Memory migration

• US 8,356,149 B2
• Filed: 10/30/2009
• Issued: 01/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Boardman, Raun, Noel, Karen L., Young, Paul J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Choe, Yong
• Assistant Examiner(s): GOLDSCHMIDT, CRAIG S
• Application Number:
  US12/609,173
• Publication Number:
  US 20110107044A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,173 Days
• Field of Search: 711/162
• US Class Current: 711/162
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0817 using directory methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory

Abstract

A source system comprises memory and a processor executing code to cause at least some of the memory to be migrated over a network to a target system. The processor causes the memory to be migrated by migrating some of the memory while a guest continues to write the memory, halts execution of the guest, and completes a remainder of the memory migration.

Claims

1. A source system, comprising:

memory; and

a hardware processor executing code to cause at least some of said memory to be migrated over a network to a target system;

wherein the processor causes said memory to be iteratively migrated by migrating some of said memory while a guest continues to write said memory, halting execution of said guest, and completing a remainder of the memory migration; and

wherein for each iteration, the processor determines which units of memory are marked as dirty on an inactive bitmap and, for each unit of memory, if the unit of memory is marked as dirty on the inactive bitmap, then the processor migrates that unit of memory if a corresponding bit on an active bitmap does not indicate the unit of memory is dirty and does not migrate the unit of memory if the corresponding bit on the active bit map indicates the unit of memory to be dirty.

2. The source system of claim 1 wherein said guest updates bits in the active bitmap upon performing a write to said memory while said processor reads bits from the inactive bitmap to determine which units of said memory comprise dirty data to be migrated.

3. The source system of claim 2 wherein said processor initializes all bits in the inactive bitmap to a first logic state and initializes all bits in the active bitmap to a second logic state different from the first logic state.

4. The source system of claim 2 wherein said processor causes said memory to be migrated iteratively, with each iteration comprising swapping usage of the active and inactive bitmaps.

5. The source system of claim 4 wherein during each iteration, said processor sets all bits in the active bitmap to a common logic state.

6. The source system of claim 4 wherein said processor continues to migrate said memory iteratively until detecting a stop condition, at which time the processor causes said guest to halt execution and complete the remainder of the memory migration.

7. The source system of claim 6 wherein the stop condition comprises a condition selected from a group consisting of a predetermined number of iterations, a number of units of memory to be transferred in each iteration not reducing from one iteration to the next iteration, the number of units of memory to be transferred being less than a threshold, and a time period to migrate memory in a given iteration being less than a threshold time period.

8. The source system of claim 1 wherein said processor determines which units of said memory comprise dirty data, transfers such units of said memory so determined to comprise dirty data to the target system along with a checksum, and receives a message from the target system indicating which, if any, units of such memory were received by the target system with a checksum error.

9. The source system of claim 8 further comprising a list containing identities of units of memory that were previously attempted to be transferred to said target memory but resulted in a checksum error, and wherein said processor removes an identity of a unit of memory from said list upon attempting to again transfer such a unit of memory.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising software that, when executed by at least one processor causes the at least one processor to:

iteratively migrate memory while said memory continues to be written by a guest, wherein for each iteration, the software causes the processor to determine which units of memory are marked as dirty on a first bitmap and, for each unit of memory, if the unit of memory is marked as dirty on the first bitmap, then to migrate that unit of memory if a corresponding bit on a second bitmap does not indicate the unit of data to be dirty and not to migrate the unit of memory if the corresponding bit on the second bitmap indicates the unit of data to be dirty;

detect a stop condition for said iterative memory migration; and

as a result of detecting said stop condition, cause said guest to halt writing to said memory and transfer all remaining units of memory marked as dirty on the first bitmap.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the software causes the at least one processor to initialize the first and second bitmaps, all of the bits in the first bitmap being initialized to a first common logic state and all bits in the second bitmap being initialized to a second common logic state different than the first common logic state.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein, during each iteration of the iterative migration, the software causes the at least one processor to set all bits in the first bitmap to a common logic state and to swap usage of the first and second bitmaps.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the stop condition comprises a condition selected from a group consisting of a predetermined number of iterations, a number of units of memory to be transferred in each iteration not reducing from one iteration to the next iteration, the number of units of memory to be transferred being less than a threshold, and a time period to migrate memory in a given iteration being less than a threshold time period.

14. A method of memory migration, comprising:

writing, by a guest, to source memory of a virtual machine;

determining which units of source memory are marked as dirty on an inactive bit map;

for each unit of source memory, if the unit of source memory is marked as dirty on the inactive bitmap, then migrating that unit of source memory if a corresponding bit on an active bitmap does not indicate the unit of source memory to be dirty, and not migrating the unit of source memory if the corresponding bit on the active bitmap indicates the unit of source memory to be dirty;

halting execution of the guest thereby causing the guest to cease accessing the source memory; and

completing a remainder of the memory migration.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising iteratively performing said determining and migrating and each iteration comprises swapping usage of the active and inactive bitmaps.

16. The method of claim 14 further comprising trapping writes by the guest to the source memory and changing a state of a bit in the active bitmap corresponding to a unit of the source memory written by the guest.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein completing the remainder of the source memory migration comprises transferring remaining units of memory marked as dirty.