Hypervisor virtual server system, and method for providing data services within a hypervisor virtual server system

• US 10,649,799 B2
• Filed: 03/03/2011
• Issued: 05/12/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Zerto Ltd (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Kedem, Ziv
• Primary Examiner(s): Abad, Farley
• Application Number:
  US13/039,446
• Publication Number:
  US 20110231841A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,358 Days
• Field of Search: 710 20
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/542 Intercept
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0653 Monitoring storage devices or systems
• 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 3/0689 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 9/545 where tasks reside in different layers, e.g. user- and kernel-space

Abstract

A hypervisor virtual server system, including a plurality of virtual servers, a plurality of virtual disks that are read from and written to by the plurality of virtual servers, a physical disk, an I/O backend coupled with the physical disk and in communication with the plurality of virtual disks, which reads from and writes to the physical disk, a tapping driver in communication with the plurality of virtual servers, which intercepts I/O requests made by any one of said plurality of virtual servers to any one of said plurality of virtual disks, and a virtual data services appliance, in communication with the tapping driver, which receives the intercepted I/O write requests from the tapping driver, and that provides data services based thereon.

Claims

1. A hypervisor virtual server system, comprising:

a plurality of virtual servers;

a plurality of virtual disks that are read from and written to by said plurality of virtual servers;

a physical disk;

an I/O backend coupled with said physical disk and in communication with said plurality of virtual disks, which reads from and writes to said physical disk;

a tapping driver installed within a hypervisor kernel, in a software layer between at least one of the plurality of virtual servers and at least one of the plurality of virtual disks, the tapping driver in communication with said plurality of virtual servers, wherein the tapping driver intercepts I/O requests made by any one of said plurality of virtual servers to any one of said plurality of virtual disks;

a virtual data services appliance, in communication with said tapping driver, wherein the virtual data services appliance receives the intercepted I/O requests from the tapping driver, and wherein the virtual data services appliance provides data services including replication, monitoring, and quality of service based thereon; and

a data analyzer in communication with the virtual data services appliance, wherein the data analyzer determines a data state indicating a state of one virtual server of the plurality of virtual servers that made at least one of the intercepted I/O requests based on content of the intercepted I/O requests.

2. The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 1, further comprising a journal manager in communication with said virtual data services appliance, wherein the journal manager stores the intercepted I/O requests as journal entries in a virtual disk.

3. The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 2, further comprising a hash generator in communication with said virtual data services appliance and with said journal manager, wherein the hash generator generates hash values of the intercepted I/O requests, and wherein said journal manager stores the generated hash values.

4. The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 1, further comprising a TCP transmitter in communication with said virtual data services appliance, wherein the TCP transmitter transmits the intercepted I/O requests to a remote virtual data services appliance.

5. The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 1, wherein the virtual data services appliance is a dedicated virtual server that provides the data services.

6. The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 1, wherein the virtual data services appliance infers an operating system level and status of at least one of the plurality of virtual servers.

7. The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 1, further comprising the tapping driver configured to:

copy the I/O requests;

forward a first copy of the I/O requests via the I/O backend; and

forward a second copy of the I/O requests to the virtual data services appliance.

8. The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 1, wherein the tapping driver identifies the I/O requests made by an individual virtual server of the plurality of virtual servers, enabling the virtual data services appliance to selectively provide data services based on the I/O requests made by the individual virtual server.

9. A method for providing data services within a hypervisor virtual server system, comprising:

intercepting, by a tapping driver, I/O requests from at least one of a plurality of virtual servers to at least one of a plurality of virtual disks, the tapping driver installed within a hypervisor kernel in a software layer between the at least one of the plurality of virtual servers and the at least one of the plurality of virtual disks, the tapping driver in communication with the plurality of virtual servers;

sending, by the tapping driver, the intercepted I/O requests to a virtual data services appliance that provides hypervisor data services including replication, monitoring, and quality of service based thereon; and

determining, by a data analyzer in communication with the virtual data services appliance, a data state indicating a state of one virtual server of plurality of virtual servers that made at least one of the intercepted I/O requests based on content of the intercepted I/O requests.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising journaling the intercepted I/O requests.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising generating hash values for the intercepted I/O requests, and wherein said journaling comprises journaling the generated hash values.

12. The method of claim 9 further comprising analyzing an intercepted I/O request inferring therefrom the data state of the virtual server that made the intercepted I/O request.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising sending the intercepted I/O requests to a remote computer, thereby providing replication for said plurality of virtual servers.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the virtual data services appliance is a dedicated virtual server that provides the hypervisor data services.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

inferring, by the virtual data services appliance, an operating system level and status of at least one of the plurality of virtual servers.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

copying, by a tapping driver, an I/O request of the I/O requests;

forwarding, by the tapping driver, a first copy of the I/O request via an I/O backend; and

forward, by the tapping driver, a second copy of the I/O request to the virtual data services appliance.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein intercepting the I/O requests comprises identifying the I/O requests made by an individual virtual server of the plurality of virtual servers;

and

identifying, by the tapping driver, the I/O requests made by the individual virtual server to enable a virtual data services appliance to selectively provide data services based on the I/O requests made by the individual virtual server.