METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPARING CONFIGURATION AND TOPOLOGY OF VIRTUALIZED DATACENTER INVENTORIES

• US 20130091499A1
• Filed: 10/10/2011
• Published: 04/11/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: SOUNDARARAJAN, Vijayaraghavan, PARIMI, Balaji
• Granted Patent: US 9,063,768 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a method of verifying that a reconstructed inventory of a virtualized computer system has been accurately reproduced from an original inventory of a virtualized computer system. A first snapshot and a second snapshot are received, where the first snapshot is a snapshot of the original inventory and the second snapshot is a snapshot of the reconstructed inventory. The first snapshot and the second snapshot are then analyzed to determine that hierarchical relationships, roles and permissions, configuration settings, and/or custom definitions of items in the original inventory match hierarchical relationships of corresponding items in the reconstructed inventory.

Claims

1. A method of verifying that a reconstructed inventory of a virtualized computer system has been accurately reproduced from an original inventory of a virtualized computer system, comprising:

retrieving first and second snapshots, wherein the first snapshot is a snapshot of the original inventory and the second snapshot is a snapshot of the reconstructed inventory;

analyzing the first snapshot and the second snapshot to determine that hierarchical relationships of items in the original inventory match hierarchical relationships of corresponding items in the reconstructed inventory.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the first snapshot and the second snapshot to determine that configuration settings of items in the original inventory match configuration settings of corresponding items in the reconstructed inventory.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the first snapshot and the second snapshot to determine that roles and permissions in the original inventory match roles and permissions in the reconstructed inventory.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the first snapshot and the second snapshot to determine that custom definitions for one or more items in the original inventory match custom definitions for corresponding one or more items in the reconstructed inventory.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical relationships of each item include an explicit path and/or an implicit path.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the explicit path references a folder when the item is a virtual machine.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the implicit path references a utility application for multiple virtual machines when the item is a virtual machine.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the implicit path references a resource pool when the item is a virtual machine.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the first snapshot and the second identify items in the respective inventories from which they are derived, the items including virtual machines, servers on which the virtual machines are running, one or more data centers in which the servers reside, and logical containers, the logical containers including folders for virtual machines, resource pools that each contain one or more virtual machines, and server clusters that each contain one or more servers.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the roles and permissions define actions that may be performed on the items by one user or two or more users that belong to a class of users.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a linked-list data structure included in each of the first snapshot and the second snapshot is traversed to determine that hierarchical relationships of items in the original inventory match hierarchical relationships of corresponding items in the destination inventory.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein each node in a linked-list defined by the linked list data structure is an item in an inventory and each edge in the linked-list represents a relationship between two nodes connected by the edge.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein a first mapping table and a second mapping table are generated from traversing the linked-list of the first snapshot and the second snapshot, respectively.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein each entry in the first mapping table corresponds to an item in an inventory, and stores an explicit path to the item and configuration data for the item.

15. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to verify that a reconstructed inventory of a virtualized computer system has been accurately reproduced from an original inventory of a virtualized computer system, comprising:

retrieving first and second snapshots, wherein the first snapshot is a snapshot of the original inventory and the second snapshot is a snapshot of the reconstructed inventory;

analyzing the first snapshot and the second snapshot to determine that hierarchical relationships of items in the original inventory match hierarchical relationships of corresponding items in the reconstructed inventory.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising:

analyzing the first snapshot and the second snapshot to determine that configuration settings of items in the original inventory match configuration settings of corresponding items in the reconstructed inventory.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising:

analyzing the first snapshot and the second snapshot to determine that roles and permissions in the original inventory match roles and permissions in the reconstructed inventory.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising:

analyzing the first snapshot and the second snapshot to determine that custom definitions for one or more items in the original inventory match custom definitions for corresponding one or more items in the reconstructed inventory.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the hierarchical relationships of each item include an explicit path and/or an implicit path.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein each of the first snapshot and the second identify items in the respective inventories from which they are derived, the items including virtual machines, servers on which the virtual machines are running, one or more data centers in which the servers reside, and logical containers, the logical containers including folders for virtual machines, resource pools that each contain one or more virtual machines, and server clusters that each contain one or more servers.