Enforceable launch configurations

Users intending to launch instances or otherwise access virtual resources in a multi-tenant environment can specify a launch configuration. For each type of instance or each type of user, at least one launch configuration is created that includes parameters and values to be used in instantiating an instance of that type, the values being optimized for the current environment and type of instance. Launch configurations can be optimized for different types of users, such as to account for security credentials and access levels. Such an approach enables users to launch instances by contacting the resource provider directly without need for a proxy, which can function as a choke point under heavy load. The use of an appropriate launch configuration can be enforced for any type of user at any level, such as at the sub-net level, by modifying a request that does not specify an appropriate launch configuration.

BACKGROUND

As an increasing number of applications and services are being made available over networks such as the Internet, an increasing number of content, application, and/or service providers are turning to technologies such multi-tenant resources and cloud computing. These technologies enable customers to access and/or utilize various types of electronic resources, physical or virtual, where the hardware and/or software used to provide these resources can be dynamically scalable to meet the needs of the multiple customers at any given time. A customer typically will rent, lease, or otherwise pay for access to these resources, and thus does not have to purchase and maintain the hardware and/or software to obtain the functionality provided by these resources.

In certain situations, a customer might want to create an instance, such as a compute instance or database instance, in such a multi-tenant environment. In order to provision such an instance, the customer typically has to specify values for a large number of parameters, such as may include an image to use for the instance and a type of machine to run the instance. The customer also might have to specify various credentials, security groups, placement groups, and various other options. It will often be the case, however, that the customer is not an expert in creating these instances and/or will not be aware of optimal parameters or values for a given system or environment at a given time. The customer often has to hire someone to configure the instances, or utilize instances with less than optimal performance, each of which can be undesirable for many customers. Further, a system administrator or other such person for a customer will want to ensure that the individual users or applications for the customer utilize the optimal parameters. Conventional systems do not enable a customer's administrator to easily and accurately specify and enforce the use of specific parameter values and ranges for various users and types of instance.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure may overcome one or more of the aforementioned and other deficiencies experienced in conventional approaches to enabling customers to utilize and/or instantiate resources in a multi-tenant environment. In particular, approaches in accordance with various embodiments provide one or more launch configurations for each type of resource instance that a customer might want to launch in that environment. Each launch configuration can encapsulate the various parameters for a respective type of instance, such as into a single object or set of values, for example, enabling a customer to launch an instance (or volume, etc.) of a certain type using only a single identifier for, or otherwise specifying, an appropriate launch configuration. There can be multiple launch configurations for an instance type, where each configuration is optimized for at least one type of use or function. For example, one launch configuration might provide better processing speed while another launch configuration might provide greater capacity or throughput, lower latency values, etc. Any of a number of different types of optimizations or variations can be utilized as well as should be apparent in light of the present disclosure. Further, although many examples discussed herein relate to the launching of instances, it should be understood that configurations can be used for various other purposes as well, such as a customer obtaining access to any resource, system, service, or device in such an environment where the customer must specify a variety of parameters for the access.

In some cases, different launch configurations can be available to different customers or types of customer. For example, a large enterprise organization might include employees of various types or categories who are able to launch instances, make calls to instances, or otherwise access shared resources for the enterprise. In many cases, different types of users will have different levels of privileges, and the enterprise would like to be able to control how instances look or function for each type of user. In at least some embodiments, such an organization can specify enforceable and compulsory launch configurations, where each type of employee with access to these shared resources can have an associated launch configuration, as may be defined by a trusted employee, system administrator, etc. And in certain embodiments, a user might not need to know anything about the mandatory launch configuration for that user, as any call from that user for an instance can automatically be associated with the launch configuration for that type of user. Thus, a user can launch an instance with the mandatory parameters without having to specify those parameters or, in at least some cases, even identify the appropriate launch configuration.

The ability to enforce launch configurations can be especially important in situations such as where instances are launched using an isolated set of compute resources via a virtual private network (VPN) connection, which can link the compute resources to the infrastructure for an organization. A specified launch configuration can be constrained to launch only in a specified sub-network using a trusted operating system, using specified security settings and credentials, in a way that is not rootable from the Internet or another external network. Thus, in addition to controlling the types of instance a user is able to launch, the configuration can prevent an unwitting or potentially malicious user from obtaining an entry point into the organization's network.

