Hypervisor-agnostic method of configuring a virtual machine

• US 10,191,756 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2015
• Issued: 01/29/2019
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Wai, Eric C
• Application Number:
  US14/664,389
• Publication Number:
  US 20150242228A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,411 Days
• Field of Search: None
• 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

In one embodiment, there is a method for configuring a virtual machine where there are two storage mechanisms available to the virtual machine: a first storage containing virtual machine operating information, and a second storage including virtual machine configuration information. The configuration information in the second storage is used to configure the virtual machine, including changing the information in the operating storage. The configuration information can pertain to the hypervisor, any logical container within the hypervisor, and any operating environment within one of the logical containers. In a further embodiment, the configuration information from the second storage can be saved and provided to another virtual machine, and used to configure the second virtual machine in a similar fashion. Each virtual machine can have an independent copy of the second storage, or the storage can be mounted in the first machine, unmounted, and then mounted in the second machine.

Claims

1. A method for configuring a new virtual machine environment (VME), the method comprising:

mounting, by a first virtual machine in the VME, a first configuration disk wherein the first virtual machine is associated with a first operating disk image, and wherein mounting the first configuration disk includes making the configuration disk locally accessible to the first virtual machine as a distinct disk from the first operating disk image;

storing configuration information from the first virtual machine on the first configuration disk;

uploading the configuration information to an online storage in the form of a configuration disk image, wherein the configuration disk image is distinct from the first operating disk image or any backups or snapshots thereof;

downloading, by a second virtual machine in the VME associated with a second operating disk image, the configuration information from the online storage;

mounting the configuration disk image by the second virtual machine, wherein mounting the first configuration disk includes making the configuration disk locally accessible to the second virtual machine as a distinct disk from the second operating disk image; and

using the downloaded configuration information to configure the second virtual machine.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the VME comprises a hypervisor, a logical container associated with the hypervisor, and an operating environment associated with the logical container.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the first configuration disk includes a customized setting that includes hypervisor-specific configuration options.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the customized setting includes container configurations.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the customized setting includes operating environment configurations.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the online storage is a cloud storage system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration information is available to the first virtual machine as a third configuration disk stored on the online storage.

8. A system for configuring a virtual machine environment (VME), the system comprising:

a first information processing system with a local processor, a local storage, a remote storage, a network connection, and a hypervisor, the local storage including a set of processor-interpretable instructions that when executed by one or more processors are adapted to cause the one or more processors to perform a method comprising;

mounting, by a first virtual machine in the VME, a first configuration disk wherein the first virtual machine is associated with a first operating disk image, and wherein mounting the first configuration disk includes making the first configuration disk locally accessible to the first virtual machine as a distinct disk from the first operating disk image;

storing configuration information from the first virtual machine on the first configuration disk;

uploading the configuration information to an online storage in the form of a configuration disk image, wherein the configuration disk image is distinct from the first operating disk image or any backups or snapshots thereof;

downloading, by a second virtual machine in the VME associated with a second operating disk image, the configuration information from the online storage;

mounting the configuration disk image by the second virtual machine, wherein mounting the first configuration disk includes making the configuration disk locally accessible to the second virtual machine as a distinct disk from the second operating disk image; and

using the downloaded configuration information to configure the second virtual machine.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the first configuration disk includes a customized setting that includes hypervisor-specific configuration options.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the customized setting includes container configurations.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the customized setting includes operating environment configurations.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein a preexisting virtual machine uploads the first configuration disk to an online storage.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the online storage is a cloud storage system.

14. The system of claim 8, further comprising:

a script processor that configures an operating environment according to the configuration information available from the first configuration disk.

15. A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising a plurality of machine-readable instructions that when executed by one or more processors are adapted to cause the one or more processors to perform a method comprising:

mounting, by a first virtual machine in the VME, a first configuration disk from a first storage, the first configuration disk including configuration information associated with the first virtual machine;

uploading the configuration information from the first configuration disk to an online storage;

uploading the configuration information from the first configuration disk to an online storage in the form of a first configuration disk image, the configuration disk image being distinct from a disk image used for the operation of the first virtual machine;

downloading, by a second virtual machine in the VME, the first configuration disk image from the online storage;

mounting the first configuration disk image and a non-customized operating disk image, the first configuration disk image and the non-customized operating disk image being distinct from each other; and

using the downloaded configuration information stored on the first configuration disk image to configure the non-customized virtual machine disk image to create a second customized virtual machine.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein operating information associated with the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine is different, but configuration of the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine are similar to the extent of the configuration information included on the first configuration disk.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions that when executed, create a third customized virtual machine.