ARCHITECTURE FOR MANAGING I/O AND STORAGE FOR A VIRTUALIZATION ENVIRONMENT USING EXECUTABLE CONTAINERS AND VIRTUAL MACHINES

• US 20160359955A1
• Filed: 06/03/2016
• Published: 12/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Inventors: GUPTA, Karan, GILL, Binny Sher, CUI, Miao
• Granted Patent: US 10,721,290 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2514 between local and global IP addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2525 Translation at a client
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

Systems for high-performance computing. A storage control architecture is implemented by a plurality of nodes, where a node comprises combinations of executable containers that execute in cooperation with virtual machines running above a hypervisor. The containers run in a virtual machine above a hypervisor, and/or can be integrated directly into the operating system of a host node. Sensitive information such as credit card information may be isolated from the containers in a separate virtual machine that is configured to be threat resistant, and which can be accessed through a threat resistant interface module. One of the virtual machines of the node may be a node-specific control virtual machine that is configured to operate as a dedicated storage controller for a node. One of the virtual machines of the node may be a node-specific container service machine that is configured to provide storage-related and other support to a hosted executable container.

Claims

1. A method for managing storage devices in a multi-node cluster, the method comprising:

configuring a plurality of nodes, a node of the plurality of nodes comprising a node-specific control virtual machine and one or more user containers, wherein the node-specific control virtual machine operates as a storage controller dedicated to the node; and

processing, by the node-specific control virtual machine, one or more storage access IO commands that is initiated by the one or more user containers to access a plurality of storage devices that are shared by at least two of the plurality of nodes.

2. The method of claim 1, in which the node-specific control virtual machine manages a virtual disk accessible using the storage access IO commands that are initiated by the one or more user containers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the virtual disk corresponds to one or more block devices or server targets.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a request for storage managed by a second node-specific control virtual machine in a second node is sent from a first node-specific control virtual machine in a first node to the second node to be handled by the second node-specific control virtual machine.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the node-specific control virtual machine for each of the plurality of nodes corresponds to a same IP address or a same fully-qualified domain name or a same hostname that is isolated by an internal VLAN.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the node-specific control virtual machine operates to intercept a request from one or more user containers and to format the request into a virtual disk request.

7. The method of claim 1, the node-specific control virtual machine maintains metadata for virtual disks managed by the node-specific control virtual machine.

8. A system for managing storage devices, comprising:

a plurality of nodes, a node of the plurality of nodes comprising a node-specific control virtual machine and one or more user containers, the node-specific control virtual machine configured to operate as a storage controller dedicated to the node; and

a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by the one or more user containers, the node-specific control virtual machine being configured to manage access by the user containers to the plurality of storage devices.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more user containers run above a hypervisor in a container service virtual machine.

10. The system of claim 8, further comprising an isolated virtual machine running above a hypervisor in the node.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising an interface module configured to receive data from the isolated virtual machine in response to a request.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the interface module receives the data from the isolated virtual machine using a TCP/IP interface.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the interface module receives the data from the isolated virtual machine using an iSCSI request.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the node-specific control virtual machine manages a virtual disk that is exposed to the user container.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the virtual disk corresponds to one or more block devices or server targets.

16. The system of claim 8, wherein a request for storage managed by a second node-specific control virtual machine in a second node is sent from a first node-specific control virtual machine in a first node to the second node to be handled by the second node-specific control virtual machine.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the request for storage managed by the second node-specific control virtual machine in the second node is read from a shared memory facility that is written to by the first node-specific control virtual machine in the first node.

18. The system of claim 8, wherein the node-specific control virtual machine for each of the plurality of nodes corresponds to a same IP address or a same fully-qualified domain name or a same hostname that is isolated by an internal VLAN.

19. The system of claim 8, further comprising a metadata service module to maintain metadata for virtual disks.

20. The system of claim 8, wherein the user containers comprise one or more operating system components.