Method for automatic management of capacity and placement for global services

A system for creating new web service instances for a particular web service in a large-scale distributed system, the system comprising:

• one or more processing devices and
• one or more storage devices storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing devices cause the one or more processing devices to:
• analyze historical service load data to determine a total service load for the web service, wherein the web service is provided from assigned web service instances hosted by a plurality of datacenters included in the large-scale distributed system, each assigned web service instance having an existing service load capacity, and wherein the historical service load data is based at least in part on a model of data traffic assignments according to one or more load balancing rules;
• determine whether a capacity needed to support the total service load is greater than the existing service load capacities of the assigned web service instances;
• when the capacity needed to support the total service load is greater than the existing service load capacities of the assigned web service instances, create one or more new web service instances;
• and
• assign a location score to each of a plurality of potential web service instance locations within the large-scale distributed system calculated, and
• wherein to assign the location score for a given one of the plurality of potential web service instance locations includes multiplying a service load to be handled at the given one by a function of network distances associated with physical origins of service load traffic for the given one.

A system for providing a web service in a large-scale distributed system, the system comprising:

• one or more processing devices and
• one or more storage devices storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing devices cause the one or more processing devices to:
• receive web service requests for the web service over a communication network;
• route the respective web service requests to particular ones of a plurality of datacenters included in the large-scale distributed system that host web service instances assigned to provide the web service, wherein each assigned web service instance has an existing service load capacity;
• analyze historical service load data to determine a total service load for the web service, wherein the historical service load data is based at least in part on a model of data traffic assignments according to one or more load balancing rules;
• determine whether a capacity needed to support the total service load is greater than the existing service load capacities of the assigned web service instances;
• when the capacity needed to support the total service load is greater than the existing service load capacities of the assigned web service instances, create one or more new web service instances;
• and
• assign a location score to each of a plurality of potential web service instance locations within the large-scale distributed system calculated, and
• wherein assigning the location score for a given one of the plurality of potential web service instance locations includes multiplying a service load to be handled at the given one by a decreasing function of network distances to the determined physical origins of service load traffic for the given one.