Patent ID: 8713060

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of controlling at least a configuration aspect of a relational database using a control environment, comprising: under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions, receiving a Web services call from a customer to the control environment through a control interface; analyzing the Web services call to determine an action to be performed with respect to the configuration aspect of at least one data instance of the relational database, the configuration aspect relating to at least one of creating, deleting, backing up, recovery, scaling, replicating, provisioning, upgrading, patch management, failover, or capacity management of the at least one data instance, the at least one data instance residing in a data environment that is separate from the control environment; storing information for the action to a job queue; extracting the information for the action from the job queue and generating a workflow based at least in part upon the information, the workflow comprising a series of tasks to be performed in the data environment with respect to the action; for each task of the workflow, sending state information for the task to a host manager for a host machine in the data environment operable to perform the task and return a response regarding performance of the task, a successful completion of each non-final task resulting in sending state information for a subsequent task of the workflow to the host manager; and when the response received from the host machine indicates that a final task of the workflow has been completed successfully, sending a notification to the customer that the action was successfully performed, wherein configuration of the at least one data instance by the customer is performed using the control interface of the control environment, and the customer is able to directly access the at least one data instance after the action is performed using a data interface of the data environment without accessing the control environment.