In some embodiments, a user attempting to launch an instance without using the proper launch configuration can have that launch request rejected and/or a notification sent that the request cannot be completed. In other embodiments, the system might indicate to the user the proper launch configuration to use for the request, such that the user can either approve use of that launch configuration or send another request specifying the configuration. In still other embodiments, the system might automatically adjust the request to specify the correct launch configuration.

Various embodiments provide a separate control environment, or control plane, that can be used to enable a user to specify and manage various aspects of a data environment, or data plane. This “self-service” functionality can be provided via a set of Web services, enabling the user and control plane to act together as a virtual database administrator (DBA). A user or customer can submit a request to the control plane through one of a plurality of externally-visible application programming interfaces (APIs), for example. Various APIs can be used to perform specific functions with respect to various resources in the data environment. A request received to one of the APIs can be analyzed to determine the desired action(s) to be performed in the data plane, such as actions to launch a customer instance, as well as to determine any configuration parameters to be used in launching the instance. A component such as a resource management component can determine the appropriate tasks for the action, ensure that the proper launch configurations are selected, and cause the tasks to be executed in an appropriate order. At least one of these tasks typically will be performed in the data environment, such as to launch or adjust an aspect of a resource instance.

An environment such as that illustrated inFIG. 1can be useful for a provider such as an electronic marketplace, wherein multiple hosts might be used to perform tasks such as serving content, authenticating users, performing payment transactions, or performing any of a number of other such tasks. Some of these hosts may be configured to offer the same functionality, while other servers might be configured to perform at least some different functions. The electronic environment in such cases might include additional components and/or other arrangements, such as those illustrated in the configuration200ofFIG. 2, discussed in detail below.

Approaches in accordance with various embodiments can be utilized with a system such as may provide a relational database service (“RDS”) that enables developers, customers, or other authorized users to obtain and configure relational databases and other such data sources so that users can perform tasks such as storing, processing, and querying relational data sets in a cloud. While this example is discussed with respect to the Internet, Web services, and Internet-based technology, it should be understood that aspects of the various embodiments can be used with any appropriate services available or offered over a network in an electronic environment. Further, while the service is referred to herein as a “relational database service,” it should be understood that such a service can be used with any appropriate type of data repository or data storage in an electronic environment. An RDS in this example includes at least one Web service that enables users or customers to easily manage resources and relational data sets without worrying about the administrative complexities of deployment, upgrades, patch management, backups, replication, failover, capacity management, scaling, and other such aspects of data management. Developers are thus freed to develop sophisticated cloud applications without worrying about the complexities of managing the database infrastructure.

An RDS in one embodiment provides a separate “control plane” that includes components (e.g., hardware and software) useful for managing aspects of the data storage. In one embodiment, a set of data management application programming interfaces (APIs) or other such interfaces are provided that allow a user or customer to make calls into the RDS to perform certain tasks relating to the data storage. The user still can use the direct interfaces or APIs to communicate with the data repositories, however, and can use the RDS-specific APIs of the control plane only when necessary to manage the data storage or perform a similar task.

FIG. 2illustrates an example of an RDS implementation200that can be used in accordance with one embodiment. In this example, a computing device202for an end user is shown to be able to make calls through a network206into a control plane208to perform a task such as to provision a data repository of the data plane210. The user or an application204can access the provisioned repository directly through an interface of a data plane210. While an end user computing device and application are used for purposes of explanation, it should be understood that any appropriate user, application, service, device, component, or resource can access the interface(s) of the control plane and/or data plane as appropriate in the various embodiments. Further, while the components are separated into control and data “planes,” it should be understood that this can refer to an actual or virtual separation of at least some resources (e.g., hardware and/or software) used to provide the respective functionality.

