Patents by Inventor Malcolm Featonby

Malcolm Featonby has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 12585509
    Abstract: Techniques are described for enabling a container service of a cloud provider network to detect imbalances of container placements across a selected set of availability zones (AZs) and to automatically rebalance placement of the containers, if needed. An actual distribution of containers may differ from an expected distribution according to a configured placement strategy, e.g., due to an outage or other operational issue affecting one or more of the AZs, scaling operations over time, and the like. In these and other scenarios, the container service can rebalance placement of the containers by terminating one or more containers in one or more of the AZs and launching additional containers in one or more other AZs to restore a more desirable balance. The periodic rebalancing of containers in this manner improves a container-based application's ability to load balance demand and further improves application availability by ensuring sufficient capacity is spread across multiple AZs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 24, 2026
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Kumar Deepak Syam Kallakuri, Malcolm Featonby
  • Publication number: 20260003659
    Abstract: Disclosed are systems and methods that offload the work traditionally performed by a thick software client operating on each container instance of a cloud provider network with a thin and generalized agent that can be instructed in a piece-wise manner to perform operations as instructed by a workload manager executing on a control plane that is separate from the container instance. The workload manager, executing on the control plane of a cloud provider network, may precompute a set of operations and order of execution of those operations in the control plane and present those operations in a controlled manner to the agent that executes each operation as instructed. The agent executing on the data plane, rather than polling an orchestrator for work and then establishing the runtime environment based on a received Application Specification, awaits an operation or task that is pushed to the agent from the control plane.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 28, 2024
    Publication date: January 1, 2026
    Inventors: Christopher Grover Baker, Swagat Bora, Carl Hamilton Hiltbrunner, Anirudh Balachandra Aithal, Nenghui Fang, Malcolm Featonby, Lee Spencer Dillard
  • Patent number: 12443424
    Abstract: Provided is a system for managing a pool of compute resources usable to execute user codes such as containerized software applications. The pool may include a plurality of sub-pools of compute instances that are each suited to handle a specific type of code execution requests and/or a specific set of capacity or resource configurations. For example, when a code execution request is received, the system may determine compute capacity from which sub-pool would be best suited to handle the request, and direct the request to that sub-pool (or execute the user code using compute capacity from that sub-pool). Each sub-pool may be assigned a generational indicator that indicates its level of use (e.g., rarely used, moderately use, frequently used, etc.) and/or its age (e.g., brand new, young, old, etc.). As a sub-pool experiences continued use, the sub-pool may be promoted and its retention/replenishment policy may be updated accordingly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2025
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Saloni Sonpal, Axel David Velazquez
  • Patent number: 12436814
    Abstract: Systems and methods for implementing a right-sizing service that recommends and automatically implements resource sizing recommendations for compute clusters executing applications is disclosed. Performance metrics for compute nodes executing the application may be gathered and normalized, with anomalous nodes excluded. Then, respective time series data for the compute nodes may be temporally aligned to identify phases of execution of the application and resource sizes may be estimated for the various phases. A resource sizing recommendation may then be made based in part on this estimated resource sizes. The sizing recommendation may further integrate with other sizing recommendations and be used to manually or automatically size a compute cluster or selected among a number of pre-sized compute clusters, in various embodiments.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 7, 2025
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Shaokang Ni, Siyu Wang, Letian Feng, Malcolm Featonby, Nathaniel Baird Jones, Zachary Daniel Casper
  • Patent number: 12423161
    Abstract: Systems and methods for implementing a right-sizing service that recommends and automatically implements sizing recommendations for nodes and resources of compute clusters executing applications is disclosed. Performance metrics for compute nodes executing the application may be gathered and normalized with anomalous nodes excluded. Then, respective time series data for the compute nodes may be temporally aligned to identify phases of execution of the application and resource sizes may be estimated for the various phases. A sizing recommendation may then be made based in part on this estimated resource sizes. The sizing recommendation may further integrate with other sizing recommendations and be used to manually or automatically size a compute cluster or selected among a number of pre-sized compute clusters, in various embodiments.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2022
    Date of Patent: September 23, 2025
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Shaokang Ni, Siyu Wang, Letian Feng, Malcolm Featonby, Nathaniel Baird Jones, Zachary Daniel Casper
  • Patent number: 12190144
    Abstract: Generally described, one or more aspects of the present application relate to prefetching container image layers for use in a cluster of compute instances. For example, the dependencies among the individual layers within the container images stored and/or executed on a cloud provider network may be analyzed. Then, the layers that are likely to be used by a user of the cloud provider network may be identified and prefetched into the caches of the compute instances provided by the cloud provider network, before execution of the container images including such layers is requested by the user. By doing so, the latency between the time a request to execute a set of container images is received and the time the execution of the set of container images is actually initiated can be reduced, thereby providing an improved and more efficient application execution experience to the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2025
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Omar Paul, Munindra N Das
  • Patent number: 12135980
    Abstract: Techniques for an optimization service of a service provider network to help optimize the selection, configuration, and utilization, of virtual machine (VM) instance types to support workloads on behalf of users. The optimization service may implement the techniques described herein at various stages in a life cycle of a workload to help optimize the performance of the workload, and reduce underutilization of computing resources. For example, the optimization service may perform techniques to help new users select an optimized VM instance type on which to initially launch their workload. Further, the optimization service may monitor a workload for the life of the workload, and determine new VM instance types, and/or configuration modifications, that optimize the performance of the workload. The optimization service may provide recommendations to users that help improve performance of their workloads, and that also increase the aggregate utilization of computing resources of the service provider network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2022
