REGISTERING AND ACCESSING VIRTUAL SYSTEMS FOR USE IN A MANAGED SYSTEM

• US 20080134175A1
• Filed: 11/27/2007
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Managelq Incorporated
• Inventors: Barenboim, Oleg, Fitzgerald, Joseph
• Granted Patent: US 9,038,062 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/53 by executing in a restricted environment, e.g. sandbox or secure virtual machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for controlling and managing virtual machines and other such virtual systems. VM execution approval is based on compliance with policies controlling various aspects of VM. The techniques can be employed to benefit all virtual environments, such as virtual machines, virtual appliances, and virtual applications. For ease of discussion herein, assume that a virtual machine (VM) represents each of these environments. In one particular embodiment, a systems management partition (SMP) is created inside the VM to provide a persistent and resilient storage for management information (e.g., logical and physical VM metadata). The SMP can also be used as a staging area for installing additional content or agentry on the VM when the VM is executed. Remote storage of management information can also be used. The VM management information can then be made available for pre-execution processing, including policy-based compliance testing.

Claims

1. A method for registering and accessing virtual machines (VMs), comprising:

registering one or more VMs for use in a managed system, wherein registering includes assigning a logical name to each VM and registering each VM and its location in a VM registry.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein registering one or more VMs further comprises:

extracting at least one of logical and physical metadata associated with a target VM, the metadata for use in pre-execution compliance testing;

generating one or more signatures using the at least one of logical and physical metadata; and

storing the one or more signatures;

wherein at least one or more VM compliance policies with which the target VM must comply to execute are signature-based policies thereby allowing the pre-execution compliance testing to be carried out using signature comparisons.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein registering one or more VMs further comprises:

generating a system signature based on the one or more signatures.]

4. The method of claim 3 wherein generating a system signature based on the one or more signatures comprises:

generating a logical system signature based on logical metadata signatures associated with at least one of the target VM and a target execution platform;

generating a physical system signature based on physical metadata signatures associated with at least one of the target VM and the target execution platform; and

generating the system signature based on both the logical and physical system signatures.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein all signatures are computed using one or more hashing functions.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein extracting at least one of logical and physical metadata associated with a target VM includes extracting content metadata about one or more files stored on the target VM, and generating one or more signatures comprises:

generating a file content signature for each of the one or more files using the corresponding content metadata.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein registering one or more VMs further comprises:

generating a system signature based on the file content signatures.

8. The method of claim 2 wherein generating one or more signatures comprises:

generating one or more logical metadata signatures using the logical metadata extracted from the target VM.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein registering one or more VMs further comprises:

generating a logical metadata system signature based on the logical metadata signatures.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein registering one or more VMs further comprises:

generating a unique ID for each VM; and

extracting at least one of logical and physical metadata associated with each VM for use in pre-execution compliance testing.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

storing the unique ID and metadata.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the unique ID, at least one of the logical metadata and physical metadata, and one or more signatures reflective of VM content are stored in one of a configuration management database or an asset management database.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein registering one or more VMs further comprises:

creating VM genealogy metadata about a target VM, wherein the VM genealogy metadata is indicative of all VMs to which the target VM is related, including any parent VMs and children VMs.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein creating VM genealogy metadata includes storing a unique ID for each relative VM into the target VM.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

generating a family ID for all VMs in a given family based on the unique IDs for each VM in that family; and

storing the family ID in each of the related VMs.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

storing the registered VMs in a repository.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein storing the registered VMs in a repository is achieved by at least one of transferring the registered VMs to the repository, copying the registered VMs to the repository, and storing an address in the repository that points to a memory location where a corresponding master VM resides.

18. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

translating a target VM to one or more alternate formats; and

storing the one or more alternate format VMs in the repository.

19. The method of claim 16 further comprising at least one of modifying, compressing and encrypting a target VM prior to storing.

20. The method of claim 16 further comprising locking a target VM prior to storing, so that the target VM will not execute unless it is used in the managed system.

21. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

accessing a target VM for use in the managed system.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein accessing a target VM is accomplished using a UDDI registry or a SQL database look-up.

