Booting Devices Using Virtual Storage Arrays Over Wide-Area Networks

• US 20120030456A1
• Filed: 06/22/2011
• Published: 02/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Riverbed Technology, LLC (Riverbed Technology Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Riverbed Technology Incorporated
• Inventors: Wu, David Tze-Si, McCanne, Steven, Demmer, Michael J., Gupta, Nitin
• Granted Patent: US 8,677,111 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications

Abstract

Virtual storage arrays consolidate data storage at a data center for physical and virtual computer systems at one or more branch network locations. Standalone and virtualized computer systems at a branch network location load, execute, and store their operating systems, applications, and data using virtual storage arrays and do not require any built-in or external non-volatile data storage devices such as hard disk drives or solid-state drives at the branch network location. The virtual disks of the virtual storage array are mapped to physical data storage at the data center and accessed via a WAN using storage block-based protocols. A storage block cache at the branch network location includes storage blocks prefetched based on knowledge about the computer systems at the branch network location and the behavior of their operating systems and applications.

Claims

1. A method of initializing a computer system at a first network location, the method comprising:

receiving a message indicating an activation of a computer system;

configuring the computer system to access a virtual logical storage unit provided by a virtual storage array interface at the first network location, wherein the virtual logical storage unit corresponds with a physical logical storage device at a second network location, wherein the second network location is connected with the first network location via a wide-area network;

receiving storage block requests from the computer system for storage blocks in the virtual logical storage unit, wherein the storage blocks are associated with an initialization process of the computer system; and

in response to the storage block requests, servicing at least a first storage block request included in the storage block requests from the physical logical storage device via the wide-area network and at least a second storage block request in the storage block requests from a storage block cache at the first network location.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the received storage block requests from the computer system include a storage block request from a pre-execution environment executed by the computer system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the received storage block requests from the computer system include a storage block request from an operating system executed by the computer system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein configuring the computer system to access a virtual logical storage unit provided by a virtual storage array interface at the first network location includes providing the computer system with access to a boot server at the first network location.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the boot server is a virtual boot server.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer system is implemented as a virtual machine application.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the virtual machine application and the virtual storage array interface are implemented within a first device at the first network location.

8. The method of claim 1 comprising:

prefetching a portion of storage blocks included in the physical logical storage device at the second network location;

communicating the prefetched portion of the storage blocks via the wide-area network to the first network location; and

storing copies of the portion of the storage blocks included in the physical logical storage device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein prefetching the portion of storage blocks comprises:

identifying the first one of the storage requests as associated with first high-level data structure entity associated with the initialization process of the computer system;

identifying an association between the first high-level data structure entity and a second high-level data structure entity;

identifying at least one additional storage block in the physical logical storage device associated with the second high-level data structure entity; and

selecting the at least one additional storage block for prefetching.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first high-level data structure entity includes a first file used by the initialization process of the computer system.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first file is a log file.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the second high-level data structure entity includes a second file referenced by the first file.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the first high-level data structure entity is associated with a pre-execution environment.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the first high-level data structure entity is associated with an operating system.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the association between the first high-level data structure entity and the second high-level data structure entity includes a reference included in the first high-level data structure entity to the second high-level data structure entity.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the association between the first high-level data structure entity and the second high-level data structure entity includes a previous access time of the second high-level data structure entity having a correlation with a previous access time of the first high-level data structure entity.

17. A system for initializing a computer system, the system comprising:

a computer system at a first network location;

a physical logical storage device at a second network location, wherein the second network location is connected with the first network location via a wide-area network;

a virtual storage array interface at the first network location, wherein the virtual storage array interface provides a virtual storage unit at the first network location corresponding with the physical logical storage device at the second network location; and

a boot server at the first network location, wherein the boot server includes configuration information adapted to configure the computer system to send at least first and second storage block requests from the virtual storage unit during an initialization process of the computer system;

wherein the virtual storage array interface services at least the first storage block request from the physical logical storage device at the second network location via the wide-area network and services at least the second storage block request from a storage block cache at the first network location.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the first and second storage block requests from the first computer system include a storage block request from a pre-execution environment executed by the computer system.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the first and second storage block requests from the computer system include a storage block request from an operating system executed by the computer system.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the boot server is a virtual boot server.

21. The system of claim 17, wherein the computer system is implemented as a virtual machine application.

23. The system of claim 17, wherein the storage block cache includes storage blocks prefetched from the physical logical storage device.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein at least a portion of the prefetched storage blocks are retrieved from the physical logical storage device in response to an association between a storage block previously requested by the computer system and the portion of the prefetched storage blocks, wherein the association between the previously requested storage blocks and the portion of the prefetched storage blocks includes at least a first high-level data structure entity.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the first high-level data structure entity includes a first file used by the initialization process of the computer system.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the first file is a log file.

27. The system of claim 24, wherein the association includes a second high-level data structure entity referenced by the first high-level data structure entity.

22. The system of claim 22, wherein the virtual machine application and the virtual storage array interface are implemented within a first device at the first network location.