SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPTIMIZED DISK IO RAM CACHING FOR A VDI ENVIRONMENT

• US 20160147657A1
• Filed: 11/21/2014
• Published: 05/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2014
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Jiang, Yinglong, Kelly, John
• Application Number:
  US14/550,712
• Publication Number:
  US 20160147657A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0873 Mapping of cache memory to specific storage devices or parts thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A system and method provides optimized caching to RAM of disk input/output operations in a virtual environment, such as a virtual desktop infrastructure environment (VDI), thereby reducing the I/O operations per second (IOPS). Generally, existing technologies allocate a fixed amount of RAM for caching based on static criteria and do not consider the actual RAM utilization at a particular point in time. The system and method provides a mechanism for lowering the costs associated with TOPS by utilizing relevant assessment techniques to determine actual RAM usage. The system and method provides an information handling system to dynamically allocate cache so as to optimize the allocation of RAM to cache for use by I/O operations in any virtual environment, for example, a VDI environment. By providing a dynamic allocation the disk requirements for implementing a VDI environment may be reduced.

Claims

1. A method of optimizing caching in a virtual desktop environment comprising:

configuring a cache for use by one or more virtual machines, wherein the cache is allocated from a memory;

monitoring utilization of the memory based, at least in part, on one or more relevant assessment techniques;

defining an upper threshold;

defining a lower threshold, wherein the upper threshold and the lower threshold define a usage range for the memory;

determining if the utilization of the memory is within the usage range;

increasing the memory allocation to the cache when the utilization of the memory is less than the lower threshold based, at least in part, on the one or more relevant assessment techniques; and

decreasing the memory allocation to the cache when the utilization of the memory is greater than the upper threshold based, at least in part, on the one or more relevant assessment techniques.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring is performed by one or more of a virtual machine manager, a hypervisor, or a virtual desktop manager.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information handling system is part of a virtual desktop infrastructure environment.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more relevant assessment techniques comprise at least one of one or more rudimentary memory management techniques, one or more advanced memory management techniques and one or more task prioritization techniques.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more prioritization techniques migrate memory pages relating to one or more low priority tasks to a swap file.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more advanced memory techniques determine whether a block memory flagged for usage has actually been used.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring is triggered by at least one of a scheduled task, a semaphore, and a timer.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the upper threshold and the lower threshold are defined by at least one of a ratio of headroom to historical utilization of the memory, a system setting, and a pre-defined percentage of the memory.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

triggering the monitoring based, at least in part, on one or more of an alert, an entry in a database, and an entry in a specific storage location.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium including code for performing a method, the method comprising:

configuring a cache for use by one or more virtual machines, wherein the cache is allocated from a memory;

monitoring utilization of the memory based, at least in part, on one or more relevant assessment techniques;

defining an upper threshold;

defining a lower threshold, wherein the upper threshold and the lower threshold define a usage range for the memory;

determining if the utilization of the memory is within the usage range;

increasing the memory allocation to the cache when the utilization of the memory is less than the lower threshold based, at least in part, on the one or more relevant assessment techniques; and

decreasing the memory allocation to the cache when the utilization of the memory is greater than the upper threshold based, at least in part, on the one or more relevant assessment techniques.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the monitored is performed by one or more of a virtual machine manager, a hypervisor, or a virtual desktop manager.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the information handling system is part of a virtual desktop infrastructure environment.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more relevant assessment techniques comprise at least one of one or more rudimentary memory management techniques, one or more advanced memory management techniques and one or more prioritization techniques.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the one or more prioritization techniques migrate memory pages relating to one or more low priority tasks to a swap file.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the one or more advanced memory techniques determine whether a block memory flagged for usage has actually been used.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the monitoring is triggered by at least one of a scheduled task, a semaphore, and a timer.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the upper threshold and the lower threshold are defined by at least one of a ratio of headroom to historical utilization of the memory, a system setting, and a pre-defined percentage of the memory.

18. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

triggering the monitoring based, at least in part, on one or more of an alert, an entry in a database, and an entry in a specific storage location.

19. A virtual desktop infrastructure comprising:

a virtualization host operable to;

launch one or more virtual machines; and

associate the one or more virtual machines with corresponding one or more virtual desktop environment;

a virtual desktop manager;

a virtual desktop infrastructure manager; and

a virtual memory manager operable to;

configure a cache for use by one or more virtual machines, wherein the cache is allocated from a memory;

monitor utilization of the memory based, at least in part, on one or more relevant assessment techniques;

define an upper threshold;

define a lower threshold, wherein the upper threshold and the lower threshold define a usage range for the memory;

determine if the utilization of the memory is within the usage range;

increase the memory allocation to the cache when the utilization of the memory is less than the lower threshold based, at least in part, on the one or more relevant assessment techniques; and

decrease the memory allocation to the cache when the utilization of the memory is greater than the upper threshold based, at least in part, on the one or more relevant assessment techniques.

20. The virtual desktop infrastructure of claim 19, wherein the one or more relevant assessment techniques comprise at least one of one or more rudimentary memory management techniques, one or more advanced memory management techniques and one or more task prioritization techniques.