Adaptive, Scalable I/O Request Handling Architecture in Virtualized Computer Systems and Networks

• US 20080104591A1
• Filed: 04/24/2007
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SolarWinds Worldwide LLC (SolarWinds Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Hyper9, Inc. (SolarWinds Corp.)
• Inventors: Kellar, John Edward, McCrory, Dave Dennis
• Granted Patent: US 7,529,867 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A system and method for processing input/output (I/O) requests in a virtualized computer system. I/O requests are received from a virtual machine. A set of virtual I/O channels that may be interfaced with a host I/O stack and/or a virtual machine I/O stack adaptively queues requested data using a variety of I/O queue management modules. In one embodiment, the virtual I/O channels include an entropy detection module and a queue storage. The entropy detection module determines an entropy value of specified I/O request data and encodes the specified I/O request data with the entropy value within the queue storage.

Claims

1. A computer network comprising:

a network;

a first host system coupled to said network, said first host system comprising a host machine and a virtual machine installed on said host machine;

a second host system coupled to said network, said second host system comprising a host machine and a virtual machine installed on said host machine; and

a virtual input/output channel (VIOC) system associated with at least one of said first and second host systems, said VIOC system comprising virtual I/O channels (VIOCs) and a VIOC agent, said VIOCs including multiple, variable size I/O data queues from which I/O requests generated by said virtual machines may be serviced, and wherein said VIOC agent is configured to adaptively manage I/O data queues within said VIOCs.

2. The computer network of claim 1, wherein said I/O data queues comprise double linked lists.

3. The computer network of claim 1, wherein said VIOC agent is configured to adaptively adjust the size of the said I/O data queues.

4. The computer network of claim 1, wherein said VIOCs include a queue driver configured to encode data stored in said I/O data queues.

5. The computer network of claim 1, wherein said VIOC system includes:

a first VIOC system associated with said first host system, said first VIOC system comprising VIOCs and a VIOC agent; and

a second VIOC system associated with said second host system, said second VIOC system comprising VIOCs and a VIOC agent.

6. The computer network of claim 5, further comprising a VIOC manager coupled to said network to control operation of said VIOCs included within said first and second VIOC systems.

7. The computer network of claim 1, wherein said VIOC system includes a host VIOC system associated with at least one of said host machines of first or second host systems.

8. The computer network of claim 1, wherein said VIOC system includes a virtual machine VIOC system associated with at least one of said virtual machines of said first or second host systems.

9. A method for processing input/output (I/O) requests in a computer network, said method comprising:

providing a first host system coupled to said network, said first host system comprising a host machine and a virtual machine installed on said host machine;

providing a second host system coupled to said network, said second host system comprising a host machine and a virtual machine installed on said host machine; and

processing I/O requests using a virtual input/output channel (VIOC) system associated with at least one of said first and second host systems, said VIOC system comprising virtual I/O channels (VIOCs) and a VIOC agent, said VIOCs including multiple, variable size I/O data queues from which I/O requests generated by said virtual machines may be serviced, and wherein said VIOC agent is configured to adaptively manage I/O data queues within said VIOCs.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said I/O data queues comprise double linked lists.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOC agent is configured to adaptively adjust the size of the said I/O data queues.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOCs include a queue driver configured to encode data stored in said I/O data queues.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOC system includes:

a first VIOC system associated with said first host system, said first VIOC system comprising VIOCs and a VIOC agent; and

a second VIOC system associated with said second host system, said second VIOC system comprising VIOCs and a VIOC agent.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising providing a VIOC manager coupled to said network to control operation of said VIOCs included within said first and second VIOC systems.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOC system includes a host VIOC system associated with at least one of said host machines of first or second host systems.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOC system includes a virtual machine VIOC system associated with at least one of said virtual machines of said first or second host systems.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOC agent is configured to adaptively manage said I/O data queues in accordance with I/O data patterns.

18. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOC agent determines prioritization for queuing data within said I/O queues adaptively or based on manual data entry.

19. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOC agent determines a type and mode of virtual hard disk utilized for an I/O request and determines whether to commit writes to disk in accordance with the determined type and mode of virtual hard disk.

20. The method of claim 9, wherein said VIOC agent determines whether to commit writes to disk responsive to a system reboot based on state states of said virtual machine.