Virtual Machine Monitor

• US 20100162242A1
• Filed: 12/18/2009
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Virtuallogix SA (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Virtuallogix SA (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Inventors: GROUZDEV, Vladimir
• Granted Patent: US 9,092,251 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A method for managing virtual machines, the method comprising providing a virtual Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, ACPI, arranged to interact with the virtual machines, and interacting with a real ACPI based on interaction between the virtual ACPI and the plurality of virtual machines. (FIG. 2)

Claims

1. A method for managing virtual machines, the method comprising:

providing a virtual Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, ACPI, arranged to interact with the virtual machines; and

interacting with a real ACPI based on interaction between the virtual ACPI and the plurality of virtual machines.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein a device is shared between multiple ones of the virtual machines and, and the method comprises maintaining a respective virtual device state of the device for each of the multiple ones of the virtual machines.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2, comprising determining a real device state for the device from the virtual device states.

4. A method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the virtual device state is a device power or performance state, and determining the real device state comprises determining a maximum power or performance state from the virtual device states.

5. A method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the device is one of a data processing system, on-board device, PCI device, power resource, CPU or other device.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising interacting with a leaf device based on interaction between the virtual machine monitor and one of the virtual machines to which the leaf device is assigned.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising providing virtual power buttons that are usable by the virtual machines to send ACPI power button notification events to others of the virtual machines.

8. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising receiving a first event notification from the real ACPI, and providing a second event notification to one or more of the virtual machines based on the first event notification.

9. A method as claimed in claim 8, comprising determining an event number of the first event notification, and providing the event number to one of the virtual machines in response to a query from that virtual machine.

10. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising providing to each virtual machine respective virtual ACPI tables corresponding to devices available to the virtual machine.

11. A method as claimed in claim 10, comprising adding one or more wrapper control methods corresponding to the devices available to one of the virtual machines to a virtual Differentiated System Description Table, vDSDT, for the virtual machine.

12. A virtual machine monitor arranged to carry out steps of a method as claimed in claim 1.

13. A data processing system arranged to perform a method as claimed in claim 1.

14. A computer program comprising code form implementing a method as claimed in claim 1.

15. Computer readable storage storing a computer program as claimed in claim 14.