SNAPSHOT FOR GROUPING AND ELASTIC REPLICATION OF VIRTUAL MACHINES

• US 20190324865A1
• Filed: 04/24/2018
• Published: 10/24/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.), Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Datrium, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Weissman, Boris, Reddy, Sazzala, Patterson, III, R. Hugo
• Granted Patent: US 10,915,408 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1461 Backup scheduling policy
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/202 where processing functionality is redundant redundant communication control functionality G06F11/2005, redundant storage control functionality G06F11/2089
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in 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 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management

Abstract

Techniques for scheduling replication events may be based upon establishing a plurality of policy groups. Each policy group has a replication schedule that defines when to initiate replication events and a membership selection pattern used to determine which virtual machines belong to which policy group. The policy groups may contain a first policy group and a second policy group, where each policy group has a unique replication schedule and a unique selection pattern. The system may assign a first set of virtual machines to the first policy group based upon the first selection pattern. A second set of virtual machines may be assigned to a second policy group based upon the second selection pattern. Each of the virtual machines in the first policy group may be assigned a first replication schedule and each of the virtual machines in the second policy group may be assigned a second replication schedule.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

establishing a plurality of policy groups, wherein each policy group of the plurality of policy groups has;

a snapshot-generation schedule that defines when to generate snapshots of object data of objects that belong to the policy group; and

a membership-selection pattern;

wherein the plurality of policy groups includes;

a first policy group with a first snapshot-generation schedule and a first membership-selection pattern, and

a second policy group with a second snapshot-generation schedule and a second membership-selection pattern, and

wherein the first membership-selection pattern is different than the second membership-selection pattern;

based on the first snapshot-generation schedule, determining a first time to create a first snapshot for the first policy group;

at the first time, creating the first snapshot for the first policy group by;

determining that a first set of objects, that are running in a primary cluster, qualify as members of the first policy group based on a property of the objects matching the first membership-selection pattern;

adding first records to a snap store, wherein the first records include;

data that identifies the first snapshot as the snapshot associated with the first records;

data that identifies the first set of objects;

data that identifies files that belong to the first set of objects at the first time;

data that identifies where the files that belong to the first set of objects are located, within a file system, at the first time;

based on the second snapshot-generation schedule, determining a second time to create a second snapshot for the second policy group;

at the second time, creating the second snapshot for the second policy group by;

determining that a second set of objects, that are running in the primary cluster, qualify as members of the second policy group based on a property of the objects matching the second membership-selection pattern;

adding second records to the snap store, wherein the second records include;

data that identifies the second snapshot as the snapshot associated with the second records;

data that identifies the second set of objects;

data that identifies files that belong to the second set of objects at the second time;

data that identifies where the files that belong to the second set of objects are located, within a file system, at the second time.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first set of objects is a first set of virtual machines and the second set of objects is a second set of virtual machines.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

each policy group of the plurality of policy groups further includes a snapshot-copy schedule that defines when to copy virtual machine data that corresponds to the policy group to a target destination; and

the method further comprises;

based on the snapshot-copy schedule, determining a third time at which to copy virtual machine data that corresponds to the first policy group;

based on the first records in the snap store, determining a particular set of files to copy to the target destination in a secondary cluster to replicate virtual machines that belong to the first policy group; and

at the third time, copying the particular set of files to the target destination in the secondary cluster.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising querying the snap store based on an identifier of a particular VM to identify snapshots to which the particular VM belongs.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein:

the first records indicate that the particular VM belongs to the first snapshot of the first policy group;

the second records indicate that the particular VM belongs to the second snapshot of the second policy group; and

the method further comprises generating a query response that indicates that the particular VM belongs to both the first snapshot and the second snapshot.

6. The method of claim 2 further comprising querying the snap store to based on an identifier of a particular VM to identify policy groups to which the particular VM belongs.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein:

files associated with the first set of virtual machines are stored in content addressable storage; and

content handles copied to the snap store to;

identify the files associated with the first set of virtual machines; and

identify where the files associated with the first set of virtual machines are located within the content addressable storage.

8. A method comprising:

establishing one or more policy groups, wherein each policy group of the one or more policy groups has a corresponding distinct membership-selection pattern;

wherein a particular policy group of the one or more policy groups includes has a membership-selection pattern that includes attribute-based criteria;

determining membership of the particular policy group based on the membership selection-pattern of the particular policy group;

wherein determining membership of the particular policy group includes determining that a particular set of virtual machines, that are running in a primary cluster, have one or more metadata properties that satisfy the attribute-based criteria specified in the membership-selection pattern of the particular policy group; and

replicating virtual machine data of the particular set of virtual machines to a secondary cluster based on a replication policy associated with the particular policy group;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the attribute-based criteria included in the membership-selection pattern of the particular policy group includes an explicit enumeration of virtual machines that belong to the particular policy group.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the attribute-based criteria included in the membership-selection pattern of the particular policy group specifies at least one of:

a tag that must have been assigned to a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group;

a security group to which a virtual machine must have been assigned for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group;

or

an owner that must own a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the attribute-based criteria included in the membership-selection pattern of the particular policy group specifies at least one of:

a host-cluster to with which a virtual machine must be associated for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group;

data change rate criteria that must be satisfied by a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group;

or

virtual machine size criteria that must be satisfied by a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the attribute-based criteria included in the membership-selection pattern of the particular policy group specifies at least one of:

a number or character of virtual disks that must be attached to a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group;

or

a file system type used to format one or more disks associated with a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the attribute-based criteria included in the membership-selection pattern of the particular policy group specifies specific software that must be residing in a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the attribute-based criteria included in the membership-selection pattern of the particular policy group specifies an IP address or subnet that must be associated with a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein:

a particular virtual machine has a particular network address;

a Domain Name System associates a particular name with the particular network address; and

the membership-selection pattern of the particular policy group specifies name criteria that must be satisfied by the particular name for the particular virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group.

16. The method of claim 8 wherein the membership-selection pattern further includes name-based criteria that must be satisfied by a name of a virtual machine for the virtual machine to qualify as a member of the particular policy group.

17. A method comprising:

automatically establishing one or more policy groups, wherein each policy group of the one or more policy groups has a corresponding distinct membership-selection pattern;

wherein automatically establishing one or more policy groups comprises automatically establishing a particular policy group by;

discovering a set of metadata properties that are common to each virtual machine in a particular group of virtual machines;

generating a membership-selection pattern for the particular policy group based on the discovered set of metadata properties that are common to each virtual machine in the particular group of virtual machines;

determining that a particular set of virtual machines are members of the particular policy group based on the membership selection-pattern of the particular policy group; and

replicating virtual machine data of the particular set of virtual machines to a secondary cluster based on a replication policy associated with the particular policy group;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein discovering the set of metadata properties that are common to each virtual machine in a particular group of virtual machines involves:

applying clique detection approaches to metadata properties that may be associated with a virtual machine; and

creating policy groups based on virtual machines that correspond to detected cliques.