Management of a virtual machine in a virtualized computing environment based on a fabric limit

• US 10,002,014 B2
• Filed: 07/10/2015
• Issued: 06/19/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Matzek, Samuel D., Tenner, Jeffrey W., McBrearty, Gerald F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nooristany, Sulaiman
• Application Number:
  US14/796,587
• Publication Number:
  US 20170012903A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,075 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4401 Bootstrapping security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/15 Interconnection of switching modules
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/356 for storage area networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches

Abstract

An apparatus and program product manage virtual machines in a virtualized computing environment based at least in part on limitations associated with storage fabrics through which virtual machines may access one or more storage systems in such an environment. The storage fabric limitations may be used, for example, in connection with placing virtual machines on hosts in a virtualized computing environment. As another example, storage fabric limitations may be used in connection with deploying virtual machines into a virtualized computing environment to reduce the likelihood of boot errors. As still another example, storage fabric limitations may be used in connection with load balancing across multiple fabrics in a virtualized computing environment.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory;

at least one processor; and

program code stored in the memory and configured upon execution by the at least one processor to manage virtualization in a computing environment of the type including one or more fabrics coupling a plurality of hosts to one or more storage systems, the program code configured to;

determine a fabric limit for a limited fabric resource of a first fabric among the one or more fabrics, wherein the limited fabric resource constrains a capacity of the fabric and the fabric limit comprises a limit on the limited fabric resource;

determine an allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric wherein the allocation is associated with a current usage of the limited fabric resource; and

control placement of a virtual machine on a first host among the plurality of hosts using at least one processor based at least in part upon the determined fabric limit and determined allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric such that the virtual machine is selectively deployed on the first host to access a storage system among the one or more storage systems using the first fabric during execution of the virtual machine on the first host;

wherein the limited fabric resource comprises a fabric login for a storage switch in the first fabric, and wherein the fabric limit comprises an active login limit of the storage switch.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the program code is further configured to determine an overcommitted fabric capacity for the first fabric from the fabric limit, and control placement of the virtual machine on the host based at least in part on the determined overcommitted fabric capacity for the first fabric.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the program code is configured to determine the overcommitted fabric capacity by adjusting the fabric limit by a fabric overcommit ratio.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the program code is configured to control placement of the virtual machine on the first host by:

determining a plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations from among the plurality of hosts, one or more fabrics and one or more storage systems;

scoring each of the plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations based at least in part on the determined fabric limit and determined allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric; and

placing the virtual machine on the first host based upon a score of a first candidate host, fabric and storage system combination including the first host.

5. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising a computer program;

and

program code stored on the non-transitory computer readable medium and configured upon execution by at least one processor to manage virtualization in a computing environment of the type including one or more fabrics coupling a plurality of hosts to one or more storage systems by;

determining a fabric limit for a limited fabric resource of a first fabric among the one or more fabrics, wherein the limited fabric resource constrains a capacity of the fabric and the fabric limit comprises a limit on the limited fabric resource;

determining an allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric, wherein the allocation is associated with a current usage of the limited fabric resource; and

controlling placement of a virtual machine on a first host among the plurality of hosts based at least in part upon the determined fabric limit and determined allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric such that the virtual machine is selectively deployed on the first host to access a storage system among the one or more storage systems using the first fabric during execution of the virtual machine on the first host;

wherein the limited fabric resource comprises a fabric login for a storage switch in the first fabric, and wherein the fabric limit comprises an active login limit of the storage switch.

6. The program product of claim 5, wherein the program code is further configured to determine an overcommitted fabric capacity for the first fabric from the fabric limit, and control placement of the virtual machine on the host based at least in part on the determined overcommitted fabric capacity for the first fabric.

7. The program product of claim 6, wherein the program code is configured to determine the overcommitted fabric capacity by adjusting the fabric limit by a fabric overcommit ratio.

8. The program product of claim 5, wherein the program code is configured to control placement of the virtual machine on the first host by:

determining a plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations from among the plurality of hosts, one or more fabrics and one or more storage systems;

scoring each of the plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations based at least in part on the determined fabric limit and determined allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric; and

placing the virtual machine on the first host based upon a score of a first candidate host, fabric and storage system combination including the first host.