VIRTUAL MACHINE BASED CONTROLLER AND UPGRADE MECHANISM

• US 20140101649A1
• Filed: 10/05/2012
• Published: 04/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/05/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lenovo International Limited (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: KAMBLE, KESHAV G., LEU, DAR-REN, PANDEY, VIJOY A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,507,586 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/170
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/656 while running
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

High availability for a network may be achieved, for example, during a hitless upgrade by creating a replica controller virtual machine of an operating controller virtual machine (source controller). The replica controller virtual machine may be on a same or different server as the source controller virtual machine. The replica controller virtual machine may be copied with processes present in the source controller virtual machine and synchronized for runtime state. Upgrades or changes to software applications run in the source controller virtual machine may be provided to the replica controller virtual machine. Once enabled, the replica controller virtual machine may be operated without suspension of the source controller virtual machine.

Claims

1. A computer program product for providing high availability (HA) in a network, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code being configured to:

operate a first controller virtual machine on a server;

replicate the first controller virtual machine into a replica controller virtual machine;

enable the replica controller virtual machine;

synchronize the first controller virtual machine with the replica controller virtual machine; and

operate the replica controller virtual machine without suspending the first controller.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the replica controller virtual machine is on the same server as the first controller virtual machine.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the replica controller virtual machine is added to a multicast group of servers.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the first controller virtual machine and the replica controller virtual machine are synchronized for runtime state.

5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the network is operated under a cell based distributed fabric protocol (CDFP).

6. The computer program product of claim 1, the computer readable program code being configured to provide state update synchronization between the first controller virtual machine and the replica controller virtual machine while both controller virtual machines are running.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the first controller virtual machine is operated as a master controller virtual machine and the replica controller virtual machine is operated as a stand-by controller virtual machine.

8. A network, comprising;

a first controller virtual machine;

a second controller virtual machine in communication with the first controller virtual machine; and

a server including at least the first controller virtual machine, wherein;

the second controller virtual machine is a replica of the first controller virtual machine,

the first controller virtual machine and second controller virtual machine are synchronized for runtime state, and

the second controller virtual machine is configured to operate without suspension of the first controller virtual machine.

9. The network of claim 8, wherein the network is a distributed fabric network operated under a cell based distributed fabric protocol (CDFP).

10. The network of claim 8, wherein the server includes both the first controller virtual machine and the second controller virtual machine.

11. The network of claim 10, wherein the server is part of a multicast group of servers.

12. The network of claim 8, wherein the second controller virtual machine is created as part of a software application upgrade.

13-17. -17. (canceled)

18. An architecture providing an In Service Software Upgrade (ISSU), comprising:

an operating system;

a first version of an application process being run by the operating system;

a second version of the application process being run by the operating system on a same physical server as the first version of the application process; and

an inter process communication (IPC) interface on each of the first version of the application process and the second version of the application process configured to establish communication between the first version of the application process and the second version of the application process, wherein the first version of the application process synchronizes with the second version of the application process through respective IPC interfaces.

19. The architecture of claim 18, wherein the first application process is configured to run sanity checks and/or security checks on the second version of the application process through respective IPC interfaces.

20. The architecture of claim 19, wherein a result of the sanity check and/or the security check causes the first application process to either share synchronization information with the second application process or to blacklist the second application process.

21. The architecture of claim 18, wherein the operating system is configured to determine if the second version of the application process is an upgrade or a downgrade of the first application process.

22. The architecture of claim 21, wherein the first version of the application process and the second version of the application process are configured to exchange version numbers used by the operating system to make the determination of the upgrade or downgrade.