Systems, methods and devices for management of virtual memory systems

• US 10,019,159 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2013
• Issued: 07/10/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Inventors: Wires, Jacob Taylor, Warfield, Andrew, Stodden, Daniel, Meyer, Dutch, Guyader, Jean Maurice Guy, Fraser, Keir, Deegan, Timothy John, Cully, Brendan Anthony, Clark, Christopher, Abdul-Amir, Mohammad
• Primary Examiner(s): Rones, Charles
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chang, Tian-Pong
• Application Number:
  US13/804,456
• Publication Number:
  US 20130282994A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,944 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Systems, methods and devices for management of instances of virtual memory components for storing computer readable information for use by at least one first computing device, the system comprising at least one physical computing device, each physical computing device being communicatively coupled over a network and comprising: a physical memory component, a computing processor component, an operating system, a virtual machine monitor, and virtual memory storage appliances; at least one of the virtual memory storage appliances being configured to (a) accept memory instructions from the at least one first computing device, (b) instantiate instances of at least one virtual memory component, (c) allocate memory resources from at least one physical memory component for use by any one of the least one virtual memory components, optionally according to a pre-defined policy; and (d) implement memory instructions on the at least one physical memory component.

Claims

1. A digital information storage system comprising:

a plurality of physical computing devices, each physical computing device being communicatively coupled over a network and comprising a physical memory component, a virtual machine monitor, and a virtual memory storage appliance communicatively interposed between the virtual machine monitor and the physical memory component, wherein said physical memory component comprises one of at least two memory storage types, and wherein each of said types has a respective distinguishing memory request processing characteristic associated therewith relating to memory request processing latency;

wherein a given virtual memory storage appliance on a given physical computing device having a given physical memory component Is operable to communicate with respective other virtual memory storage appliances on respective other physical computing devices having respective other physical memory components, wherein each said respective other physical memory components comprises one of the at least two memory storage types, said given virtual memory storage appliance configured to selectively associate a virtual memory component with any of said given physical memory component and said respective other physical memory components, based at least In part on said respective distinguishing memory request processing characteristic associated with a given memory storage type thereof, to store digital information for use by said virtual memory component; and

wherein said given virtual memory storage appliance and said respective other virtual memory storage appliances operate cooperatively to coordinate selective associations for the virtual memory component.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each said virtual memory storage appliance is further configured to instantiate instances of virtual memory component.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one virtual memory storage appliance is configured to prioritize at least one physical memory component for use by any virtual memory component.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one virtual memory storage appliance is configured to prioritize memory components according to at least one of the following:

a pre-determined storage policy, a user characteristic, and an operational objective.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the selective association of memory components to the virtual memory components is in accordance with a pre-defined storage policy.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein said virtual memory component is instantiated on one of the following:

a first computing device, and a computing device communicatively coupled to a first computing device.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the selective association of the memory components to the virtual memory components is further based on at least one of:

dynamic data storage characteristics, fixed data storage characteristics, utilization of available component, achieving optimized security, minimizing memory failure, maximizing reliability of memory components, speed of implementation of memory instructions, and requirement of multi-user access.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the selective association of the memory components to the virtual memory components preferentially associates physical memory components having operational characteristics that facilitate achieving at least one operational objective.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein data is distributed amongst the physical memory components in accordance with a distributed disk management methodology.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the distributed disk management methodology comprises at least one of erasure coding, redundant array of independent disks, and mirroring.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the physical computing devices from the plurality of physical computing devices comprise two or more physical memory components.

12. A method of managing a digital information storage system, the method comprising:

providing access to a plurality of physical computing devices, each of the physical computing devices being communicatively coupled over a network and comprising the following communicatively coupled components;

a physical memory component and a virtual machine monitor, wherein said physical memory component comprises one of at least two memory storage types, and wherein each of said types has a respective distinguishing memory request processing characteristic associated therewith relating to memory request processing latency;

instantiating on each physical computing device a virtual memory storage appliance, the virtual memory storage appliance on each of said physical computing devices being communicatively interposed between the physical memory component and the virtual machine monitor, wherein a given virtual memory storage appliance on a given physical computing device with a given physical memory component is communicatively coupled with respective other virtual memory storage appliances on respective other physical computing devices with respective other physical memory components, wherein each said respective other physical memory components comprises one of said at least two memory storage types; and

communicating memory Instructions between any of said computing devices and one or more virtual memory components, wherein said given virtual memory storage appliance is operable to selectively associate the one or more virtual memory components with any of said given physical memory component and said respective other physical memory components, based at least In part on said respective distinguishing memory request processing characteristic associated with a given memory storage type thereof, to store digital information for use by said one or more virtual memory components;

