Hybrid simulation in a cloud computing environment

Abstract

A simulation mechanism manages deployment of a simplified computing solution (SCS) and a corresponding simulation model that simulates a scaled multiple of the SCS to allow a deployment configuration for a large scale computing solution to be determined and tested before actually deploying the large scale computing solution.

1 . An apparatus comprising:
 at least one processor;   a memory coupled to the at least one processor;   a simulation mechanism residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor, wherein the simulation mechanism tests deployment of a computing solution before full deployment of the computing solution on computer resources;   a deployment configuration for the computing solution in an initial state;   wherein the simulation mechanism creates a simplified computing solution for the computing solution and a simulation model corresponding to the simplified computing solution, and dynamically scales up the simplified computing solution with the simulation model while monitoring the system performance and adjusting the deployment configuration; and   wherein the simulation mechanism deploys the computing solution on the computer resources with the adjusted deployment configuration.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the simulation mechanism scales up the simplified computing solution with the simulation model by monitoring the simplified computing solution and adjusting the simulation model; deploying the simulation model; running a benchmark on the simulation model; and if the benchmark is acceptable deploying the adjusted simulation model to the simplified computing solution. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the simulation mechanism scales up the simplified computing solution to a target by one or more steps. 
     
     
         4 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the deployment configuration includes at least one open virtualization format (OFV) file. 
     
     
         5 . The apparatus of  claim 4  wherein the at least one OVF file comprises network resources, disk resources, memory resources, operating system resources, and computer processor resources allocated to components of the computing solution. 
     
     
         6 . The apparatus of  claim 5  wherein the computer processor resources include the number of physical computer processing units assigned to a corresponding component. 
     
     
         7 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the computer resources are in a cloud computing environment. 
     
     
         8 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the simulation model is deployed as a single virtual machine. 
     
     
         9 . The apparatus of  claim 8  wherein the simulation model includes a plurality of model elements that simulate a load on the system of the corresponding element of the simplified computing solution.