The control plane208in this example is essentially a virtual layer of hardware and software components that handles control and management actions, such as provisioning, scaling, replication, etc. The control plane in this embodiment includes a Web services layer212, or tier, which can include at least one Web server, for example, along with computer-executable software, application servers, or other such components. The Web services layer also can include a set of APIs232(or other such interfaces) for receiving Web services calls or requests from across the network206. Each API can be provided to receive requests for at least one specific action to be performed with respect to the data environment, such as to provision, scale, clone, or hibernate an instance of a relational database. Upon receiving a request to one of the APIs, the Web services layer can parse or otherwise analyze the request to determine the steps or actions needed to act on or process the call. For example, a Web service call might be received that includes a request to create a data repository. In this example, the Web services layer can parse the request to determine the type of data repository to be created, the storage volume requested, the type of hardware requested (if any), or other such aspects. Information for the request can be written to an administration (“Admin”) data store222, or other appropriate storage location or job queue, for subsequent processing.

A Web service layer in one embodiment includes a scalable set of customer-facing servers that can provide the various control plane APIs and return the appropriate responses based on the API specifications. The Web service layer also can include at least one API service layer that in one embodiment consists of stateless, replicated servers which process the externally-facing customer APIs. The Web service layer can be responsible for Web service front end features such as authenticating customers based on credentials, authorizing the customer, throttling customer requests to the API servers, validating user input, and marshalling or unmarshalling requests and responses. The API layer also can be responsible for reading and writing database configuration data to/from the administration data store, in response to the API calls. In many embodiments, the Web services layer and/or API service layer will be the only externally visible component, or the only component that is visible to, and accessible by, customers of the control service. The servers of the Web services layer can be stateless and scaled horizontally as known in the art. API servers, as well as the persistent data store, can be spread across multiple data centers in a geographical region, or near a geographical location, for example, such that the servers are resilient to single data center failures.

The control plane in this embodiment includes what is referred to herein as a “sweeper” component214. A sweeper component can be any appropriate component operable to poll various components of the control plane or otherwise determine any tasks to be executed in response to an outstanding request. In this example, the Web services layer might place instructions or information for the “create database” request in the admin data store222, or a similar job queue, and the sweeper can periodically check the admin data store for outstanding jobs. Various other approaches can be used as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art, such as the Web services layer sending a notification to a sweeper that a job exists. The sweeper component can pick up the “create database” request, and using information for the request can send a request, call, or other such command to a workflow component216operable to instantiate at least one workflow for the request. The workflow in one embodiment is generated and maintained using a workflow service as is discussed elsewhere herein. A workflow in general is a sequence of tasks that should be executed to perform a specific job. The workflow is not the actual work, but an abstraction of the work that controls the flow of information and execution of the work. A workflow also can be thought of as a state machine, which can manage and return the state of a process at any time during execution. A workflow component (or system of components) in one embodiment is operable to manage and/or perform the hosting and executing of workflows for tasks such as: repository creation, modification, and deletion; recovery and backup; security group creation, deletion, and modification; user credentials management; and key rotation and credential management. Such workflows can be implemented on top of a workflow service, as discussed elsewhere herein. The workflow component also can manage differences between workflow steps used for different database engines, such as MySQL, as the underlying workflow service does not necessarily change.

In this example, a workflow can be instantiated using a workflow template for creating a database and applying information extracted from the original request. For example, if the request is for a MySQL® Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) instance, as opposed to an Oracle® RDBMS or other such instance, then a specific task will be added to the workflow that is directed toward MySQL instances. The workflow component also can select specific tasks related to the amount of storage requested, any specific hardware requirements, or other such tasks. These tasks can be added to the workflow in an order of execution useful for the overall job. While some tasks can be performed in parallel, other tasks rely on previous tasks to be completed first. The workflow component or service can include this information in the workflow, and the tasks can be executed and information passed as needed.

An example “create database” workflow for a customer might includes tasks such as ensuring the proper set of launch configuration parameters is specified for the request, provisioning a data store instance utilizing a set of launch configuration parameters, allocating a volume of off-instance persistent storage, attaching the persistent storage volume to the data store instance, then allocating and attaching a DNS address or other address, port, interface, or identifier which the customer can use to access or otherwise connect to the data instance. In this example, a user is provided with the DNS address and a port address to be used to access the instance. The workflow component can manage the execution of these and any related tasks, or any other appropriate combination of such tasks, and can generate a response to the request indicating the creation of a “database” in response to the “create database” request, which actually corresponds to a data store instance in the data plane210, and provide the DNS address to be used to access the instance. A user then can access the data store instance directly using the DNS address and port, without having to access or go through the control plane208. Various other workflow templates can be used to perform similar jobs, such as deleting, creating, or modifying one of more data store instances, such as to increase storage. In some embodiments, the workflow information is written to storage, and at least one separate execution component (not shown) pulls or otherwise accesses or receives tasks to be executed based upon the workflow information. For example, there might be a dedicated provisioning component that executes provisioning tasks, and this component might not be called by the workflow component, but can monitor a task queue or can receive information for a provisioning task in any of a number of related ways as should be apparent.

