CLONING VIRTUALIZED FILE SERVERS

• US 20180157677A1
• 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, Venkatesh, Anil Kumar Gopalapura, Kanada, Devyani Suryakant, Tyagi, Saurabh, Bellubbi, Vijaykumar, Ranasingh, Mausumi, Sharma, Rishabh
• Granted Patent: US 11,288,239 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/128 Details of file system snapshots on the file-level, e.g. snapshot creation, administration, deletion use of snapshots for error detection or correction G06F11/14, G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0607 by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors

Abstract

Examples described herein include virtualized file servers which may include cloned instances of the virtualized file server. Cloning a virtualized file server may allow for testing of new and/or revised features, disaster recovery plans, or other configurations while maintaining availability of the parent (e.g., source) virtualized file server.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

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

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

a clone of the virtualized file server comprising clones of the plurality of FSVMs, wherein the clones of the plurality of FSVMs are configured to conduct I/O transactions with the storage pool.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage pool includes a plurality of volume groups, and wherein the clone of the virtualized file server includes clones of the plurality of volume groups.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the clones of the plurality of FSVMs are each running on one of the host machines.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising stored first metadata describing the virtualized file server and stored second metadata describing the clone of the virtualized file server, wherein the stored second metadata comprises the first metadata and updates pertaining to the clone of the virtualized file server.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the updates comprise updated IP addresses corresponding to the clones of the plurality of FSVMs.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the updates further comprise an updated file server name and active directory details.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the clone of the virtualized file server is based on a snapshot of the virtualized file server.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the snapshot comprises a read-write snapshot.

9. The system of claim 7, further comprising stored data blocks representing diverged data between the virtualized file server and the clone of the virtualized file server and wherein the stored data blocks are stored in an exception table for the snapshot.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising stored data blocks representing diverged data between the virtualized file server and the clone of the virtualized file server.

11. A method comprising:

cloning a plurality of file server virtual machines (a plurality of FSVMs) forming at least a portion of a virtualized file server to provide clones of the plurality of FSVMs;

cloning a plurality of volume groups associated with the plurality of FSVMs to form clones of the plurality of volume groups, wherein the clones of the plurality of FSVMs and the clones of the plurality of volume groups at form at least a portion of a clone of the virtualized file server; and

updating metadata associated with the virtualized file server to refer to the clone of the virtualized file server.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising accessing a storage pool using both the virtualized file server and the clone of the virtualized file server.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the plurality of FSVMs are configured to run a first version of software, the method further comprising upgrading at least some of the clones of the plurality of FSVMs to run a second version of software, different from the first version of software.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising operating the clone of the virtualized file server running the second version of software at least in part simultaneously with the virtualized file server running the first version of software.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising hosting the plurality of FSVMs on a plurality of host machines and hosting the clones of the plurality of FSVMs on the plurality of host machines.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein updating the metadata comprises updating IP addresses corresponding to the clones of the plurality of FSVMs.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein updating further comprises updating a file server name and active directory details.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the clone of the virtualized file server is based on a snapshot of the virtualized file server.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the snapshot comprises a read-write snapshot.

20. The method of claim 11, further comprising storing data blocks representing diverged data between the virtualized file server and the clone of the virtualized file server.