Shadow Workload Lifecycle Management Across Heterogeneous Environments
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Solution Overview
Problem
Lifecycle management of workloads across different environments, such as Virtual Machines (VMs) and containerized environments, is challenging due to the need for heavyweight, fragile, and environment-specific orchestrators, which increases complexity and requires significant resources for migration.
Innovation Solution
The method involves creating shadow workloads in one environment to align lifecycle management states with workloads in a different environment, using a deployment orchestration layer to manage these shadow workloads and propagate lifecycle management actions, thereby leveraging existing robust technologies like Kubernetes to manage VMs and physical servers in a unified and environment-neutral manner.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If environment-specific orchestrators are used for lifecycle management in each workload environment, then lifecycle management can be performed, but device complexity and resource requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates shadow workloads in a first workload environment that can manage workloads across multiple different workload environments (VM environments, container environments, bare metal). Instead of having separate orchestrators for each environment, a single shadow workload provides universal lifecycle management capabilities across heterogeneous environments, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining reliability.
2Reliability
If custom orchestrators are written for particular VM environments, then lifecycle management events can be handled, but ease of operation and adaptability decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates shadow workloads that are copies or representations of the actual workloads they manage. These shadow workloads run in a different environment (e.g., Kubernetes) and mirror the lifecycle states of the target workloads (e.g., VMs). This copying approach allows the shadow workload to adapt to the source environment's requirements while being managed by the destination environment's robust orchestration capabilities, enhancing both adaptability and control.
3Reliability
If environment-specific orchestrators are deployed, then lifecycle management can be achieved, but loss of time and resources for migration increase
Solution Approach 1:
The shadow workload acts as an intermediary between the source workload environment and the destination orchestration environment. It receives lifecycle management events from the source environment and translates them into appropriate actions in the destination environment. This intermediary approach eliminates the need for direct integration between multiple environment-specific orchestrators, reducing setup time and resource migration overhead while maintaining reliable workload management.
Data Source
AI summary
Lifecycle management is implemented in a data processing system. A first workload is provided in a first workload environment. The first workload is used to align one or more first lifecycle management states of the first workload in the first workload environment and one or more second lifecycle management states of a second workload. The second workload is in a second, different workload environment.