Hypervisor-Agnostic Method of Configuring a Virtual Machine

• US 20120233611A1
• Filed: 10/11/2011
• Published: 09/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rackspace US Incorporated (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rackspace US Incorporated (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Voccio, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 9,015,709 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/14 Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operation G06F11/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0617 in relation to availability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0626 Reducing size or complexity of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0664 at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
• 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 3/0673 Single storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/461 Saving or restoring of program or task context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 : Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 : Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

In one embodiment, there is a method for configuring a virtual machine where there are two storage mechanisms available to the virtual machine: a first storage containing virtual machine operating information, and a second storage including virtual machine configuration information. The configuration information in the second storage is used to configure the virtual machine, including changing the information in the operating storage. The configuration information can pertain to the hypervisor, any logical container within the hypervisor, and any operating environment within on of the logical containers. In a further embodiment, the configuration information from the second storage can be saved and provided to another virtual machine, and used to configure the second virtual machine in a similar fashion. Each virtual machine can have an independent copy of the second storage, or the storage can be mounted in the first machine, unmounted, and then mounted in the second machine.

Claims

1. A method for configuring a virtual machine environment (VME), the method comprising:

receiving a first storage, the first storage including VME operating information;

receiving a second storage, the second storage including VME configuration information;

making the first storage accessible to the VME,

making the second storage accessible to the VME,

using the information in the second storage to configure the VME.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the VME comprises a hypervisor, a first logical container associated with the hypervisor, and a first operating environment associated with the first logical container, and wherein the step of using the information in the second storage to configure the VME includes configuring one of the hypervisor, the first logical container and the first operating environment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

at a second VME, receiving a third storage, the third storage including second VME operating information;

making the third storage accessible to the second VME,

making the second storage accessible to the second VME, and

using the information in the second storage to configure the second VME.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further includes the step of, after using the information in the second storage to configure the VME, making the second storage unavailable to the VME.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises saving information from the VME to the second storage, and persisting the information the VME in the second storage.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the step of making the first storage accessible or the step of making the second storage accessible further includes the step of mounting a disk.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the step of making the first storage accessible or the step of making the second storage accessible further includes the step of making a configuration information structure available to the VME.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the second storage is a multiple of 32 MB in size.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the second storage is made available as an overlay of the first storage.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of receiving a second storage further includes the step of receiving information over a network.

11. A system for providing configuration information to a virtual machine environment (VME), comprising:

a hypervisor running on a first information processing device, the first information processing device including a processor, a computer-readable medium and a network connection;

a first logical container associated with the hypervisor on the first information processing device;

a first operating environment associated with the first logical container;

a first storage accessible to the first operating environment;

a second storage; and

a first script processor,

wherein the first script processor is operable to configure the first operating environment according to configuration information available from the second storage.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the first script processor is associated exclusively with the first operating environment, and wherein the first storage is modifiable by the operating environment but not by the hypervisor.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein one of the first storage and second storage is a disk image.

14. The system of claim 11, further comprising a network-accessible persistence mechanism operable to provide access to the second storage on demand.

15. The system of claim 11, further comprising a persistence mechanism, and wherein the second storage is modifiable via the script processor and persistible via the persistence mechanism.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein the third storage is a multiple of 32 MB in size.

16. A system allowing the sharing of configuration information between a first virtual machine environment (VME) and a second VME, the system comprising:

a first VME including a first host storage, a first host memory, a first host processor, and a first hypervisor;

the first hypervisor further including first transfer module, a first logical container, the first logical container containing a first container storage, a first container memory, a first operating environment and a first script processor;

a second VME including a second host storage, a second host memory, a second host processor, and a second hypervisor;

the second hypervisor further including second transfer module, a second logical container, the second logical container containing a second container storage, a second container memory, a second operating environment and a second script processor;

a communications medium coupling the first VME and the second VME;

a third storage accessible via the communications medium;

wherein the first script processor configures the first operating environment according to information in the third storage, and the second script processor configures the second operating environment according to information in the third storage.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein one of the first operating environment and the second operating environment receives the third storage via the communications medium and makes the third storage locally available to the operating environment.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the first script processor modifies the contents of the third storage prior to the second script processor configuring the second operating environment according to information in the third storage.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein one of the first container storage and the second container storage is read-only.