METHOD AND COMPUTER SYSTEM FOR MAKING A COMPUTER HAVE HIGH AVAILABILITY

• US 20090300414A1
• Filed: 05/28/2009
• Published: 12/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Huang, Jian, Xiang, Zhe, Zhang, Jian Ming, Ling, Jin, Xia, Yin Ben
• Granted Patent: US 8,020,041 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• 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 method and a computer system for making a computer achieve high availability. The method includes running a host virtual machine on a host virtual machine container; running a servant virtual machine on the servant virtual machine container; and synchronizing the host virtual machine and the servant virtual machine by using an I/O instruction. The system includes at least two computers including a host computer and a servant computer, each computer including a virtual machine container; a virtual machine running on the virtual machine container; and a communication channel making the virtual machine container execute a virtual machine synchronization operation. The virtual machine synchronization operation of the virtual machine container is triggered by the virtual machine executing I/O instructions.

Claims

1. A method of providing high availability of a computer system, the method comprising:

providing a host computer with a host virtual machine container;

providing a servant computer with a servant virtual machine container;

running a host virtual machine on said host virtual machine container;

running a servant virtual machine on said servant virtual machine container; and

synchronizing the host virtual machine and the servant virtual machine by using an I/O instruction as a transaction boundary by a communication channel between said host computer and said servant computer so that one of said computers is enabled to back up the other computer if the other computer fails.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of synchronizing the host virtual machine and the servant virtual machine includes synchronizing CPU register states and main memories of the host virtual machine and the servant virtual machine.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

loading instructions by the host virtual machine from its main memory into its instruction queue;

executing the instructions in the instruction queue and writing the data into the main memory; and

writing the instructions in the form of journal storage instruction into a journal memory in the host virtual machine.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein said using an I/O instruction as a transaction boundary in said synchronization step includes sending a journal storage instruction between said I/O instruction and a previous I/O instruction stored in said journal memory to a journal memory of the servant virtual machine.

5. The method according to claim 4, further comprising executing the journal storage instruction by the servant virtual machine in its journal memory, so as to synchronize the CPU register state and the main memory of the servant virtual machine with those of the host virtual machine.

6. A computer system having high availability, comprising:

a host computer with a host virtual machine container;

a servant computer with a servant virtual machine container;

a host virtual machine running on said host virtual machine container;

a servant virtual machine running on said servant virtual machine container; and

a communication channel operatively connecting said host computer and said servant computer;

said communication channel being configured to use an I/O instruction as a transaction boundary to trigger synchronization between said host virtual machine and said servant virtual machine.

7. The computer system according to claim 6, wherein said synchronization between the host virtual machine and the servant virtual machine includes a synchronization of CPU register states and main memories from the host virtual machine to the servant virtual machine.

8. The computer system according to claim 6, wherein each of said host virtual machine and said servant virtual machine comprises:

an instruction queue;

a main memory; and

a journal memory; and

wherein the host virtual machine is configured to load instructions from the main memory into its instruction queue, execute the instructions in the instruction queue and write the data into the main memory, and save the instructions into a journal memory of the host virtual machine in the form of journal storage instructions.

9. The computer system according to claim 8, wherein said host virtual machine is configured to respond to an I/O instruction by sending a journal storage instruction between said I/O instruction and a previous I/O instruction which is stored in said journal memory of the host virtual machine, to the journal memory of the servant virtual machine.

10. The computer system according to claim 9, wherein the servant virtual machine is configured to execute the journal storage instruction in its journal memory to synchronize the CPU register state and the main memory of the servant virtual machine with those of the host virtual machine.

11. A computer comprising a virtual machine container and a virtual machine running on said virtual machine container, wherein said virtual machine comprises:

an instruction queue;

a main memory; and

a journal memory; and

wherein the virtual machine is configured to load instructions from the main memory into its instruction queue, execute the instructions in the instruction queue and write the data into the main memory, and write the instructions in the form of journal storage instruction into a journal memory of the virtual machine; and

wherein said virtual machine is further configured to use an I/O instruction as a transaction boundary to trigger a synchronization operation with a virtual machine of an other computer.

12. The computer according to claim 11, wherein said virtual machine is configured, as part of said synchronization operation, to respond to detection of an I/O instruction by sending a journal storage instruction between said I/O instruction and a previous I/O instruction which is stored in said journal memory to a journal memory of the virtual machine of said other computer through a communication channel with said other computer.