Live Partition Migration of Virtual Machines Across Storage Ports

• US 20190310790A1
• Filed: 04/10/2018
• Published: 10/10/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Allen, James P., Anumalasetty, Kiran Kumar, Rathi, Sanket, Yadagiri, Rajaboina
• Granted Patent: US 10,592,155 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/1668 Details of memory controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0664 at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

A system and method for transferring a logical partition is provided that includes (i) a source server having a logical partition and at least one virtualized port for communication with at least one physical access port; (ii) a target server having at least one physical access port; and (iii) a storage server having a plurality of access ports, where a first access port is configurable to be in communication with the source server and a second, different access port is configurable to be in communication with the target server, wherein the logical partition has a first I/O path that includes the first access port of the storage server, and wherein the system and method is configurable to create a second I/O path for the logical partition that includes the second access port of the storage server.

Claims

1. A method of migrating resources in a computing environment, the computing environment comprising a source system and a target system, the method comprising:

initiating a transfer of a logical partition on the source system to the target system;

creating a new I/O path for the logical partition on the source system while the logical partition resides on the source system; and

transferring the logical partition from the source system to the target system.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising checking that the target system has the resources to support the transfer of the logical partition from the source system.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising a storage server for storing data wherein the source system is configured to access the storage server and the target system is configured to access the storage server, the method further comprising determining whether the source system accesses the storage server from the same access port that the target server accesses the storage server.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein if the source system accesses the storage server from a different access port then the target system, then the new I/O path for the logical partition on the source server is configured to include the access port of the target system.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising configuring the new I/O path for the logical partition to be inactive while the logical partition resides on the source system.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising configuring the new I/O path for the logical partition to be active in response to transferring the logical partition to the target system.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising providing the identification of a target port of the source system to access a storage device and providing the identification of a target port of the target system to access the storage device.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising a storage server having a plurality of access ports and one or more logical units (LUNs) wherein the logical partition on the source system accesses the one or more logical units through a first access port on the storage server, and the target system accesses the storage server through a second access port on the storage server that is different than the first access port, and further comprising configuring the new I/O path to include the second access port on the storage server.

9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising identifying the LUNs accessible by the logical partition.

10. The method according to claim 8, further identifying the LUNs having an I/O path that includes the target port by which the source system accesses the storage server.

11. The method according to claim 9, further comprising sending the identity of the second access port to the source system.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the identity of the second access port is sent to a Multipath Input/Output (MPIO) driver on the source system.

13. The method according to claim 11, wherein the source system configures new I/O path for the identified LUNs on the storage server to include the second access port.

14. The method according to claim 1, wherein the new I/O path will be validated and activated using fabric discovery after migration to the target system.

15. A system providing for transfer of a logical partition, the system comprising:

a source server having a logical partition and a Virtualized Input/Output Server (VIOS), the source server having at least one physical access port, the logical partition having at least one virtualized port for communicating with the at least one physical access port;

a target server having a Virtualized Input/Output Server (VIOS), the target server having at least one physical access port;

a storage server having storage data and a plurality of access ports, wherein a first access port is configurable to be in communication with the source server and a second access port, different than the first access port, is configurable to be in communication with the target server,

wherein the logical partition has a first I/O path that includes the first access port of the storage server, and;

wherein the system is configured to create a second I/O path for the logical partition while the logical partition is on the source server that includes the second access port of the storage server.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the system is further configured such that the new I/O path is inactive while on the source server.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the system is further configured to migrate the logical partition configured with the new I/O path that includes the second access ports to the target server.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the system is further configured to activate the new I/O path and deactivate the old I/O path after migration of the logical partition to the target server.

19. A computer system for transferring a logical partition from a source server to a destination server, the computer system comprising:

one or more computer processors;

one or more computer readable non-transitory storage media; and

program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable non-transitory storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more computer processors, the program instructions comprising;

program instructions to initiate transfer of the logical partition from the source server to the destination server;

program instructions to create a new I/O path for the logical partition on the source system that includes the target port of the destination server; and

program instructions to transfer the logical partition from the source server to the destination server.

20. The computer system of claim 19, further comprising:

program instructions to provide the identification of the target port of the destination server to the source server;

program instructions to maintain the new I/O path of the logical partition in the inactive state while on the source server, and

program instructions to activate the new I/O path in response to the logical partition being transferred to the destination server.