The control plane208in this embodiment also includes at least one monitoring component218. When a data instance is created in the data plane, information for the instance can be written to a data store in the control plane, such as a monitoring data store220. It should be understood that the monitoring data store can be a separate data store, or can be a portion of another data store such as a distinct set of tables in an Admin data store222, or other appropriate repository. A monitoring component can access the information in the monitoring data store to determine active instances234in the data plane210. A monitoring component also can perform other tasks, such as collecting log and/or event information from multiple components of the control plane and/or data plane, such as the Web service layer, workflow component, sweeper component, and various host managers. Using such event information, the monitoring component can expose customer-visible events, for purposes such as implementing customer-facing APIs. A monitoring component can constantly monitor the health of all the running repositories and/or instances for the control plane, detect the failure of any of these instances, and initiate the appropriate recovery process(es).

Each instance234in the data plane can include at least one data store226and a host manager component228for the machine providing access to the data store. A host manager in one embodiment is an application or software agent executing on an instance and/or application server, such as a Tomcat or Java application server, programmed to manage tasks such as software deployment and data store operations, as well as monitoring a state of the data store and/or the respective instance. A host manager in one embodiment listens on a port that can only be reached from the internal system components, and is not available to customers or other outside entities. In some embodiments, the host manager cannot initiate any calls into the control plane layer. A host manager can be responsible for managing and/or performing tasks such as setting up the instances for a new repository, including setting up logical volumes and file systems, installing database binaries and seeds, and starting or stopping the repository. A host manager can monitor the health of the data store, as well as monitoring the data store for error conditions such as I/O errors or data storage errors, and can restart the data store if necessary. A host manager also perform and/or mange the installation of software patches and upgrades for the data store and/or operating system. A host manger also can collect relevant metrics, such as may relate to CPU, memory, and I/O usage.

The monitoring component can communicate periodically with each host manager228for monitored instances234, such as by sending a specific request or by monitoring heartbeats from the host managers, to determine a status of each host. In one embodiment, the monitoring component includes a set of event processors (or monitoring servers) configured to issue commands to each host manager, such as to get the status of a particular host and/or instance. If a response is not received after a specified number of retries, then the monitoring component can determine that there is a problem and can store information in the Admin data store222or another such job queue to perform an action for the instance, such as to verify the problem and re-provision the instance if necessary. The sweeper can access this information and kick off a recovery workflow for the instance to attempt to automatically recover from the failure. The host manager228can act as a proxy for the monitoring and other components of the control plane, performing tasks for the instances on behalf of the control plane components. Occasionally, a problem will occur with one of the instances, such as the corresponding host, instance, or volume crashing, rebooting, restarting, etc., which cannot be solved automatically. In one embodiment, there is a logging component (not shown) that can log these and other customer visibility events. The logging component can include an API or other such interface such that if an instance is unavailable for a period of time, a customer can call an appropriate “events” or similar API to get the information regarding the event. In some cases, a request may be left pending when an instance fails. Since the control plane in this embodiment is separate from the data plane, the control plane never receives the data request and thus cannot queue the request for subsequent submission (although in some embodiments this information could be forwarded to the control plane). Thus, the control plane in this embodiment provides information to the user regarding the failure so the user can handle the request as necessary.

