AUTOMATIC REPLICATION OF VIRTUAL MACHINES

• US 20120084414A1
• Filed: 12/02/2010
• Published: 04/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/05/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Unisys Corporation
• Original Assignee: Unisys Corporation
• Inventors: Brock, Scott L., Bose, Sumit Kumar, Skeoch, Ronald Leaton
• Granted Patent: US 9,110,727 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/221
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• 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 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: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed herein to automatically replicate virtual machine image (VM) files on secondary VM computing devices, from a primary VM computing device. The secondary VM computing devices are automatically selected by constantly reviewing the operating parameter values (e.g., cost of resources, power consumption, etc.) of a number of secondary VM computing devices available of storing VM image replicas. The replica of the primary VM image is stored in the secondary VM computing devices in geographically disparate cloud locations. The primary VM image is automatically broken into constituent data blocks stored in an active index, which is compared against a stale index of data blocks. When an update is detected in the primary VM image, the comparison of indices will indicate that there is new data. Only the new data is used to update the secondary VM images, thereby reducing network traffic and latency issues.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of automatically replicating virtual machines across wide area networks, the method comprising:

selecting, from a plurality of secondary backend computing device, at least one secondary backend computing device for storing at least one replica of the first virtual machine for physical hosting of the first virtual machine image;

monitoring, in a primary backend computing device, the first virtual machine image for any updates, where the update to the first virtual machine image creates a second virtual machine image;

partitioning, in the primary backend computing device, the first virtual machine image into a set of first virtual machine image components, and the second virtual machine image into a set of second virtual machine image components;

indexing, in the primary backend computing device, the first set of virtual machine image components into an index of stale virtual machine image components, and the second set of virtual machine image components into an index of active virtual machine image components;

comparing, in the primary backend computing device, the set of active virtual machine image components to the set of stale virtual machine components to identify new active virtual machine image components, where the new active virtual machine image components are transmitted to the selected secondary backend computing device; and

updating, in the selected secondary backend computing device, the at least one replica of the first virtual machine with the new active virtual machine image components, thereby replicating the second virtual machine image in the selected secondary backend computing device.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the secondary backend computing device is selected if the operating parameter values of the secondary backend computing device is within the limiting parameter values defined in a computer-coded business rule.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the operating parameters and the limiting parameters includes network bandwidth, processor consumption, memory capacity, power consumed, heat generated, number of access users allowed and cost of resources.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the limiting parameters and the limiting parameters values in the computer-coded business rule are defined by a service level agreement (SLA) between the virtual machine service provider and a client of the virtual machine service provider.

5. The method according to claim 2, wherein a set of third operating parameter values from an unrelated third virtual machine image resident on one of the plurality of secondary backend computing device is used as the operating parameter values for comparison with the limiting parameter values, when the unrelated third virtual machine image comprises similar operating parameter values as the first virtual machine image.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein comparing the first virtual machine image with a similar type unrelated third virtual machine image to derive the operating parameters comprises matching the operating parameter values, including data size, number of users allowed, and software application similarity of the first virtual machine image and the unrelated third virtual machine image.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein comparing the active and stale virtual machine image components is performed by a content based redundancy elimination method, including Rabin fingerprints.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein updating at least one replica of the first virtual machine is performed by implementing a write coalescing of the new active virtual machine image components, and then compressing the new active virtual machine image components.

9. A computer-implemented system of automatically replicating virtual machines across wide area networks, the method comprising:

selecting, from a plurality of secondary backend computing device, at least one secondary backend computing device for storing at least one replica of the first virtual machine for physical hosting of the first virtual machine image;

monitoring, in a primary backend computing device, the first virtual machine image for any updates, where the update to the first virtual machine image creates a second virtual machine image;

partitioning, in the primary backend computing device, the first virtual machine image into a set of first virtual machine image components, and the second virtual machine image into a set of second virtual machine image components;

indexing, in the primary backend computing device, the first set of virtual machine image components into an index of stale virtual machine image components, and the second set of virtual machine image components into an index of active virtual machine image components;

comparing, in the primary backend computing device, the set of active virtual machine image components to the set of stale virtual machine components to identify new active virtual machine image components, where the new active virtual machine image components are transmitted to the selected secondary backend computing device; and

updating, in the selected secondary backend computing device, the at least one replica of the first virtual machine with the new active virtual machine image components, thereby replicating the second virtual machine image in the selected secondary backend computing device.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein the secondary backend computing device is selected if the operating parameter values of the secondary backend computing device is within the limiting parameter values defined in a computer-coded business rule.

11. The system according to claim 10, wherein the operating parameters and the limiting parameters includes network bandwidth, processor consumption, memory capacity, power consumed, heat generated, number of access users allowed and cost of resources.

12. The system according to claim 10, wherein the limiting parameters and its values in the computer-coded business rule are defined by a service level agreement (SLA) between the virtual machine service provider and a client of the virtual machine service provider.

13. The system according to claim 9, wherein a set of third operating parameter values from an unrelated third virtual machine image resident on one of the plurality of secondary backend computing device is used as the operating parameter values for comparison with the limiting parameter values, when the unrelated third virtual machine image comprises similar operating parameter values as the first virtual machine image.

14. The system according to claim 13, wherein comparing the first virtual machine image with a similar type unrelated third virtual machine image to derive the operating parameters comprises matching the operating parameter values, including data size, number of users allowed, and software application similarity of the first virtual machine image and the unrelated third virtual machine image.

15. The system according to claim 9, wherein comparing the active and stale virtual machine image components is performed by a content based redundancy elimination method, including Rabin fingerprints.

16. The system according to claim 9, wherein updating at least one replica of the first virtual machine is performed by implementing a write coalescing of the new active virtual machine image components, and then compressing the new active virtual machine image components.