PROTECTING VIRTUAL MACHINES AGAINST STORAGE CONNECTIVITY FAILURES

• US 20140059392A1
• Filed: 08/23/2013
• Published: 02/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ren, Joanne, Farkas, Keith, Ziskind, Elisha, Tarashansky, Igor, Krishnan, Manoj
• Granted Patent: US 9,361,199 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/47.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0712 in a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/202 where processing functionality is redundant redundant communication control functionality G06F11/2005, redundant storage control functionality G06F11/2089
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/203 using migration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/805 Real-time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual

Abstract

A system for monitoring a virtual machine executed on a host. The system includes a processor that receives an indication that a failure caused a storage device to be inaccessible to the virtual machine, the inaccessible storage device impacting an ability of the virtual machine to provide service, and applies a remedy to restore access to the storage device based on a type of the failure.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring virtual machines, the system comprising:

a host executing a virtual machine; and

a processor programmed to;

receive an indication that a failure caused a storage device to be inaccessible to the virtual machine, the inaccessible storage device impacting an ability of the virtual machine to provide service; and

apply a remedy to restore access to the storage device based on a type of the failure.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the host comprises a fault domain manager (FDM), and wherein the FDM is configured to determine that the failure is a Permanent Device Loss (PDL), and wherein the remedy is to terminate the virtual machine upon determining that the failure is a PDL.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage device is a datastore.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the host comprises a fault domain manager (FDM), and wherein the FDM is configured to determine that the failure is an All Paths Down (APD), and wherein the remedy is to terminate the virtual machine after a predefined period of time has elapsed.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the remedy further comprises resetting the virtual machine if the APD failure clears before a predefined period of time has elapsed.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the remedy further comprises restarting the virtual machine on a healthy host.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein if restarting the virtual machine on the healthy host fails, retry restarting the virtual machine on the healthy host or another healthy host.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein retrying to restart the virtual machine on the healthy host is limited to a predefined number of retries.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein retrying to restart the virtual machine on the healthy host is continued until the virtual machine is restarted on the healthy host or another healthy host.

10. A method for monitoring a virtual machine executed on a host, the method comprising:

receiving an indication that a failure caused a storage device to be inaccessible to the virtual machine, the inaccessible storage device impacting an ability of the virtual machine to provide service; and

applying a remedy to restore access to the storage device based on a type of the failure.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising determining, by a fault domain manager (FDM) executed on the host, that the failure is a Permanent Device Loss (PDL), and wherein the remedy is to terminate the virtual machine upon determining that the failure is a PDL.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising determining, by a fault domain manager (FDM) executed on the host, that the failure is an All Paths Down (APD), and wherein the remedy is to terminate the virtual machine after a predefined period of time has elapsed.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the remedy further comprises resetting the virtual machine if the APD failure clears before a predefined period of time has elapsed.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the remedy further comprises restarting the virtual machine on a healthy host.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein if restarting the virtual machine on the healthy host fails, retry restarting the virtual machine on the healthy host or another healthy host.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein retrying to restart the virtual machine on the healthy host is limited to a predefined number of retries.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein retrying to restart the virtual machine on the healthy host is continued until the virtual machine is restarted on the healthy host or another healthy host.

18. At least one computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon, wherein, when executed by at least one processor, the computer-executable instructions cause the at least one processor to:

receive an indication that a failure caused a storage device to be inaccessible to a virtual machine, the inaccessible storage device impacting an ability of the virtual machine to provide service; and

apply a remedy to restore access to the storage device based on a type of the failure.

19. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the failure is a Permanent Device Loss, and wherein the remedy comprises one of the following:

terminating the virtual machine, or restarting the virtual machine on a healthy host.

20. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the failure is an All Paths Down (APD), and wherein the remedy comprises one of the following:

terminating the virtual machine after a predefined period of time has elapsed;

restarting the virtual machine on a healthy host;

or resetting the virtual machine if the APD failure clears before the predefined period of time has elapsed.