As discussed, once an instance is provisioned and a user is provided with a DNS address or other address or location, the user can send requests “directly” to the data plane210through the network using a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) or other such client to directly interact with that instance234. In one embodiment, the data plane takes the form of (or at least includes or is part of) a computing cloud environment, or a set of Web services and resources that provides data storage and access across a “cloud” or dynamic network of hardware and/or software components. A DNS address is beneficial in such a dynamic cloud environment, as instance or availability failures, for example, can be masked by programmatically remapping a DNS address to any appropriate replacement instance for a use. A request received from a user202or application204, for example, can be directed to a network address translation (NAT) router224, or other appropriate component, which can direct the request to the actual instance234or host corresponding to the DNS of the request. As discussed, such an approach allows for instances to be dynamically moved, updated, replicated, etc., without requiring the user or application to change the DNS or other address used to access the instance. As discussed, each instance234can include a host manager228and a data store226, and can have at least one backup instance or copy in persistent storage230. Using such an approach, once the instance has been configured through the control plane, a user, application, service, or component can interact with the instance directly through requests to the data plane, without having to access the control plane232. For example, the user can directly issue structured query language (SQL) or other such commands relating to the data in the instance through the DNS address. The user would only have to access the control plane if the user wants to perform a task such as expanding the storage capacity of an instance. In at least one embodiment, the functionality of the control plane208can be offered as at least one service by a provider that may or may not be related to a provider of the data plane210, but may simply be a third-party service that can be used to provision and manage data instances in the data plane, and can also monitor and ensure availability of those instances in a separate data plane210.

As discussed, one advantage to providing the functionality of a control plane as a Web service or other such service is that the control plane can function as a virtual system administrator or virtual database administrator (DBA), for example, avoiding the need for an experienced human administrator to perform tasks such as verifying launch configurations and provisioning data. Many conventional approaches require such a human administrator to receive the necessary configuration information, determine whether the configuration is valid, optimize and tune the instance, and perform other such tasks, which take a significant amount of time and effort. Further, such an approach provides many opportunities for error. The ability of a user to specify these parameters, however, can cause the user to launch instances or otherwise access resources in ways that are not optimal for the current network or system environment. Specifying a specific launch configuration when submitting a request to a control plane or service as described herein, a user or customer can obtain optimal (or at least appropriate or allowed) performance for resource access. The control plane can perform the necessary tasks to create, launch, delete, modify, expand, and/or otherwise manage a resource or resource instance in response to the request. The control plane also can support several different types of resource in a consistent fashion, without requiring an expert in each type of resource.

FIG. 3illustrates an example situation in a multi-tenant resource environment300wherein two users302,304are of a different type with different access privileges. It should be understood, however, that while a multi-tenant environment might be able to support multiple users concurrently, such an environment does not require more than one user being active at any given time. Further, portions (e.g., a dedicated sub-environment) of such an environment might be provided that is not multi-tenant in nature. As discussed above, each of these users can have at least one associated launch configuration that can be used to specify parameters to be used in launching an instance or otherwise accessing or utilized a shared virtual resource. In this example, each user is able to send a request across at least one network306to an interface layer310of a control plane310, whereby a resource manager312or other such component is able to cause one or more instances to be launched in the data plane318. User A302submits a request324specifying launch configuration A. The resource manager312is operable to extract an identifier or other such information from the request and check that information against information in the user data store316, for example, in order to determine whether User A is of a type capable of using launch configuration A to launch instances. In this case, User A is determined to be of the type capable of utilizing configuration A, such that the resource manager can pull parameter values and/or other such information from a launch configuration data store314, for example, and submit one or more requests into the data plane to launch an instance of type A320in the data plane. Instance A will be launched and configured according to the parameter values of launch configuration A.

Similarly, User B304is of type B, and thus is capable of launching instances using launch configuration B. In this example, however, User B304submits a request326specifying configuration A. The resource manager312can check the information in the user data store316and determine that User B is not allowed or authorized to utilize the values of launch configuration A to launch an instance. In some embodiments, the resource manager312can cause the request to be denied since the request does not specify an appropriate launch configuration for that user. In other embodiments, the resource manager can send a message to User B304, indicating that the user specified a configuration to which the user does not have rights, and can ask the user to submit a new request specifying an appropriate configuration and/or asking the user to agree to allow the system to launch the instance using configuration B. In some embodiments, the system might send a notification to User B indicating to the user that the instance will instead be launched using one or more parameter values from configuration B, and in at least some embodiments will enable the user to confirm or cancel the launching of the instance using those values. In still other embodiments, the system might automatically launch an instance of type B322for User B using the parameter values from configuration B. Instance B is322illustrated using a dotted line inFIG. 3because in many of these and other embodiments the instance will only be launched in cases where User B in some way consents to the instance being launched using one or more parameters different from those specified in the original request.

