SCALABLE STORAGE FOR VIRTUAL MACHINES
First Claim
1. A system comprising:
- Federated File System (Federated FS), the Federated FS comprising one or more network attached storage (NAS) file servers that stores directory sets that are exclusive to one or more virtual machines (VMs);
NAS Virtualization Management system (NAS VMS), which interfaces with a Virtualization Management system; and
one or more NAS clients associated with the VMs and optionally enhanced to understand extended semantics for controlling NAS referrals.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system is disclosed for providing storage services to Virtual Machines (VMs) and the Hypervisor Platforms that host them. NAS referrals are used to control selection of NAS proxy servers that are optimized for the support of VMs and the Hypervisor Platforms accessing directories that are exclusively used in conjunction of a single VM. Referrals are dynamically controlled in a manner specific to the target environment to provide an optimal combination of local and network storage in support of VMs. A method of using named attributes allows referrals to subsets of a directory. The overhead of using a NAS proxy is tailored to the smallest set of accesses required to gain beneficial result from the use of local storage, and using direct access to shared network storage when local storage is not allocated. Most of the new suggested techniques are transparent to the existing NAS clients; some techniques may require modification of the NAS client software.
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Citations
29 Claims
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1. A system comprising:
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Federated File System (Federated FS), the Federated FS comprising one or more network attached storage (NAS) file servers that stores directory sets that are exclusive to one or more virtual machines (VMs); NAS Virtualization Management system (NAS VMS), which interfaces with a Virtualization Management system; and one or more NAS clients associated with the VMs and optionally enhanced to understand extended semantics for controlling NAS referrals. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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5. A method comprising:
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storing directory sets that are exclusive to one or more virtual machines (VMs) in one or more network attached storage (NAS) servers in a Federated File System (Federated FS); and associating one or more NAS clients with the VMs, wherein the NAS clients may be optionally enhanced to understand extended semantics for controlling the NAS references. - View Dependent Claims (6)
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28. A VM Storage Proxy comprising:
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a storage medium; and a proxy network attached storage (NAS) server exercising control over selected directories within a Federated File System (Federated FS).
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29. A system comprising:
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at least one proxy network attached storage (NAS) server for providing specialized storage services to one or more virtual machines (VMs) and the Hypervisor Platforms hosting those VMs; Federated File System (Federated FS), the Federated FS comprising one or more network attached storage (NAS) file servers that store directory sets that are exclusive to one or more VMs; NAS Virtualization Management system (NAS VMS), which interfaces with a Virtualization Management system; and one or more NAS Clients associated with one or more VMs and optionally enhanced to understand extended semantics for controlling NAS referrals.
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Specification