POLICY-BASED DATA PLACEMENT IN A VIRTUALIZED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

• US 20140344809A1
• Filed: 05/13/2014
• Published: 11/20/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: JIN, Zhao, XIANG, Enning, CHEN, Ping, WANG, Jiajun, WANG, Yuanzhi
• Granted Patent: US 9,582,297 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44536 Selecting among different versions
• 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 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5005 to service a request
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 Partitioning or combining of resources
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5088 involving task migration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2895 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data provider application, e.g. reverse proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

An example method is provided to perform policy-based data placement in a virtualized computing environment. The method may comprise receiving a request to create a virtual disk for a virtual machine in the virtualized computing environment. The request may include a usage type associated with the virtual disk. The method may further comprise, based on a data placement policy associated with the usage type, determining a datastore on which to place the virtual disk and to store data of the usage type associated with the virtual disk.

Claims

1. A method to perform policy-based data placement in a virtualized computing environment, the method comprising:

receiving a request to create a virtual disk for a virtual machine in the virtualized computing environment, wherein the request includes a usage type associated with the virtual disk; and

based on a data placement policy associated with the usage type, determining a datastore on which to place the virtual disk and to store data of the usage type associated with the virtual disk.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, via at least one user interface, definition of the usage type and data placement policy; and

in response to receiving the request, retrieving the data placement policy associated with the usage type.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine includes a guest operating system and executes an application, and the usage type associated with the virtual disk relates to one of the following:

data of the guest operating system of the virtual machine;

data of the application being executed on the virtual machine;

data logged by the operating system or application, or both; and

data of the virtual machine that is stored for backup and recovery purposes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the data placement policy specifies a one-to-one relationship between the usage type associated with the virtual disk and the datastore.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the data placement policy specifies a one-to-many relationship between the usage type associated with the virtual disk and multiple datastores that include the datastore on which the virtual disk is placed.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising selecting the datastore from the multiple datastores associated with the usage type of the virtual disk.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating the virtual disk by placing the virtual disk on the datastore to store data of the usage type.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine implements a database in the virtualized computing environment, and the datastore on which to place the virtual disk is determined during the creation of the database.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that includes a set of instructions which, in response to execution by a processor, causes the processor to perform policy-based data placement in a virtualized computing environment, the method comprising:

receiving a request to create a virtual disk for a virtual machine in the virtualized computing environment, wherein the request includes a usage type associated with the virtual disk; and

based on a data placement policy associated with the usage type, determining a datastore on which to place the virtual disk and to store data of the usage type associated with the virtual disk.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving, via at least one user interface, definition of the usage type and data placement policy; and

in response to receiving the request, retrieving the data placement policy associated with the usage type.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the virtual machine includes a guest operating system and executes an application, and the usage type associated with the virtual disk relates to one of the following:

data of the guest operating system of the virtual machine;

data of the application being executed on the virtual machine;

data logged by the operating system or application, or both; and

data of the virtual machine that is stored for backup and recovery purposes.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the data placement policy specifies a one-to-one relationship between the usage type associated with the virtual disk and the datastore.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the data placement policy specifies a one-to-many relationship between the usage type associated with the virtual disk and multiple datastores that include the datastore on which the virtual disk is placed.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises selecting the datastore from the multiple datastores associated with the usage type of the virtual disk.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises creating the virtual disk by placing the virtual disk on the datastore to store data of the usage type.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the virtual machine implements a database in the virtualized computing environment, and the datastore on which to place the virtual disk is determined during the creation of the database.

17. A computer system for policy-based data placement in a virtualized computing environment, wherein the computer system comprises:

a processor; and

a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to;

receive a request to create a virtual disk for a virtual machine in the virtualized computing environment, wherein the request includes a usage type associated with the virtual disk; and

based on a data placement policy associated with the usage type, determine a datastore on which to place the virtual disk and to store data of the usage type associated with the virtual disk.

18. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further causes the processor to:

receive, via at least one user interface, definition of the usage type and data placement policy; and

in response to receiving the request, retrieve the data placement policy associated with the usage type.

19. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the virtual machine includes a guest operating system and executes an application, and the usage type associated with the virtual disk relates to one of the following:

data of the guest operating system of the virtual machine;

data of the application being executed on the virtual machine;

data logged by the operating system or application, or both; and

data of the virtual machine that is stored for backup and recovery purposes.

20. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the data placement policy specifies a one-to-one relationship between the usage type associated with the virtual disk and the datastore.

21. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the data placement policy specifies a one-to-many relationship between the usage type associated with the virtual disk and multiple datastores that include the datastore on which the virtual disk is placed.

22. The computer system of claim 21, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further causes the processor to select the datastore from the multiple datastores associated with the usage type of the virtual disk.

23. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further causes the processor to create the virtual disk by placing the virtual disk on the datastore to store data of the usage type.

24. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the virtual machine implements a database in the virtualized computing environment, and the instructions, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to determine the datastore on which to place the virtual disk when creating the database.