    Date of Patent: November 5, 2024
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Leslie Johann Lamprecht, John Merrill Phillips, Umesh Chandani, Roberto Pentz De Faria, Hou Liu, Ladan Mahabadi, Letian Feng
  • Patent number: 12028268
    Abstract: Techniques implemented by a cloud computing system for providing fallback capacity providers to ensure that infrastructure capacity required to run containerized services is available despite primary capacity providers experiencing a failure. Cloud providers offer container-management services that automate the management and scaling of containerized services of users. The container-management services are supported by capacity providers that manage the computing infrastructure on which the containerized services run (e.g., servers, VMs, etc.). However, there are times when a capacity provider is unable to provision capacity for containerized services, such as due to a large scale failure. Rather than leaving capacity requests unserved, the container-management service designates a fallback capacity provider that acts as a failover for provisioning requested infrastructure capacity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2022
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2024
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Derek J Petersen, Abhishek Nautiyal, Li chieh Young
  • Patent number: 11892418
    Abstract: Provided is a system for inspecting and optimizing containerized software applications. A container image may include a plurality of files and layers, and some of such files and layers may not be used during the execution of the container image. A system described herein can identify and remove such unused files and/or layers from the container image by launching an inspector task configured to launch the container image, monitor access to the files in the container image, identify which files are unused, and remove the unused files from the container image (or generate a new container image not including the unused files). By doing so, the system can reduce the size of the container image, which can reduce the storage costs, startup latency, and security vulnerabilities associated with the container image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2024
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Sravan Rengarajan
  • Patent number: 11710206
    Abstract: A graphic session coordinator is established to enable remote virtualized graphics operations on behalf of a set of graphics request generators. A request generator submits a graphics session request to the session coordinator. A configuration operation is performed at one or more routing devices to enable graphics operation request packets from the request generator to be delivered to a first remote virtualized graphics device and to enable graphics operation response packets to be transmitted to a destination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 25, 2023
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Mihir Sadruddin Surani, Adithya Bhat, Malcolm Featonby, Yuxuan Liu, Douglas Cotton Kurtz, Umesh Chandani
  • Patent number: 11573816
    Abstract: Generally described, one or more aspects of the present application relate to prefetching container images for use in a cluster of virtual machines. For example, the cluster manifest may indicate an ordered list of image repositories and a set of container images that are likely to be executed on the cluster. Based on this indication, the set of container images can be prefetched onto the caches of the virtual machines in the cluster, such that when requests to execute those container images are eventually received, the container images can be accessed from the caches rather than from a remote repository.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 26, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2023
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Richard Lee Sanders, Fernando Paiva Zandona, Omar Paul
  • Publication number: 20220413891
    Abstract: Techniques for an optimization service of a service provider network to help optimize the selection, configuration, and utilization, of virtual machine (VM) instance types to support workloads on behalf of users. The optimization service may implement the techniques described herein at various stages in a life cycle of a workload to help optimize the performance of the workload, and reduce underutilization of computing resources. For example, the optimization service may perform techniques to help new users select an optimized VM instance type on which to initially launch their workload. Further, the optimization service may monitor a workload for the life of the workload, and determine new VM instance types, and/or configuration modifications, that optimize the performance of the workload. The optimization service may provide recommendations to users that help improve performance of their workloads, and that also increase the aggregate utilization of computing resources of the service provider network.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 11, 2022
    Publication date: December 29, 2022
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Leslie Johann Lamprecht, John Merrill Phillips, Umesh Chandani, Roberto Pentz De Faria, Hou Liu, Ladan Mahabadi, Letian Feng
  • Patent number: 11487591
    Abstract: Provided is a system for automatically generating a set of parameters that can be used to execute a user application on a cluster of compute instances on behalf of a user, where the set of parameters specifies the one or more container images that need to be executed as part of executing the user application. For example, the user may specify a set of container images that are part of the user application, and the system may automatically determine the parameters that define the computing environment in which the user application is to be executed, such as the resource allocation and networking configuration parameters, without the user having to provide such parameters to the system. These parameters can be packaged into the set of parameters (also referred to herein as a task definition), which can be used in future executions of the user application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2022
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Malcolm Featonby
  • Publication number: 20220291941
    Abstract: Techniques for an optimization service of a service provider network to help optimize the selection, configuration, and utilization, of virtual machine (VM) instance types to support workloads on behalf of users. The optimization service may implement the techniques described herein at various stages in a life cycle of a workload to help optimize the performance of the workload, and reduce underutilization of computing resources. For example, the optimization service may perform techniques to help new users select an optimized VM instance type on which to initially launch their workload. Further, the optimization service may monitor a workload for the life of the workload, and determine new VM instance types, and/or configuration modifications, that optimize the performance of the workload. The optimization service may provide recommendations to users that help improve performance of their workloads, and that also increase the aggregate utilization of computing resources of the service provider network.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 24, 2022