FIG. 4illustrates an example process400that can be used to generate and/or associate one or more launch configurations with each of these and/or other types of user. It should be understood for this and other processes disclosed herein that there can be additional, fewer, or alternative steps performed in similar or alternative orders, or in parallel, within the scope of the various embodiments unless otherwise stated. In this example, a type of instance and/or resource is determined for which launch configurations are to be specified402. As discussed, different types of parameters might need to be specified for different types of resources, such as for compute nodes or storage nodes, as well as the types of instance capable of being provided for each type of resource. In this example, one or more types of user are also determined404, where each type of user might have different values specified for each of the parameters of a given instance type, based on information such as access rights and security privileges. Using at least this information, an appropriate entity such as a system or network administrator can determine appropriate parameter values (or value ranges) and/or transformations for each combination of user type and instance type, and can generate a launch configuration for each of those sets408(although in some instances a launch configuration might be the same for more than one type of user and/or type of instance). In some embodiments, one or more transformations might be specified in order to determine how to change or manage values submitted with a request that may not comply with certain rules or policies set for the instance type, such as to automatically adjust a specified parameter value that falls outside an allowable range. Users then can be provided with an identifier, or other information, useful in specifying a launch configuration for that type of user410. In some embodiments, a user can be provided with identifiers for multiple launch configurations that can be used by that type of user, along with information for each configuration, such that the user can specify an appropriate configuration based upon a task, type of request, or other information associated with an instance to be launched or configured for that user. One or more rules can be applied that ensure proper configurations are specified, and that any configurations or values falling outside allowable values or ranges are transformed accordingly. In some embodiments, there might be constraints placed on only a subset of the parameter values, such that users might be able to specify any appropriate value for some parameters but must specify certain values or ranges of values for other parameters. The number and/or selection of constraints can depend upon any number of factors, such as the type of user or instance, etc.

FIG. 5illustrates an example process500that can be used to process a request received from a user, where the user is associated with one or more launch configurations using a process such as that described with respect toFIG. 4. In this example, a request is received from a user to launch an instance502. A determination is made as to any launch configuration specified by the request504, such as where the request includes an identifier for a specific configuration. Based upon information such as user data, session data, a sending address of the request, etc., a type of the user associated with the request can also be determined506. If it is determined that the request specifies an appropriate launch configuration for that type of user508, an instance can be launched according to the parameter values specified by that configuration. If the request specified a configuration to which that type of user does not have privileges, or if the request does not specify a valid configuration, a variety of different actions can be taken based upon the type of user, system configuration, or other such information. For a first action, the user can be prompted to change to the appropriate launch configuration514, whether by confirming user of that configuration, sending a new request, specifying additional parameters, etc. If the user accepts the suggested configuration, the instance can be launched accordingly510. If the user does not accept that configuration, the request can be denied518. In some cases, a request specifying an inappropriate or incomplete launch configuration can be processed and the values for the request automatically added or adjusted to those specified by the appropriate launch configuration512, and the instance launched accordingly510. As discussed above, in some cases the user can be notified that the parameter values for the instance have been changed before the instance is launched, such that the user has the ability to cancel the request if desired or where the new parameter values will not work for the application for which the instance is being launched. In some cases, security settings might be added, applied, or augmented automatically where necessary, while various other customer-noticeable aspects such as instance sizes might be brought to the attention of the user for confirmation before being added or adjusted, etc. Various other options are available as well, such as enabling the user to utilize those parameter values but charging the user extra for the instance. In some instances, an alert or notification might be generated for a system administrator or monitoring portal that a user is attempting to launch an instance using an inappropriate launch configuration, such that an appropriate remedial action (e.g., warning or change in service) can be taken.

