Method and apparatus for policy-based provisioning in a virtualized service delivery environment

A program storage device readable by a plurality of computers interconnected with each other in a distributed computing network, said device having a program of instructions which are tangibly embodied on said storage device and which are executable by said computers, to perform a method of providing policy based provisioning of middleware components to provide a solution, said method comprising:

• determining a selection of said middleware components that are necessary to provide said solution;
• determining the configuration of each of a number of said computers on which said selected middleware components are to deployed so as to satisfy a selected configuration policy;
• installing said selected middleware components on said number of said computers;
• monitoring the progress of installation of each of said selected middleware components during said installing;
• and
• computing a deviation of a predictive value associated with said selected configuration policy from an actual value based on said monitoring;
• recomputing an objective function of said selected configuration policy;
• and
• dynamically adjusting the configuration of said number of said computers during said installing by adjusting at least one of the following parameters of a virtual machine of each of said number of said computers:
• memory size, disk size, and percent usage of a central processing unit to satisfy said selected configuration policy.

A method of providing policy based provisioning of middleware components to provide a solution, said method comprising:

• determining middleware components that are necessary to provide a solution by accessing a storage device;
• determining an initial configuration of virtual machines for a plurality of computers on which the middleware components are to deployed to satisfy a selected configuration policy for the solution;
• generating a deployment sequence of the middleware components;
• creating the virtual machines with the initial configuration;
• installing a progress monitor on each virtual machine;
• initiating deployment of the middleware components to the virtual machines;
• monitoring the progress of installation of each middleware component on a virtual machine during said deployment;
• computing a deviation of a predictive value associated with said selected configuration policy from an actual value based on said monitoring;
• recomputing an objective function of said selected configuration policy;
• dynamically adjusting the initial configuration of said virtual machines during said deployment to satisfy said selected configuration policy based on said recomputing;
• and
• installing the solution on the middleware components.