Systems management operational workflow templates
View Patent ↗Provided are techniques for the specification of templates for the orchestration of workflows such as, but not limited to, computer system server, storage, network, virtualization and cloud infrastructure management operations and tasks. The disclosed techniques support non-scripted native representations of the workflows, the addition of new object types or operation sets or services, atomicity, transactional semantics of workflows and the ability to configure parameters for execution of workflow.
1. An apparatus, comprising:
a processor;
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium coupled to the processor;
a plurality of infrastructure resources;
a set of normalized resource states corresponding to the plurality of infrastructure resources;
a set of normalized operations corresponding to the plurality of infrastructure resources, wherein each input and output of each normalized operation of the set of normalized operations has a corresponding defined type of a plurality of types; and
logic, stored on the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and executed on the processor, for:
generating a plurality of operational sequences, each operation sequence generated by composing a plurality of normalized operations of the set of normalized operations with corresponding resources of the plurality of infrastructure resources such that the output of each of the set of normalized operations becomes the input of another of the set of normalized operations, wherein a defined type corresponding to each particular input matches a defined type corresponding to the corresponding output;
generating a workflow plan by composing the plurality of operational sequences in conformity with well-defined operational semantics; and
storing, in a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the workflow plan for execution on a processor.
2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the well-defined operational semantics of the plurality of operational semantics are constrained based upon semantic objects drawn from best practice patterns.
3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein each resource of the normalized infrastructure resources is either atomic or composed of other atomic or non-atomic resources.
4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein each resource of the normalized infrastructure resources is an individual resource or a combination other infrastructure resources.
5. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a library of normalized operations wherein the set of normalized operations is augmented by normalized operations from the library of normalized operations.
6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the defined sets of resource states, operations are stored in corresponding libraries for the generation of a second workflow plan.
7. A computer programming product, comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium; and
logic, stored on the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium for execution on a processor, for:
defining a set of normalized resource states corresponding to a plurality of infrastructure resources;
defining a set of normalized operations corresponding to the plurality of infrastructure resources, wherein each input and output of each normalized operation of the set of normalized operations has a corresponding defined type of a plurality of types;
generating a plurality of operational sequences, each Operation sequence generated by composing a plurality of normalized operations of the set of normalized operations with corresponding a corresponding resource of the plurality of infrastructure resources such that the output of each of the set of normalized operations becomes the input of another of the set of normalized operations, wherein a defined type corresponding to each particular input matches a defined type corresponding to the corresponding output;
generating a work flow plan by composing the plurality of operational sequences in with well-defined operational semantics; and
storing, in a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the workflow plan for execution on a processor.
8. The computer programming product of claim 7 , wherein the well-defined operational semantics of the plurality of operational semantics are constrained based upon semantic objects drawn from best practice patterns.
9. The computer programming product of claim 7 , wherein each resource of the normalized infrastructure resources is either atomic or composed of other atomic or non-atomic resources.
10. The computer programming product of claim 7 , wherein each resource of the normalized infrastructure resources is an individual resource or a combination other infrastructure resources.
11. The computer programming product of claim 7 , further comprising a library of normalized operations wherein the set of normalized operations is augmented by normalized operations from the library of normalized operations.
12. The computer programming product of claim 7 , wherein the defined sets of resource states, operations are stored in corresponding libraries for the generation of a second workflow plan.