wherein said given virtual memory storage appliance and said respective other virtual memory storage appliances operate cooperatively to coordinate selective associations for the virtual memory component.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein each said virtual memory storage appliance is further configured to instantiate instances of virtual memory components.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the the one or more virtual memory storage appliances are further operable to prioritize at least one physical memory components for use by any of the one or more virtual memory components.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the prioritization of the memory components occurs according to at least one of the following:

pre-determined storage policy, a user characteristic, and an operational objective.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the selective association of memory components to the one or more virtual memory components is in accordance with a pre-defined storage policy.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the pre-defined policy applies across all said physical computing devices in an organization.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the one or more virtual memory components are instantiated on at least one of:

one of the plurality of physical computing devices, and any other computing device communicatively coupled to the plurality of physical computing devices.

19. The method of claim 12, wherein the selective association of the memory components to the virtual memory components is further based on at least one of:

dynamic data storage characteristics, fixed data storage characteristics, utilization of available components, achieving optimized security, minimizing memory failure, maximizing reliability of memory components, speed of implementation of memory instructions, and requirement of multi-user access.

20. The method of claim 12, wherein the selective association of the memory components to the virtual memory components preferentially associates physical memory components having operational characteristics that facilitate achieving at least one operational objective.

21. The method of claim 12, wherein data is distributed amongst the physical memory components in accordance with a distributed disk management methodology.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the distributed disk management methodology comprises at least one of:

erasure coding, redundant array of independent disks, and mirroring.

23. The method of claim 12, wherein at least one of the physical computing devices from the plurality of physical computing devices comprise two or more physical memory components.

31. The method of claim 12, wherein the selective association of memory components is configured to allocate a first physical memory component for at least one first data type, the at least one first physical memory resource comprising one of the at least two memory storage types and the at least one first data type having at least one pre-determined data type characteristic.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the selective association is dynamic.

24. A device for implementing one or more virtual memory component instances in a digital information system, said device comprising:

a processor and a physical memory component;

access to at least one virtual machine;

a virtual machine monitor for managing the at least one virtual machine; and

a virtual memory storage appliance configured to be communicatively coupled with respective other virtual memory storage appliances running on respective other physical computing devices having respective other physical memory components, wherein each of said physical memory component and the respective other physical memory components comprises of one of at least two memory storage types, and wherein each of said types has a respective distinguishing memory request processing characteristic associated therewith relating to memory request processing latency;

wherein said virtual memory storage appliance is communicatively interposed between the virtual machine monitor and the physical memory component, and said virtual memory storage appliance is further configured to selectively associate, based at least in part on said respective distinguishing memory request processing characteristic associated with a given memory storage type on the physical memory component, said virtual memory component instances with any of the physical memory component and the respective other physical memory components;

wherein said given virtual memory storage appliance and said respective other virtual memory storage appliances operate cooperatively to coordinate selective associations for the virtual memory component.

25. The device as defined in claim 24, further comprising an interface for allowing a user to set at least one policy for allocating memory components by said virtual memory storage appliance.

26. The device as defined in claim 24, wherein said virtual memory storage appliance instance consolidates the physical memory components on the physical computing devices that are communicatively coupled over a network Into a unified virtual storage resource.

27. The device of claim 24, wherein at least one of the device and respective other physical computing devices comprise two or more physical memory components.

28. A system for storing and accessing information for use by at least one first computing device, the system comprising at least two physical computing devices, each of the at least two physical computing devices being communicatively coupled over a network and comprising at least one of a plurality of physical memory components, a virtual machine monitor, and a virtual memory storage appliance communicatively interposed between the virtual machine monitor and the physical memory component, wherein each of said plurality of physical memory components comprises of one of at least two memory storage types, and wherein each of said types has a respective distinguishing memory request processing characteristic associated therewith relating to memory request processing latency, wherein a given virtual memory storage appliance on a given physical computing device having a given physical memory component is operable to communicate with respective other virtual memory storage appliances on respective other physical computing devices with respective other physical memory components, and to selectively associate any of the given physical memory component and the respective other physical memory components with a virtual memory component accessible by the at least one first computing device, wherein at least one of the physical memory components that is a first memory storage type is allocated for storing a first data type, the first data type having at least one data type characteristic related to the distinguishing memory request processing characteristic associated with the first memory storage type;

wherein said given virtual memory storage appliance and said respective other virtual memory storage appliances operate cooperatively to coordinate selective associations for the virtual memory component.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the allocation of elements of the at least one first memory resource is dynamic.

30. The system of claim 28, wherein the allocation facilitates achievement of at least one operational objective.

33. The system of claim 28, wherein at least one of the physical computing devices comprise two or more physical memory components.