Such approaches enable a set of allowed launch configurations to be specified that users or customers may invoke with respect to a given environment, such as a particular multi-tenant or shared resource environment. As discussed, in some cases certain users might only be able to utilize certain of these configurations, while in other cases any user can utilize a launch configuration appropriate for the type of instance or resource, etc. In some embodiments, certain launch configurations can be specified by certain principals (i.e., users or users assuming particular roles) under certain conditions. In some embodiments, conditions such as network load and available resource types can be used in determining whether a user can specify a particular launch configuration at any given time. In some embodiments, a user might be allowed to launch a certain number of instances with a first launch configuration, and might be limited to a second launch configuration for additional instances. Various other approaches can be utilized in accordance with the various embodiments as should be apparent in light of the present disclosure.

In some embodiments, one or more policies can be utilized to specify restrictions on who (e.g., individual users or types of users) can employ a given launch configuration. In some cases, each network or development team can specify a policy determining how a type of instance should be configured for a type of user without having to utilize a proxy, which acts as a single choke point for handling all those launches. The user can instead be provided with the appropriate launch configuration information and call the resource provider directly. There can be a single policy for an instance type or multiple policies, such as one for the resource performance configuration and one for security, ensuring that resources are not wasted or instances run in a non-optimal matter while ensuring the integrity and security of the use of those resources.

In some embodiments, various policies can interact. For example, a user might have a policy specified that the user can create certain types of instances, and another policy that each of these types of instances must comply with a given naming policy. In some embodiments, each instance might have to have a tag associated with that user according to another policy. In any of these cases, the policies might refer to each other and/or one or more configurations might be utilized for a given instance and/or customer.

Further, configuration and/or policy information can be hierarchical and inherited from multiple sources. For example, an image might specify that an instance can only be launched with one of two specific kernels and only on certain instance types. Further, a subnet might specify that an instance must be launched with a particular security group or security settings. Thus, the launch configuration might not be a single configuration from a single source, but can be built up or constructed out of constraints from various sources.

In one embodiment, an access policy language can be used to specify bucket policies, as well as policies associated with users (and groups of users) underneath a given Web services account. This is publicly exposed and documented functionality. Instead of providing access control lists (ACLs) and capabilities, a user can be allowed to create a bucket where an ACL must appear on the bucket. A set of resources, such as a subnet, router, AMI, or snapshot, then can be in-scope for a given type of request. In some cases, each of these resources would have an opportunity to donate policy to the evaluation. For every resource or set of resources involved, one or more policies can be obtained (where determined to be applicable) for use in determining how and/or whether to process or augment a given request, whether to notify the user of an alternative request that could be processed, whether to add missing parameter values, etc.

An advantage to utilizing launch configurations is that a security team or network configuration team can have flexibility to enforce limits on certain types or ranges of operations, instead of having to limit all types of user by locking down certain functionality completely. Such an approach can unblock innovation at large companies where users are not required to all meet the same network and/or security constraints. For example, users can be allowed to utilize different sub-nets or launch instances of different sizes based on any of a number of factors as discussed elsewhere herein.

The launch configurations themselves can include a lot of expertise that would generally not be available to the average user. For example, a database administrator (DBA) can develop one or more configurations that are optimal for database instances of a given type for a given network configuration. And in some cases, a DBA might also tune one or more kernels for specific database operations, and might specify those kernels in different configurations. The launch configurations thus are not simply about prescriptive constraints as to what a user can or cannot do, but can provide optimal settings for a variety of users. This can be advantageous at least for the fact that the user does not have to know specifics of security groups and other aspects, as those settings are specified automatically.

As discussed, launch configurations are not limited to database instances or virtual compute nodes, for example, but can be applied to anything that can be launched or configured in an environment such as a multi-tenant, virtualized resource environment. Different configurations also can be specified for any appropriate user, group, or account level or type. Different configurations also can be specified based on information such as where the resources are located, the time of the request, and other such information.

In at least some embodiments, the launch configurations are not application-specific but rather application class-specific. For example, a given launch configuration might be able to apply to a set or category of actions, which can apply to one or more applications. Multiple applications might be able to be executed that can all run within the guidelines of an enforceable launch configuration. In such a situation, a user might be given an overall “sandbox” or complex environment, which can include different types of resources, in which the user can operate for a given type or class of actions or applications.