CONFIGURING CACHE FOR I/O OPERATIONS OF VIRTUAL MACHINES

• US 20150254000A1
• Filed: 03/07/2014
• Published: 09/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: MAGDON-ISMAIL, Tariq, SIVATHANU, Sankaran, KHADAPKAR, Niti, WANG, Yifan, PATHARACHALAM, Dilip
• Granted Patent: US 10,152,340 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0868 Data transfer between cache memory and other subsystems, e.g. storage devices or host systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2206/1014 One time programmable [OTP] memory, e.g. PROM, WORM
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/222 Non-volatile memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors

Abstract

In a computer-implemented method for configuring flash cache for input/output operations to a storage device by a plurality of virtual machines an input/output trace log for each of a plurality of virtual machines is accessed. Performance of each of the plurality of virtual machines based on a plurality of configurations of the flash cache is simulated in real-time. A recommendation of the plurality of configurations of the flash cache for the each of the plurality of virtual machines utilizing results from the simulation is generated.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for configuring flash cache for input/output operations to a storage device by a plurality of virtual machines comprising:

accessing an input/output trace log for each of a plurality of virtual machines;

simulating in real-time performance of each of said plurality of virtual machines based on a plurality of configurations of said flash cache; and

generating a recommendation of said plurality of configurations of said flash cache for said each of said plurality of virtual machines utilizing results from said simulation.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said recommendation is based in part on a return on investment (ROI) of offloading I/O requests from a storage onto said flash cache.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying said recommendation in a user-interface;

receiving user input from a user responsive to said recommendation; and

implementing said recommendation responsive to said user input.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said generating a recommendation, further comprises:

generating a recommendation in rear-time.

5. A computer-implemented method for generating a recommendation of configurations for flash cache input/output operations to a storage device by virtual machines comprising:

accessing input/output traces of workloads running on a plurality of virtual machines;

monitoring performance of said plurality of virtual machines while simulating in real-time various cache assignments between said plurality of virtual machines; and

generating a recommendation for a cache assignment of said flash cache utilizing results from said simulation.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising:

identifying statistics of said input/output traces.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein said statistics comprises:

a working set size (WSS).

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, further comprising:

generating a return on investment (ROI) for said various cache assignments.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein said generating a recommendation, further comprises:

generating a recommendation in real-time.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein said generating a recommendation, further comprises:

generating a recommendation for a cache assignment of said flash cache to said plurality of virtual machines.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein said flash cache is a solid state drive (SSD).

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein said flash cache is a solid state drive (SSD) disposed in a host of said plurality of virtual machines.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein configurations of said cache assignment are selected from a group consisting of:

cache size, block size, and a working set size (WSS).

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions embodied therein that when executed cause a computer system to perform a method for generating a recommendation of a cache assignment to virtual machines, said method comprising:

accessing input/output traces of workloads running on a plurality of virtual machines in real-time;

monitoring performance of said plurality of virtual machines while simulating in real-time various cache assignments between said plurality of virtual machines, wherein said simulating is based on said input/output traces; and

generating a recommendation for a cache assignment of said flash cache utilizing results from said simulation.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising:

identifying statistics of said input/output traces.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein said statistics comprises:

a working set size (WSS).

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising:

generating a return on investment (ROI) for said various cache assignments.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein said flash cache is a solid state drive (SSD).

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein said generating a recommendation, further comprises:

generating a recommendation for a cache assignment of said flash cache to said plurality of virtual machines.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein configurations of said cache assignment are selected from a group consisting of:

cache size, block size, and a working set size (WSS).