SECURING LIVE MIGRATION OF A VIRTUAL MACHINE WITHIN A SERVICE LANDSCAPE

• US 20100071025A1
• Filed: 09/15/2008
• Published: 03/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Law, Michael S., Joseph, Dinakaran, Gottimukkala, Sivaram, Huynh, Lap T., Devine, Wesley M., Overby, Linwood H. JR.
• Granted Patent: US 9,715,401 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence

Abstract

In an embodiment of the invention, a method for secure live migration of a virtual machine (VM) in a virtualized computing environment can include selecting a VM in a secure virtualized computing environment for live migration to a different virtualized computing environment and blocking data communications with the selected VM and other VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment. The selected VM can be live migrated to the different virtualized computing environment and the VM cna be restarted in the different virtualized computing environment. Notably, a secure communicative link can be established between the restarted VM and at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment. Finally, data communications between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs can be enabled over the secure communicative link.

Claims

1. A method for secure live migration of a virtual machine (VM) in a virtualized computing environment, the method comprising:

selecting a VM in a secure virtualized computing environment for live migration to a different virtualized computing environment and blocking data communications with the selected VM and other VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment;

live migrating the selected VM to the different virtualized computing environment and restarting the VM in the different virtualized computing environment;

establishing a secure communicative link between the restarted VM and at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment; and

,

enabling data communications between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs over the secure communicative link.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

adding a tunnel between a routing core of the secure virtualized computing environment and the restarted VM; and

,

responsive to determining an update to the routing core permitting routing of data packets from the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment to the restarted VM, removing the tunnel.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing a secure communicative link between the restarted VM and at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment, comprises:

configuring an Internet protocol (IP) Security (IPSec) policy for secure communications between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment; and

,

establishing an IPSec conformant communicative link between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment according to the configured IPSec policy.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein enabling data communications between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs over the secure communicative link, further comprises:

determining non-managed connections persisting between the selected VM and other communicative entities;

identifying unsecured ones of the non-managed connections; and

,

resetting the identified unsecured ones of the non-managed connections as secured connections and re-establishing the unsecured ones of the non-managed connections as secured connections.

5. A virtualized computing data processing system comprising:

a secure virtualized computing environment comprising a hypervisor managing a plurality of virtual machines (VMs) within the secure virtualized computing environment;

a different virtualized computing environment comprising a hypervisor managing a plurality of VMs within the different virtualized computing environment;

live migration logic coupled to each of the secure virtualized computing environment and the different virtualized computing environment, the logic comprising program code enabled to select one of the VMs in a secure virtualized computing environment for live migration to the different virtualized computing environment and to block data communications with the selected VM and other VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment, to live migrate the selected VM to the different virtualized computing environment and to restart the VM in the different virtualized computing environment, to establish a secure communicative link between the restarted VM and at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment, and to enable data communications between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs over the secure communicative link.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the secure communicative link is an Internet protocol (IP) Security (IPSec) conformant secure communicative link.

7. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium embodying computer usable program code for secure live migration of a virtual machine (VM) in a virtualized computing environment, the computer program product comprising:

computer usable program code for selecting a VM in a secure virtualized computing environment for live migration to a different virtualized computing environment and blocking data communications with the selected VM and other VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment;

computer usable program code for live migrating the selected VM to the different virtualized computing environment and restarting the VM in the different virtualized computing environment;

computer usable program code for establishing a secure communicative link between the restarted VM and at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment; and

,

computer usable program code for enabling data communications between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs over the secure communicative link.

8. The computer program product of claim 7, further comprising:

computer usable program code for adding a tunnel between a routing core of the secure virtualized computing environment and the restarted VM; and

,

computer usable program code for removing the tunnel in response to determining an update to the routing core permitting routing of data packets from the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment to the restarted VM.

9. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the computer usable program code for establishing a secure communicative link between the restarted VM and at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment, comprises:

computer usable program code for configuring an Internet protocol (IP) Security (IPSec) policy for secure communications between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment; and

,

computer usable program code for establishing an IPSec conformant communicative link between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs in the secure virtualized computing environment according to the configured IPSec policy.

10. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the computer usable program code for enabling data communications between the restarted VM and the at least one other of the VMs over the secure communicative link, further comprises:

computer usable program code for determining non-managed connections persisting between the selected VM and other communicative entities;

computer usable program code for identifying unsecured ones of the non-managed connections; and

,

computer usable program code for resetting the identified unsecured ones of the non-managed connections as secured connections and re-establishing the unsecured ones of the non-managed connections as secured connections.