System, method and program product for updating virtual machine images

A shared resource system comprising:

• one or more provider computers, a plurality of client devices selectively requesting resources from said one or more provider computers;
• a virtual machine (VM) image library with a plurality of VM images with bundled software, one or more of said images having at least one outstanding update, each said outstanding update updating a part of a respective said VM image;
• a VM provisioning system provisioning VMs on said one or more provider computers responsive to received client requests;
• and
• an image update system passing updated images to said VM provisioning system and applying updates to respective ones of said images in said VM image library on a routine basis,
• said image update system determining whether said request is for a VM image with any outstanding updates when a request is received, and when one or more updates are outstanding said image update system
• selectively based on gathered data and history of logged past VM requests, updating images in said VM image library or
• updating single instances of individual VM images, passing said single instances to said VM provisioning system for provisioning respective VMs and queuing said single instances for subsequently updating said individual VM images in said VM image library, said VM provisioning system otherwise
• provisioning VMs from VM images in said VM image library.

A computer program product for allocating shared system resources, said computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer usable medium having computer readable program code stored thereon, said computer readable program code causing one or more computer executing said code to:

• receive requests for resources, said request being provisioned from a virtual machine (VM) image library with a plurality of VM images;
• determine whether provisioning for said request is provisioned from a VM image with any pending updates, and if no update for said VM image is pending said VM is provisioned, and return to receiving requests;
• otherwise determine whether to update said VM image in said VM image library or to provide a single patched image instance, based on gathered data and history of logged past VM requests;
• if determined to update said VM image in said VM image library, perform said pending updates on the VM image in the library and save the image replacing the old image in the library and provision said updated VM image to respond to the request;
• otherwise perform said pending updates on a single instance of said VM image and provisioning said update VM image to respond to the request;
• and
• provide an alert indicating that an updated said VM was provisioned;
• and
• whenever a single patched image instance is provided, said patched image is queued for subsequently updating said VM image in said VM image library responsive to the urgency and complexity of updating said VM image, and
• return to receiving requests.

A computer program product for allocating cloud resources, said computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code stored thereon, said computer readable program code comprising:

• computer readable program code means for receiving requests for cloud resources from client devices;
• computer readable program code means for storing a virtual machine (VM) image library with a plurality of VM images with bundled software for responding to received said requests, one or more of said images having an outstanding update, said outstanding update updating a part of a respective said VM image;
• computer readable program code means for provisioning VMs from said VM image library responsive to received client requests;
• and
• computer readable program code means for passing updated images to said computer readable program code means for provisioning and applying updates to respective ones of said images in said VM image library on a routine basis, and for
• determining whether said request are for VM images with any outstanding updates when a requests are received, and when one or more updates are outstanding
• selectively based on gathered data and history of logged past VM requests, updating images in said VM image library or
• providing updated individual VM images to said computer readable program code means for provisioning respective VMs and queuing said single instances for subsequently updating said individual VM images in said VM image library, and otherwise
• passing VM images from said VM image library.