud environments is cumbersome, requiring manual and tedious procedures for provisioning and scaling data storage, which lacks dynamic adjustment capabilities and requires expert intervention, limiting user flexibility and efficiency.
Innovation Solution
A separate control plane is introduced as a set of Web services that acts as a virtual database administrator, enabling users to manage data repositories through APIs, allowing for automated actions, monitoring, and resource management without direct access to the data plane, thus simplifying data storage management and scaling.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If manual procedures are used for provisioning and scaling data storage, then expert control and validation are ensured, but the process becomes tedious and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service by allowing customers to automatically provision and scale data storage through web-based interfaces without requiring manual DBA intervention. The system automatically validates configurations, provisions resources, and scales storage capacity based on customer requests, eliminating the tedious manual procedures while maintaining reliability through automated validation mechanisms.
2Reliability
If manual procedures are used for data storage management, then configuration validation is performed, but user flexibility and ease of operation are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a web-based control interface as an intermediary between customers and the data storage system. This intermediary provides user-friendly forms and tools that automatically handle configuration validation, allowing customers to easily provision and scale storage without needing to understand complex configuration parameters or validation rules, thus improving ease of operation while maintaining reliability.
3Reliability
If DBAs manually manage data repositories, then optimization and tuning are performed, but scalability and adaptability are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic adjustment by enabling customers to automatically scale data storage capacity up or down based on changing requirements. The system dynamically provisions additional storage resources, adjusts configuration parameters, and optimizes performance in real-time without requiring manual DBA intervention, thus achieving both optimization and adaptability.
4Ease of operation
If automated control plane is introduced, then ease of operation and scalability are improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the system into distinct control plane and data plane components. The control plane handles automated provisioning, scaling, and management operations through web services, while the data plane contains the actual database resources. This segmentation allows the complex automation logic to be isolated in the control plane, simplifying the overall architecture by separating concerns and enabling independent scaling of management functionality.
Data Source
AI summary
Administrative aspects of a data environment, such as the creation, deletion, and management of databases, are managed using a set of self-service Web services of a separate control environment. A user can submit a Web services call into an externally-facing interface of the control environment. The control environment can receive the call, extract information from the call, and determine appropriate actions to be performed in the data environment. A workflow can be instantiated that includes tasks used to perform the action in the data environment. Such an approach allows administrative aspects of the data environment to be managed through Web service calls to the control environment. Native access to databases in the data environment is provided using at least one externally-facing interface of the data environment, without accessing the control environment.