23. The method of claim 21 wherein accessing a target VM comprises:

initiating a registry look-up by implicitly requesting the target VM via logical name;

resolving the logical name into an explicit VM name;

locating a storage location of the target VM; and

transferring the target VM or a copy of the target VM to a target execution platform environment.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein the logical name is associated with a plurality of VMs, and all those VMs are accessed by the accessing step.

25. The method of claim 23 wherein logical names are represented by tags, and initiating a registry look-up by implicitly requesting the target VM via logical name includes:

requesting a multiple tag look-up, where all explicit VMs associated with the requested tags are accessed by the accessing step.

26. The method of claim 21 further comprises at least one of:

decompressing the target VM;

decrypting the target VM; and

translating the target VM to a target execution platform environment format.

27. The method of claim 21 wherein the accessing step is initiated by a user request to use the target VM.

28. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

caching at least one of the registered VMs at a target location, as part of a staging scheme.

29. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

creating a management partition in a target VM for storing management data for use in a VM management and control scheme.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein the management data includes a unique ID for the target VM and at least one of logical and physical metadata associated with the target VM for use in pre-execution compliance testing.

31. The method of claim 29 wherein registering one or more VMs further comprises:

generating one or more signatures using at least one of logical and physical metadata extracted from at least one of a target VM and a target execution platform; and

storing the metadata and the one or more signatures on the management partition;

wherein at least one or more VM compliance policies with which the target VM must comply to execute are signature-based policies thereby allowing the pre-execution compliance testing to be carried out using signature comparisons.

32. The method of claim 1 wherein a target VM can only be executed by an execution platform that is included in the managed system.

33. The method of claim 1 wherein an execution platform that is included in the managed system will only execute registered VMs.

34. The method of claim 1 wherein a target VM can only be accessed by a user that is authorized to access that target VM.

35. A method for registering and accessing virtual machines (VMs), comprising:

accessing a target VM for use in a managed system, wherein the target VM is explicitly disabled for use outside the managed system.

36. The method of claim 35 wherein accessing a target VM comprises:

initiating a registry look-up by implicitly requesting a target VM via logical name;

resolving the logical name into an explicit VM name;

locating a storage location of the target VM; and

transferring the target VM or a copy of the target VM to a target execution platform environment.

37. The method of claim 35 further comprising the preliminary steps of:

registering one or more VMs for use in the managed system, wherein registering includes assigning a logical name to each VM and registering each VM in a VM registry for use in pre-execution compliance testing; and

storing the registered VMs in a repository.

38. The method of claim 35 wherein accessing a target VM comprises:

initiating a registry look-up by implicitly requesting one or more VMs via logical name;

resolving the logical name into one or more explicit VM names; and

locating a storage location of each explicitly named VM.

39. The method of claim 38 wherein accessing a target VM comprises:

displaying a list of the explicitly named VMs and their respective storage locations.

40. A system for registering and accessing virtual machines (VMs), comprising:

a registration module for registering one or more VMs for use in a managed system, wherein registering includes assigning a logical name to each VM and registering each VM and its location in a VM registry; and

an access module for accessing a target VM for use in the managed system.

41. The system of claim 40 wherein the target VM can only be executed by an execution platform that is included in the managed system.

42. The system of claim 40 wherein an execution platform that is included in the managed system will only execute VMs registered for use in the managed system.

43. The system of claim 40 wherein the target VM is a virtual application or a virtual appliance.

44. One or more machine-readable mediums encoded with instructions, that when executed by one or more processors, cause the processor to carry out a process for registering and accessing virtual machines (VMs), the process comprising:

registering one or more VMs for use in a managed system; and

accessing a target VM for use in a managed system, wherein the target VM is explicitly disabled for use outside the managed system.

45. The one or more machine-readable mediums of claim 44 wherein registering includes assigning a logical name to each VM and registering each VM and its location in a VM registry.

46. The one or more machine-readable mediums of claim 44 wherein registering includes storing the registered VMs in a repository, and the target VM is accessed from the repository.

47. The one or more machine-readable mediums of claim 44 wherein an execution platform that is included in the managed system will only execute VMs registered for use in the managed system.

48. The one or more machine-readable mediums of claim 44 wherein accessing a target VM comprises:

initiating a registry look-up by implicitly requesting one or more VMs via logical name;

resolving the logical name into one or more explicit VM names; and

locating a storage location of each explicitly named VM.