US 6,597,956 B1 · Method and apparatus for controlling an extensible computing system

Abstract

A Virtual Server Farm (VSF) is created out of a wide scale computing fabric (“Computing Grid”) which is physically constructed once and then logically divided up into VSFs for various organizations on demand. Allocation and control of the elements in the VSF is performed by a control plane connected to all computing, networking, and storage elements in the computing grid through special control ports. The control plane is comprised of a control mechanism hierarchy that includes one or more master control process mechanisms communicatively coupled to one or more slave control process mechanisms. The one or more master control process mechanisms instruct the slave control process mechanisms to establish VSFs by selecting subsets of processing and storage resources.

Claims45

Dependent claims

A control apparatus comprising:

a master control mechanism;
and
one or more slave control mechanisms communicatively coupled to the master control mechanism and being configured to, in response to one or more instructions from the master control mechanism, establish a first logical that contains a first subset of processing resources and a first subset of storage resources and is capable of operating independent of the master control mechanism and the one or more slave control mechanisms, wherein the first logical computing entity is established by:
selecting the first subset of processing resources from a set of processing resources,
selecting the first subset of storage resources from a set of storage resources, and
causing the first subset of processing resources to be communicatively coupled to the first subset of storage resources.

3 more elements

A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions for managing processing resources, wherein execution of the one or more sequences of one or more instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

initiating a master control mechanism;
and
initiating one or more slave control mechanisms communicatively coupled to the master control mechanism and being configured to, in response to one or more instructions from the master control mechanism, establish a first logical computing entity that contains a first subset of processing resources and a first subset of storage resources and is capable of operating independent of the master control mechanism and the one or more slave control mechanisms, wherein the first logical computing entity is established by:
selecting the first subset of processing resources from a set of processing resources,
selecting the first subset of storage resources from a set of storage resources, and
causing the first subset of processing resources to be communicatively coupled to the first subset of storage resources.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and apparatus for controlling an extensible computing system

Life of this patent

Method and apparatus for controlling an extensible computing system

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims45