Method and system for providing a roaming remote desktop
First Claim
1. A method for providing a roaming remote desktop, comprising:
- maintaining, at a first virtual machine (VM) hosting site, a chain of delta disks for a linked clone VM, wherein metadata of the chain of delta disks indicates a base VM at the first VM hosting site to which the linked clone VM is actively linked and a second base VM at a second VM hosting site to which the linked clone VM is passively linked, wherein a first delta disk of the chain of delta disks points to the base VM to which the linked clone VM is actively linked, and wherein each subsequent delta disk in the chain of delta disks points to a previous delta disk in the chain of delta disks; and
responsive to receiving an updated location of a client device;
migrating the linked clone VM and the chain of delta disks including the metadata from the first VM hosting site to the second VM hosting site, wherein the metadata includes an active and passive links information maintained in a file representing a redo log of the linked clone VM, andat the second VM hosting site, after the migrating, changing the metadata of the migrated chain of delta disks to indicate that the linked clone VM is actively linked to the second base VM at the second VM hosting site and passively linked to the base VM at the first VM hosting site, wherein updates to a first base disk is automatically propagated to a second base disk based on the active and passive links.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
Techniques are disclosed for migrating a linked clone virtual machine (VM) based on a location of a client device. In one embodiment, a client device transmits its location to a VM management center, and a migration application running thereon determines whether the client device and a linked clone VM to which the client device is attempting to connect are at the same location. If the client device and the linked clone VM are not at the same location, the migration application identifies a VM hosting site proximate to the client device, and instructs a hypervisor to “cold” migrate the linked clone VM and its associated redo log to a VM host and a storage device, respectively, at the identified VM hosting site. The link clone VM may then be “actively” linked to a base VM at the VM hosting site, while maintaining “passive” links to base VM(s) at other locations.
36 Citations
23 Claims
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1. A method for providing a roaming remote desktop, comprising:
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maintaining, at a first virtual machine (VM) hosting site, a chain of delta disks for a linked clone VM, wherein metadata of the chain of delta disks indicates a base VM at the first VM hosting site to which the linked clone VM is actively linked and a second base VM at a second VM hosting site to which the linked clone VM is passively linked, wherein a first delta disk of the chain of delta disks points to the base VM to which the linked clone VM is actively linked, and wherein each subsequent delta disk in the chain of delta disks points to a previous delta disk in the chain of delta disks; and responsive to receiving an updated location of a client device; migrating the linked clone VM and the chain of delta disks including the metadata from the first VM hosting site to the second VM hosting site, wherein the metadata includes an active and passive links information maintained in a file representing a redo log of the linked clone VM, and at the second VM hosting site, after the migrating, changing the metadata of the migrated chain of delta disks to indicate that the linked clone VM is actively linked to the second base VM at the second VM hosting site and passively linked to the base VM at the first VM hosting site, wherein updates to a first base disk is automatically propagated to a second base disk based on the active and passive links. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 21)
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9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium embodying computer program instructions to performing a method for providing a roaming remote desktop, the method comprising:
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maintaining, at a first virtual machine (VM) hosting site, a chain of delta disks for a linked clone VM, wherein metadata of the chain of delta disks indicates a base VM at the first VM hosting site to which the linked clone VM is actively linked and a second base VM at a second VM hosting site to which the linked clone VM is passively linked, wherein a first delta disk of the chain of delta disks points to the base VM to which the linked clone VM is actively linked, and wherein each subsequent delta disk in the chain of delta disks points to a previous delta disk in the chain of delta disks; and responsive to receiving an updated location of a client device, migrating the linked clone VM and the chain of delta disks including the metadata from the first VM hosting site to the second VM hosting site, wherein the metadata includes an active and passive links information maintained in a file representing a redo log of the linked clone VM, such that, at the second VM hosting site, after the migrating, the metadata of the migrated chain of delta disks is changed to indicate that the linked clone VM is actively linked to the second base VM at the second VM hosting site and passively linked to the base VM at the first VM hosting site, wherein updates to a first base disk is automatically propagated to a second base disk based on the active and passive links. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22)
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17. A system, comprising:
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a processor; and a memory, wherein the memory includes a program for reducing perceived read latency, the program being configured to perform operations for providing a roaming desktop, comprising; maintaining, at a first virtual machine (VM) hosting site, a chain of delta disks for a linked clone VM, wherein metadata of the chain of delta disks indicates a base VM at the first VM hosting site to which the linked clone VM is actively linked and a second base VM at a second VM hosting site to which the linked clone VM is passively linked, wherein a first delta disk of the chain of delta disks points to the base VM to which the linked clone VM is actively linked, and wherein each subsequent delta disk in the chain of delta disks points to a previous delta disk in the chain of delta disks; and responsive to receiving an updated location of a client device, migrating the linked clone VM and the chain of delta disks including the metadata from the first VM hosting site to the second VM hosting site, wherein the metadata includes an active and passive links information maintained in a file representing a redo log of the linked clone VM;
such that, at the second VM hosting site, after the migrating, the metadata of the migrated chain of delta disks is changed to indicate that the linked clone VM is actively linked to the second base VM at the second VM hosting site and passively linked to the base VM at the first VM hosting site, wherein updates to a first base disk is automatically propagated to a second base disk based on the active and passive links. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 23)
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Specification