System and Method for Providing Migrateable Virtual Serial Port Services

• US 20130198744A1
• Filed: 07/31/2012
• Published: 08/01/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vertiv IT Systems, Inc. (Vertiv Holdings Co.)
• Original Assignee: Vertiv IT Systems, Inc. (Vertiv Holdings Co.)
• Inventors: Zimmerman, Arnaldo, Seabra, Edison
• Granted Patent: US 10,042,656 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 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A virtualization environment provides a virtual console server that communicates with other virtual servers/machines utilizing virtual hardware connections such that the virtual remote console server can monitor and/or control the virtual servers/machines in the environment as if the virtual remote console server and the other virtual servers/machines were connected, even if the virtual console server and/or the other virtual servers are moved between processors in the virtualization environment.

Claims

1. A virtualization environment comprising:

first and second processors;

computer memory accessible by the at least one processor; and

computer code contained within the computer memory to control the at least one processor to perform the steps of;

generating at least one virtual server, generating a virtual console server that runs as a virtual machine separate from the at least one virtual server;

specifying a virtual serial connection between the at least one virtual server and the virtual console server such that serial communication can continue between the at least one virtual server and the virtual console server if at least one of the at least one virtual server and the virtual console server are moved from the first processor to the second processor;

communicating between the at least one virtual server and the virtual console server using the virtual serial connection; and

receiving commands at the virtual console server to configure the virtual console server from a first computer remote from the virtualization environment.

2. The virtualization environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the virtual connection is specified as an IP address and port number.

3. The virtualization environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the virtual connection is specified as computer name and port number.

4. The virtualization environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the virtual console server further comprises computer code for providing access control to the at least one virtual server from a second computer remote from the virtualization environment.

5. The virtualization environment as claimed in claim 4, wherein the first and second computers are different computers.

6. The virtualization environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein the virtual console server further comprises computer code for analyzing communications communicating between the at least one virtual server and the virtual console server using the virtual serial connection to determine if the communications indicate that a specified condition has occurred in the at least one virtual server.

7. The virtualization environment as claimed in claim 4, wherein the virtual console server communicates with the second computer remote from the virtualization environment using IPSec communications.