    Publication date: September 15, 2022
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Leslie Johann Lamprecht, John Merrill Phillips, Umesh Chandani, Roberto Pentz De Faria, Hou Liu, Ladan Mahabadi, Letian Feng
  • Patent number: 11409796
    Abstract: A database service that receives and manages time series data into a set of generational data tables. The database service generates a set of generational data tables configured to receive a subset of time series data. Each generational data table is created with an initial set of access parameters that facilitates the receipt of incoming time series data. Thereafter, the database service creates additional generational data tables to receive the continuous received time series data and then modifies the access parameters of the previously created data table, such as for read only rights.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 9, 2022
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Mihir Sadruddin Surani, Roberto Pentz De Faria, Mohit Gupta, Yuxuan Liu, Leslie Johann Lamprecht, John Merrill Phillips, John David Dunagan, Malcolm Featonby
  • Patent number: 11403150
    Abstract: Provided is a system for managing the resource limit associated with a user, where the resource limit indicates the amount of compute resources the user is allowed to use. As the user requests and obtains additional resources from a pool of resources, the user's resource usage is increased to reflect the additional resources being used by the user. As the resources used by the user are released, to ensure that the pool of resources has sufficient capacity to handle additional resource requests, the replenishment status of the pool is further checked, and if the replenishment status satisfies a condition for updating the user's resource usage, the user's resource usage is decreased to reflect the resources that are no longer in use by the user. The released resources are torn down and re-provisioned back into the pool of resources.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2022
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Mats Lanner, Archana Srikanta, Carlos Eduardo Lopez Biagi
  • Patent number: 11385920
    Abstract: Techniques for an optimization service of a service provider network to help optimize the selection, configuration, and utilization, of virtual machine (VM) instance types to support workloads on behalf of users. The optimization service may implement the techniques described herein at various stages in a life cycle of a workload to help optimize the performance of the workload, and reduce underutilization of computing resources. For example, the optimization service may perform techniques to help new users select an optimized VM instance type on which to initially launch their workload. Further, the optimization service may monitor a workload for the life of the workload, and determine new VM instance types, and/or configuration modifications, that optimize the performance of the workload. The optimization service may provide recommendations to users that help improve performance of their workloads, and that also increase the aggregate utilization of computing resources of the service provider network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2022
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Leslie Johann Lamprecht, John Merrill Phillips, Umesh Chandani, Roberto Pentz De Faria, Hou Liu, Ladan Mahabadi, Letian Feng
  • Patent number: 11372663
    Abstract: Techniques for an optimization service of a service provider network to help optimize the selection, configuration, and utilization, of virtual machine (VM) instance types to support workloads on behalf of users. The optimization service may implement the techniques described herein at various stages in a life cycle of a workload to help optimize the performance of the workload, and reduce underutilization of computing resources. For example, the optimization service may perform techniques to help new users select an optimized VM instance type on which to initially launch their workload. Further, the optimization service may monitor a workload for the life of the workload, and determine new VM instance types, and/or configuration modifications, that optimize the performance of the workload. The optimization service may provide recommendations to users that help improve performance of their workloads, and that also increase the aggregate utilization of computing resources of the service provider network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 28, 2022
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Leslie Johann Lamprecht, John Merrill Phillips, Umesh Chandani, Roberto Pentz De Faria, Hou Liu, Ladan Mahabadi, Letian Feng
  • Patent number: 11368407
    Abstract: Techniques for failover management using availability groups are described. According to some embodiments, customers can define one or more availability groups within their infrastructure. Each availability group may be associated with one or more rules which describe how the availability group should fail over. The availability group definition may define the resources included in the availability group, a target region to fail over to, and capacity reservations for the availability group in the target region. In some embodiments, the definition may also include a replication frequency for storage resources which defines how often data is backed up. Once a customer as created an availability group the customer is then able to either create resources in that availability group or associate already existing resources with the availability group. An availability group management service can ensure that data, capacity reservations and network infrastructure are defined and/or replicated to the target location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 21, 2022
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Manish Singh Rathaur, Nishant Mehta
  • Patent number: 11360795
    Abstract: Techniques for an optimization service of a service provider network to help optimize the selection, configuration, and utilization, of virtual machine (VM) instance types to support workloads on behalf of users. The optimization service may implement the techniques described herein at various stages in a life cycle of a workload to help optimize the performance of the workload, and reduce underutilization of computing resources. For example, the optimization service may perform techniques to help new users select an optimized VM instance type on which to initially launch their workload. Further, the optimization service may monitor a workload for the life of the workload, and determine new VM instance types, and/or configuration modifications, that optimize the performance of the workload. The optimization service may provide recommendations to users that help improve performance of their workloads, and that also increase the aggregate utilization of computing resources of the service provider network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 14, 2022
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Malcolm Featonby, Leslie Johann Lamprecht, John Merrill Phillips, Umesh Chandani, Roberto Pentz De Faria, Hou Liu, Ladan Mahabadi, Letian Feng