CONFIGURING VM AND IO STORAGE ADAPTER VF FOR VIRTUAL TARGET ADDRESSING DURING DIRECT DATA ACCESS

• US 20110179414A1
• Filed: 01/18/2010
• Published: 07/21/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: SUBRAMANIAN, Hariharan, GOGGIN, Edward J., ASWANI, Sanjana
• Granted Patent: US 8,473,947 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 3/061 Improving I/O performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0622 in relation to access
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A method is provided for use in a system that includes a host computing machine configured to implement a virtualization intermediary and that includes a physical storage adapter, the configures a virtual machine (VM) and a virtual function (VF) to support IO operations to physical storage through a direct IOV path to the VF of the physical storage adapter, the method comprises: creating by the virtualization intermediary mapping information that includes a first mapping between virtual disks and physical regions of physical storage and that includes a second mapping between virtual disks and virtual disk addresses; transmitting the mapping information from the virtualization intermediary over the physical storage adapter from a physical function (PF) of the physical storage adapter to the VF; associating a virtual port with the mapping information within the virtualization intermediary; binding the virtual port to the VF; communicating virtual disk addresses indicated within the second mapping within the transmitted mapping information for the allocated virtual disks to the VM.

Claims

1. In a system that includes a host computing machine configured to implement a virtualization intermediary and that includes a physical storage adapter, a method to configure a virtual machine (VM) and a virtual function (VF) of the physical storage adapter to support IO operations to physical storage through a direct path to the VF, comprising:

creating a plurality of virtual disks by the virtualization intermediary;

creating by the virtualization intermediary mapping information that includes a first mapping between virtual disks and physical regions of physical storage and that includes a second mapping between virtual disks and virtual disk addresses;

allocating by the virtualization intermediary multiple virtual disks to the VM;

transmitting a copy of the mapping information for the allocated virtual disks from the virtualization intermediary over the physical storage adapter to the VF;

creating by the virtualization intermediary a virtual port;

associating the virtual port with mapping information for the allocated virtual disks within the virtualization intermediary;

binding the virtual port to the VF;

communicating virtual disk addresses, indicated within the second mapping within the mapping information for the allocated virtual disks, to the VM.

2. The method of claim 1 further including:

storing the mapping information in storage accessible to the virtualization intermediary.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein the first mapping provides a mapping between a virtual disk and one or more physical regions of one or more physical logical units of one or more physical targets.

4. The method of claim 1,

wherein the second mapping includes a mapping of the virtual disks to two-tuples each tuple comprising a virtual SCSI target and virtual SCSI logical unit.

5. The method of claim 1,

wherein creating by the virtualization intermediary a virtual port include obtaining a transport address for the virtual port.

6. The method of claim 1,

wherein creating by the virtualization intermediary a virtual port includes performing one or more logins to a storage area network (SAN) fabric on behalf of the VM associated with the VF to which the virtual port is to be bound.

7. The method of claim 1,

wherein binding the virtual port to the VF includes transmitting virtual port information over the physical storage adapter from the PF to the VF.

8. The method of claim 1 further including:

allocating a message signal interrupt to the VF.

9. The method of claim 1 further including:

creating an emulated hybrid storage adapter (HSA) that includes a first HSA memory space that provides access from the VM directly to the VF and that includes a second HSA memory space that provides access from the VM to the PF with virtualization intermediary intervention.

10. The method of claim 1 further including:

creating an emulated hybrid storage adapter (HSA) that includes a first HSA memory space that provides access from the VM directly to the VF and that includes a second HSA memory space that provides access from the VM to the PF with virtualization intermediary intervention; and

providing by the HSA, a request to the virtualization intermediary for the mapping information;

wherein the act of transmitting the mapping information from the virtualization intermediary to the VF occurs in response to the request by the HSA.

11. The method of claim 1,

wherein transmitting a copy of the mapping information for the allocated virtual disks includes transmitting over the physical storage adapter from a physical function (PF) of the physical storage adapter to the VF.

12. The method of claim 1, further including:

creating an emulated hybrid storage adapter (HSA) that includes a first HSA memory space that provides access from the VM directly to the VF and that includes a second HSA memory space that provides access from the VM to the PF with virtualization intermediary intervention;

wherein communicating virtual disk addresses to the VM further includes;

requesting by a VF driver of the VM via the second HSA memory space to the virtualization intermediary to identify the virtual targets identified within the mapping information that are accessible by the VM,

identifying by the virtualization intermediary to the VF driver the virtual targets that are accessible by the VM, and

determining by a guest operating system of the VM the virtual logical units mapped to the identified virtual targets.

13. The method of claim 12,

wherein the second mapping includes a mapping of the virtual disks to two-tuples each tuple comprising a virtual SCSI target and virtual SCSI logical unit

wherein determining by the guest operating system of the VM includes probing by the guest operating system the identified targets to identify virtual logical units mapped to the identified virtual targets by the second mapping information.

14. The method of claim 13,

wherein probing by the guest operating system includes probing via the second HSA memory space.

15. The method of claim 1 further including:

identifying by the virtualization intermediary physical targets of physical storage accessible via a physical function (PF) of the physical adapter;

identifying by the virtualization intermediary physical logical units of each identified physical target.