Method and system for transferring a virtual machine

• US 10,157,077 B2
• Filed: 01/23/2017
• Issued: 12/18/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rackspace US Incorporated (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rackspace US Incorporated (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Voccio, Paul, Messerli, Antony Joel
• Primary Examiner(s): Fan, Hua
• Application Number:
  US15/412,359
• Publication Number:
  US 20170199755A1
• Time in Patent Office: 694 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/14 Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operation G06F11/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• 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 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0617 in relation to availability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0626 Reducing size or complexity of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0664 at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0673 Single storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/461 Saving or restoring of program or task context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 : Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 : Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A virtual machine management system is used to instantiate, wake, move, sleep, and destroy individual operating environments in a cloud or cluster. In various embodiments, there is a method and system for transferring an operating environment from a first host to a second host. The first host contains an active environment, with a disk and memory. The disk is snapshotted while the operating environment on the first host is still live, and the snapshot is transferred to the second host. After the initial snapshot is transferred, a differential update using rsync or a similar mechanism can be used to transfer just the changes from the snapshot from the first to the second host. In a further embodiment, the contents of the memory are also transferred. This memory can be transferred as a snapshot after pausing the active environment, or by synchronizing the memory spaces between the two hosts.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing a first host having a first identification and an operating environment,

wherein the operating environment includes a storage and a memory, and

wherein a first hypervisor operates on at least one hardware processor of the first host;

identifying the first host as an active host;

receiving, at a hardware network interface component of a second host, an instantiate message, the instantiate message further including the first identification of the first host from which the operating environment is to be transferred;

allocating, by a second hypervisor operating on at least one hardware processor of the second host, a logical container and operating environment in accordance with configuration information corresponding to the first host;

receiving, at a hardware network interface component of the first host, a transfer message, the transfer message further including a second identification of the second host to which the operating environment is to be transferred;

creating, by the first hypervisor, a first snapshot of the storage corresponding to the operating environment on the first host, and subsequently making the first snapshot available as a first mountable image by the second hypervisor;

mounting, by the second hypervisor, the first mountable image made available by the first hypervisor;

transferring, by the second hypervisor, the mounted image to the logical container;

providing a differential update of the storage from the first host to the second host based on the first snapshot;

buffering network packets intended for the operating environment on the first host;

transferring a memory image from the first host to the second host;

identifying, by a cluster monitor, the second host as the active host; and

directing traffic intended for the operating environment on the first host to the operating environment on the second host, beginning with the buffered network packets.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing the differential update of the storage from the first host to the second host comprises:

creating, by the first hypervisor, a second snapshot of the storage corresponding to the operating environment on the first host, and subsequently making the second snapshot available as a second mountable image by the second hypervisor;

mounting, by the second hypervisor, the second mountable image made available by the first hypervisor; and

performing a differential update of the logical container allocated on the second host from the second mountable image; and

suspending, by the first hypervisor, the operating environment on the first host.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing the differential update of the storage from the first host to the second host comprises:

creating, by the first hypervisor, a log of state transactions corresponding to changes in the operating environment on the first host, and subsequently making the log available via the hardware network interface at the first host;

receiving, by the hardware network interface at the second host, the log of state transactions made available by the first hypervisor; and

performing, by the second hypervisor, a protocol bringing the state of the operating environment on the first host and the operating environment on the second host into synchronization.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the transferring the memory image from the first host to the second host comprises:

creating, by the first hypervisor, a second log of state transactions corresponding to changes in the memory of the operating environment on the first host, and subsequently making the second log available via the hardware network interface at the first host;

receiving, by the hardware network interface at the second host, the second log of state transactions made available by the first hypervisor; and

performing, by the second hypervisor, a protocol bringing the state of the memory of the operating environment on the first host and the memory of the operating environment on the second host into synchronization.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the instantiate message is an Ethernet broadcast frame containing 6 bytes set to hexadecimal FF:

FF;

FF;

FF;

FF;

FF followed by sixteen repetitions of the target computer'"'"'s 48-bit MAC address, the frame further including a MAC address of the first host.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further includes the step of pausing the operating environment on the first host prior to the transferring the memory image from the first host to the second host.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of transferring a memory image from the first host to the second host includes the step of mapping a memory area on the second host to a memory area on the first host.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of transferring a memory image from the first host to the second host includes the steps of locating an associated subset memory area within the memory image, freezing the associated subset memory area, and transferring the information from the associated subset memory area to the second host.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the associated subset memory area is associated with a process running on the active host.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the operating environment does not lose uptime as a result of the transfer from the first host to the second host.

11. The method of claim 1, further including the step of, prior to the transferring the differential update of the storage from the first host to the second host, defining a set of services provided by the operating environment on the first host;

and

wherein the steps of transferring a differential update of the storage from the first host to the second host, transferring a memory image from the first host to the second host, and identifying the second host as the active host are performed on a per-service basis.

12. The method of claim 1, the instantiate message further including an identification of configuration information corresponding to the operating environment on the first host.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising using the identified configuration information to initialize the operating environment on the second host.