VIRTUALIZED SERVER SYSTEMS AND METHODS INCLUDING SCALING OF FILE SYSTEM VIRTUAL MACHINES

• US 20180157522A1
• Filed: 12/06/2017
• Published: 06/07/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Inventors: Bafna, Kalpesh Ashok, Sharma, Rishabh, Ranasingh, Mausumi, Wang, Eric, Pasikanti, Kavitha, Wei, Ribao, Venkatesh, Anil Kumar Gopalapura, Deshmukh, Satyajit Sanjeev, Mokashi, Sanika Nitin, Naik, Manoj Premanand, Huang, Yifeng
• Granted Patent: US 11,281,484 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/63 Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Examples described herein include virtualized environments including a virtualized file server. Examples of file server virtual machine managers are described which may setup and/or configure file server virtual machines in accordance with a target number of connections and/or a target throughput for the virtualized file server. The virtualized file server may be scaled up, scaled down, scaled in, and/or scaled out.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receive, at a file system virtual machine manager (an FSVM manager), a request for a virtualized file system in a cluster, including a target number of connections and target throughput for the virtualized file system;

setup a number of file system virtual machines in the cluster;

configure each of the number of file system virtual machines with a respective amount of memory and an amount of compute resources; and

wherein the number of file system virtual machines, the amount of memory, and the amount of compute resources are selected based on the target number of connections and the target throughput.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting the number of file system virtual machines, the amount of memory, and the amount of compute resources at least in part by accessing a stored association between the target number of connections, the target throughput, the amount of memory, and the amount of compute resources.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the request is received from a user interface at an administrative system remote from the cluster.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request to change the number of virtual machines in the cluster, the amount of memory, the amount of compute resources, or combinations thereof;

making a change to the number of file server virtual machines in the cluster, the amount of memory, the amount of compute resources, or combinations thereof, responsive to the request; and

re-allocating volume groups served by the virtualized file system responsive to the change.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the request to change comprises a request to scale out the virtualized file system, wherein making a change comprises adding an additional number of file server virtual machines to the cluster, and wherein re-allocating volume groups comprises assigning ownership of selected volume groups owned by the number of file server virtual machines to the additional number of file server virtual machines.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the request to change comprises a request to scale in the virtualized file system, and wherein making a change comprises removing another number of file server virtual machines from the cluster, and wherein re-allocating volume groups comprises assigning ownership of volume groups owned by the another number of file server virtual machines to remaining file server virtual machines in the cluster.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the request to change comprises a request to scale up the virtualized file system, and wherein making a change comprises adding additional memory, additional compute resources, or both to the number of file server virtual machines in the cluster.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the request to change comprises a request to scale down the virtualized file system, and wherein making a change comprises removing memory, removing compute resources, or both, from the number of file server virtual machines in the cluster.

4. The method of claim I, wherein setup the number of file system virtual machines comprises:

accessing a hypervisor-agnostic file server virtual machine image;

extracting the hypervisor-agnostic file server virtual machine image to a hypervisor-specific file server virtual machine image for a particular hypervisor; and

installing the hypervisor-specific file server virtual machine image on a computing node having the particular hypervisor.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising cloning the hypervisor-specific file server virtual machine image multiple times, one for each computing node in the cluster having the particular hypervisor and configured to host one of the number of file server virtual machines.

11. A system comprising:

a plurality of host machines implementing a virtualization environment, wherein each of the host machines comprises a hypervisor;

a distributed file server comprising a plurality of file server virtual machines a plurality of FSVMs) and a storage pool, wherein each of the FSVMs is running on one of the host machines, wherein the FSVMs are configured to conduct I/O transactions with the storage pool; and

a controller virtual machine (a CVM) running on at least one of the plurality of host machines, the CVM configured to receive a request to change the distributed file server, and the CVM configured to change a number of the plurality of FSVMs, an amount of memory allocated to the plurality of FSVMs, an amount of compute resources allocated to the plurality of FSVMs, or a combination thereof, responsive to the request, and to re-allocate volume groups in the storage pool responsive to the change.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the request to change comprises a request to scale out the distributed file server, and wherein the CVM is configured to add an additional number of file server virtual machines to the system, and wherein the CVM is configured to re-allocate volume groups at least in part by assigning ownership of selected volume groups owned by the plurality of file server virtual machines to the additional number of file server virtual machines.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the request to change comprises a request to scale in the distributed file server, and wherein the CVM is configured to remove another number of file server virtual machines from the system, and the CVM is configured to re-allocate volume groups at least in part by assigning ownership of volume groups owned by the another number of file server virtual machines to remaining file server virtual machines in the system.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the request to change comprises a request to scale up the distributed file server, and wherein the CVM is configured to add additional memory, additional compute resources, or both to the file server virtual machines in the system.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the request to change comprises a request to scale down the distributed file server, and wherein the CVM is configured to remove memory, remove compute resources, or both, from the file server virtual machines in the system.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the CVM is further configured to receive a request to install the distributed file server, and image the file server virtual machines responsive to the request.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the CVM is configured to image the file server virtual machines at least in part by accessing a hypervisor-agnostic file system virtual machine image and extract the hypervisor-agnostic file system virtual machine image into a hypervisor-specific file system virtual machine image for the hypervisor of at least one of the plurality of host machines.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the hypervisor-specific file system virtual machine image is specific to a particular hypervisor, and wherein the CVM is configured to clone the hypervisor-specific file system virtual machine image for a number of the host machines having the particular hypervisor.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the CVM is further configured to receive a target number of connections and a target throughput of the distributed file server together with the request to install, and wherein the CVM is configured to determine a number of the plurality of file server virtual machines, an amount of memory allocated to the plurality of file server virtual machines, an amount of compute resources allocated to the plurality of file server virtual machines, or combinations thereof, based on the target number of connections and the target throughput.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the CVM is configured to access a stored association between the target number of connections and the target throughput and the number of file server virtual machines, the amount of memory, and the amount of compute resources.