MECHANISM FOR STORING VIRTUAL MACHINES ON A FILE SYSTEM IN A DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENT

• US 20120272238A1
• Filed: 04/21/2011
• Published: 10/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat Israel Ltd. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat Israel Ltd. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Baron, Ayal
• Granted Patent: US 9,047,313 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/176 Support for shared access to files; File sharing support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/196 Specific adaptations of the file system to access devices and non-file objects via standard file system access operations, e.g. pseudo file systems dedicated interfaces to storage systems G06F3/0601
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A mechanism for storing virtual machines on a file system in a distributed environment is disclosed. A method of the invention includes initializing creation of a VM by a hypervisor of a host machine, allocating a logical volume from a logical volume group of a shared storage pool to the VM, and creating a file system on top of the allocated logical volume, the file system to manage all files, metadata, and snapshots associated with the VM.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

initializing, by a hypervisor of a host machine, creation of a virtual machine (VM);

allocating, by the hypervisor, a logical volume from a logical volume group of a shared storage pool to the VM; and

creating, by the hypervisor, a file system on top of the allocated logical volume, the file system to manage all files, metadata, and snapshots associated with the VM.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the shared storage pool includes a plurality of disparate physical storage disks.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the VM is accessed and executed from the shared storage by mounting the file system on the host machine.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein any of a plurality of other host machines access and execute the VM from the shared storage by mounting the file system on the any other host machine.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein only one host machine of the plurality of host machines can access the file system of the VM at any point in time.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more snapshots created as part of running the VM on the host machine are filed into the file system associated with the VM.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein creating the file system includes executing a make file system command from the hypervisor.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the files and metadata of the VM are managed using file system commands of the file system.

9. A host machine, comprising:

a processing device;

a memory communicably coupled to the processing device; and

a hypervisor to execute one or more virtual machines (VMs) from the memory that share use of the processing device, the hypervisor configured to;

initialize creation of a VM of the one or more VMs;

allocate a logical volume from a logical volume group of a shared storage pool to the VM; and

create a file system on top of the allocated logical volume, the file system to manage all files, metadata, and snapshots associated with the VM.

10. The host machine of claim 9, wherein the shared storage pool includes a plurality of disparate physical storage disks.

11. The host machine of claim 9, wherein the VM is accessed and executed from the shared storage by mounting the file system on the host machine.

12. The host machine of claim 9, wherein any of a plurality of other host machines access and execute the VM from the shared storage by mounting the file system on the any other host machine.

13. The host machine of claim 9, wherein one or more snapshots created as part of running the VM on the host machine are filed into the file system associated with the VM.

14. The host machine of claim 9, wherein creating the file system includes executing a make file system command from the hypervisor.

15. The host machine of claim 9, wherein the files and metadata of the VM are managed using file system commands of the file system.

16. An article of manufacture comprising a machine-readable storage medium including data that, when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

initializing creation of a virtual machine (VM) by a hypervisor of a host machine;

allocating a logical volume from a logical volume group of a shared storage pool to the VM, and

creating a file system on top of the allocated logical volume, the file system to manage all files, metadata, and snapshots associated with the VM.

17. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein the shared storage pool includes a plurality of disparate physical storage disks.

18. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein the VM is accessed and executed from the shared storage by mounting the file system on the host machine.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein any of a plurality of other host machines access and execute the VM from the shared storage by mounting the file system on the any other host machine.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein one or more snapshots created as part of running the VM on the host machine are filed into the file system associated with the VM.