Apparatus and method for expedited virtual machine (VM) launch in VM cluster environment

• US 20070074208A1
• Filed: 05/19/2006
• Published: 03/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Ling, Xiaofeng, Liu, Pingping
• Granted Patent: US 8,732,698 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Method and apparatus for expedited virtual machine (VM) launch in VM cluster environment. In one embodiment, at least one VM is launched within a host platform. Once initialized, a VM may issue a hypercall to a VM monitor (VMM) of a VM host platform. In response, the VMM may capture a runtime image of the VM. In one embodiment, the VMM loads the runtime image of the VM within a node of the host platform as a child VM. In an alternative embodiment, the VMM issues a VM clone command to a VMM of a next host platform including the runtime image of the VM. In response, the VMM of the next platform loads the runtime image of the first VM within a node of the second host platform as a cloned VM. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

capturing a runtime image of a virtual machine (VM) according to a hypercall issued by the VM; and

loading the runtime image of the VM within at least one host platform of a VM cluster environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein prior to capturing, the method further comprises:

booting a guest operating system (OS) within a first node of a first host platform of the VM cluster environment; and

issuing, by the guest OS, a VM fork hypercall to a VM monitor (VMM) of the first host platform.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein loading the runtime image comprises:

selecting, by a VM monitor (VMM) of a VM host platform, a node of the VM host platform to load the runtime image of the VM as a child VM.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein capturing the runtime image further comprises:

synchronizing an in-hypervisor state and an in-device-model state of the VM to form a synchronized state; and

sealing the synchronized state into a packet to form the runtime image of the VM as a captured VM state.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein loading the runtime image of the VM further comprises:

detecting, by a VM monitor (VMM) of a VM host platform of the VM cluster environment, the hypercall issued by the VM; and

loading, by the VMM, the runtime image of the VM within a node of the VM host platform as a child VM with the VM that issued the hypercall as a parent VM of the child VM.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein loading the runtime image further comprises:

issuing a call to a VM monitor (VMM) of a next host platform within the VM cluster environment, including the runtime image of the VM; and

loading, by the VMM of the next host platform, the runtime image of the VM within the next host platform.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

sharing, between the child VM and the parent VM, a portion of memory.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

initializing a virtual memory space of the parent VM; and

initializing a virtual memory space of the child VM.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a write issued to the portion of memory shared between a parent VM and a child VM; and

transferring detected write data from the portion of shared memory to one of a portion of physical memory assigned to the parent VM and the child VM.

10. The method of claim 3, further comprises:

selecting a next host platform of the VM cluster environment to load a cloned VM within a node of the next host platform.

11. An article of manufacture having a machine accessible medium having associated data wherein the data, when accessed, results in a machine performing:

launching a parent virtual machine (VM) within a node of a host platform in a cluster;

capturing a runtime image of the parent VM according to a hypercall issued by the parent VM to a VM monitor (VMM) of the host platform in the cluster; and

loading, by the VMM, the runtime image of the parent VM within a next node of the host platform in the cluster as a child VM of the parent VM.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the machine readable medium further comprises data, which when accessed, results in the machine further performing:

issuing a call to a VM monitor (VMM) of a next host platform in the cluster, including the runtime image of the first VM; and

loading, by the VMM of the next host platform in the cluster, the runtime image of the first VM within a node of the next host platform in the cluster.

13. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the machine readable medium further comprises data, which when accessed, results in the machine further performing:

sharing, between the parent VM and the child VM, a portion of memory.

14. The article of manufacture of claim 13, wherein the machine readable medium further comprises data, which when accessed, results in the machine further performing:

initializing a virtual memory space of the parent VM; and

initializing a virtual memory space of the child VM.

15. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the machine readable medium further comprises data, which when accessed, results in the machine further performing:

detecting a write issued to the portion of memory shared between the parent VM and the child VM; and

transferring detected write data from the portion of shared memory to one of the parent physical memory and the child physical memory.

16. A system comprising:

at least one host platform, the host platform including at least one node, wherein the host platform includes;

a virtual machine monitor (VMM), the virtual machine monitor to capture a runtime image of virtual machine (VM) within a node of the host platform, according to a hypercall issued by the VM and to load the runtime image within at least one host platform.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein at least one host platform further comprises:

a plurality of host platforms, each host platform including a plurality of nodes and coupled together via a communications link to form a VM cluster environment.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein each host platform comprises:

a VMM, each VMM including a hypercall interface to receive hypercalls issued by a VM and a VMM interface to receive a VMM clone command issued by a host platform.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the host platform comprises:

a system memory coupled to an interconnection network; and

a chip multiprocessor comprising a plurality of processor cores, wherein each processor core to support a VMM at least two nodes, each loaded with a VM.

20. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

a next host platform including at least one node and coupled to the host platform via a communications link to form a VM cluster environment, the host platform including;

a VMM including a VMM interface to receive a VM clone command issued by the host platform including the runtime image of a VM and to load the runtime image of the VM within a node of the next host platform as a cloned VM.