RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR CONTAINERS IN A VIRTUALIZED ENVIRONMENT

• US 20160371127A1
• Filed: 08/31/2015
• Published: 12/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: SHANMUGAM, RAJASEKAR, ANTONY, JINTO, GANESAN, HARIHARAN JEYARAMAN, GANGADHARAN, MADHUSUDHANAN
• Granted Patent: US 9,921,885 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0712 in a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3433 for load management allocation of a server based on load conditions G06F9/505; load rebalancing G06F9/5083; redistributing the load in a network by a load balancer H04L67/1029
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual middleware or OS functionality using virtual machines to implement generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking G06F11/1484
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A virtualized environment includes a pool of VMs, each VM configured to run one or more virtual containers. Each virtual container runs as an isolated process in userspace on a guest operating system. A virtualization management module performs resource management operations to place containers within the pool of VMs according to performance metrics, and also perform high availability functionality for containers with critical containers.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

instantiating a pool of virtual machines (VMs), wherein each virtual machine comprises a guest operating system and a container daemon configured to provide operating-system-level virtualization with the guest operating system;

receiving performance metrics of the pool of VMs;

responsive to a request to start a new virtual container comprising an application, selecting a VM from the pool of VMs based on the received performance metrics; and

starting the new virtual container in the selected VM, wherein the instance of the virtual container comprises an isolated process in userspace executing in the guest operating system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a first subset of the pool of VMs is initially powered on and a second subset of the pool of VMs is initially powered off.

3. The method of claim 2, the method further comprising:

powering on one VM of the second subset responsive to determining that the first subset of the pool of VMs has inadequate resources for executing the new virtual container based on the received performance metrics.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

increasing an allocation of virtualized memory resources to the selected VM responsive to determining that resource utilization of the selected VM has reached a threshold limit according to the received performance metrics.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting an image of the virtual container and the application from a pre-defined inventory of containerized applications.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

restarting the virtual container in the selected VM with the state of the virtual container maintained responsive to determining that the virtual container has failed and that the VM on which the virtual container was running has not failed.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

restarting the virtual container in a different VM of the pool of VMs responsive to determining that the virtual container has failed and that the VM on which the virtual container as running has failed and has not restarted within a specified duration.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed in a computing device, managing virtual containers in a virtualized environment, by performing the steps of:

instantiating a pool of virtual machines (VMs), wherein each virtual machine comprises a guest operating system and a container daemon configured to provide operating-system-level virtualization with the guest operating system;

receiving performance metrics of the pool of VMs;

responsive to a request to start a new virtual container comprising an application, selecting a VM from the pool of VMs based on the received performance metrics; and

starting the new virtual container in the selected VM, wherein the instance of the virtual container comprises an isolated process in userspace executing in the guest operating system.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein a first subset of the pool of VMs is initially powered on and a second subset of the pool of VMs is initially powered off.

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

powering on one VM of the second subset responsive to determining that the first subset of the pool of VMs has inadequate resources for executing the new virtual container based on the received performance metrics.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, further comprising:

increasing an allocation of virtualized memory resources to the selected VM responsive to determining that resource utilization of the selected VM has reached a threshold limit according to the received performance metrics.

12. The ion-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, further comprising:

selecting an image of the virtual container and the application from a pre-defined inventory of containerized applications.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, further comprising:

restarting the virtual container in the selected VM with the state of the virtual container maintained responsive to determining that the virtual container has failed and that the VM on which the virtual container was running has not failed.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, further comprising:

restarting the virtual container in a different VM of the pool of VMs responsive to determining that the virtual container has failed and that the VM on which the virtual container was running has failed and has not restarted within a specified duration.

15. A computer system for managing virtual containers in a virtualized environment, the computer system comprising:

a system memory;

a processor programmed to carry out the steps of;

instantiating a pool of virtual machines (VMs), wherein each virtual machine comprises a guest operating system and a container daemon configured to provide operating-system-level virtualization with the guest operating system;

receiving performance metrics of the pool of VMs;

responsive to a request to start a new virtual container comprising an application, selecting a VM from the pool of VMs based on the received performance metrics; and

starting the new virtual container in the selected VM, wherein the instance of the virtual container comprises an isolated process in userspace executing in the guest operating system.

16. The computer system of claim 15, wherein a first subset of the pool of VMs is initially powered on and a second subset of the pool of VMs is initially powered off, wherein the processor is further configured to perform the steps of:

powering on one VM of the second subset responsive to determining that the first subset of the pool of VMs has inadequate resources for executing the new virtual container based on the received performance metrics.

17. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the processor is further programmed to carry out the steps of:

increasing an allocation of virtualized memory resources to the selected VM responsive to determining that resource utilization of the selected VM has reached a threshold limit according to the received performance metrics.

18. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the processor is further programmed to carry out the steps of:

selecting an image of the virtual container and the application from a pre-defined inventory of containerized applications.

19. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the processor is further programmed to carry out the steps of:

restarting the virtual container in the selected VM with the state of the virtual container maintained responsive to determining that the virtual container has failed and that the VM on which the virtual container was running has not failed.

20. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the processor is further programmed to carry out the steps of:

restarting the virtual container in a different VM of the pool of VMs responsive to determining that the virtual container has failed and that the VM on which the virtual container was running has failed and has not restarted within a specified duration.