System and method for adapting a system configuration using an adaptive library

• US 8,453,144 B1
• Filed: 04/09/2009
• Issued: 05/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Original Assignee: GoGrid LLC (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lappas, Paul, Carr, Jeffery, Keagy, John Martin
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho, Andy
• Application Number:
  US12/421,613
• Time in Patent Office: 1,510 Days
• Field of Search: 718/1, 719/319
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/63 Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4555 Para-virtualisation, i.e. guest operating system has to be modified
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method for adapting a system configuration. The method identifies a first configuration for a first computer system. The method retrieves a configuration information for a second computer system from a library that stores configuration information that includes several operating systems and several kernels. The method defines a second configuration that is based on (i) the first configuration and (ii) the retrieved configuration information. The method hosts the second configuration at the second computer system. The second computer system is a computer system in several computer systems of a server hosting environment.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a first user-specified computer system configuration for operating as a virtual machine running on top of a hypervisor along with at least one additional virtual machine, the first configuration comprising an operating system and a kernel, the first configuration for hosting on a particular set of hardware resources, made available to the virtual machine by the hypervisor, that enable the operation of the computer system configuration;

determining that at least one component of the first configuration is not compatible with the particular set of hardware resources;

retrieving components compatible with the particular set of hardware resources from a set of libraries that comprises (i) a first library storing a plurality of operating systems and (ii) a second library storing a plurality of kernels;

generating a second computer system configuration by modifying the first configuration to incorporate the retrieved components; and

hosting the second configuration on the particular set of hardware resources as made available by the hypervisor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the kernel is a first kernel that is not compatible with the particular set of hardware resources, wherein said retrieved components comprise a second kernel that is compatible with the particular set of hardware resources.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the second kernel is different from the first kernel, wherein the method further comprises modifying the operating system of the first configuration to be compatible with the second kernel, wherein generating the second configuration comprises modifying the first configuration to incorporate the modified operating system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of libraries further comprises a device driver library, a development environment library, and an API library.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising determining, for a particular component of the first configuration, that no corresponding component that is compatible with the particular set of hardware resources is stored in the set of libraries, wherein retrieving components comprises retrieving at least one of a development environment and an API to use in generating a compatible component corresponding to the particular component.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first configuration comprises a set of device drivers for interfacing with the particular set of hardware resources, wherein the retrieved components comprise at least one device driver that is compatible with the particular set of hardware resources, the set of device drivers comprising at least one of a network device driver, a block storage device driver, and a peripheral component interface (“

PCI”

) device driver.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said retrieved components comprise a clean version of said operating system.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said retrieved components further comprise a development environment of said operating system.

9. A hosting system for hosting a plurality of computer system configurations, the hosting system comprising:

a plurality of hardware nodes, each particular node for hosting at least one user-specified computer system configuration that operates as a virtual machine running on top of a hypervisor operating on the particular node;

a set of libraries for storing configuration information, the set of libraries comprising a plurality of configuration information; and

an adaptation module for (i) receiving a first computer system configuration for operating as a virtual machine running on top of a hypervisor, (ii) retrieving configuration information from said set of libraries, and (iii) generating a second computer system configuration by adapting the first computer system configuration to incorporate the configuration information retrieved from the set of libraries,

wherein a particular node of the plurality of nodes is for hosting said second configuration to operate as a virtual machine running on top of the hypervisor of the particular node.

10. A computer readable storage medium storing a computer program for execution by at least one processor, the computer program comprising:

a set of instructions for receiving a first user-specified computer system configuration for operating as a virtual machine running on top of a hypervisor along with at least one additional virtual machine, the first configuration comprising an operating system and a kernel, the first configuration for hosting on a particular set of hardware resources, made available to the virtual machine by the hypervisor, that enable the operation of the computer system configuration;

a set of instructions for determining that at least one component of the first configuration is not compatible with the particular set of hardware resources;

a set of instructions for retrieving components compatible with the particular set of hardware resources from a set of libraries that comprises a device driver library storing a plurality of device drivers;

a set of instructions for generating a second computer system configuration by modifying the first configuration to incorporate the retrieved components; and

a set of instructions for hosting the second configuration on the particular set of hardware resources as made available by the hypervisor.

11. A method comprising:

determining whether a set of libraries that stores configuration components has a set of components for use in adapting a first user-specified configuration to generate a second configuration compatible with a particular set of hardware resources made available by a hypervisor, said set of libraries comprising a device driver library storing a plurality of device drivers, the first configuration for operating virtual machine running on top of the hypervisor with one or more additional virtual machines;

generating the set of components for use in the first configuration upon determining that the set of components is not available in the set of libraries;

storing the generated set of components in the set of libraries for subsequent use in modifying additional configurations; and

incorporating the generated set of components into the first configuration to generate the second configuration for hosting on the particular set of hardware resources as made available by the hypervisor.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the particular set of hardware resources is associated with a particular node of a hosting system comprising a plurality of nodes.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the particular set of hardware resources is a set of virtual hardware resources that the hypervisor maps to a set of physical hardware resources of a first computer system, wherein the generated set of components incorporated into the first configuration access the set of virtual hardware resources.

14. The method of claim 11 further comprising storing an image of the second configuration in an image storage, wherein the image of the second configuration is retrievable for subsequent hosting on a compatible set of hardware resources.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the particular set of hardware resources is a set of physical hardware resources of a computer system, wherein the second configuration directly accesses the set of physical hardware resources of the computer system.

16. The method of claim 11 further comprising retrieving, after storing the generated set of components, at least one component of the generated set of components from the set of libraries to incorporate into a third configuration for hosting on a second, different set of hardware resources.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the set of components comprises a particular operating system and a particular kernel, the method further comprising:

retrieving the particular operating system from the set of libraries to use in a third configuration for hosting on the particular set of hardware resources; and

retrieving the particular kernel from the set of libraries to use in a fourth configuration for hosting on the particular set of hardware resources.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the set of components comprises a device driver, wherein generating the set of components comprises:

retrieving a development library associated with the device driver; and

using the development library to generate the device driver.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the set of components comprises a device driver, wherein generating the set of components comprises:

retrieving a device driver API for generating the device driver; and

using the API to generate the device driver.

20. A computer readable storage medium storing a computer program for execution by at least one processor, the computer program comprising:

a set of instructions for determining whether a set of libraries that stores configuration components has a set of components for use in adapting a first user-specified configuration to generate a second configuration compatible with a particular set of hardware resources made available by a hypervisor, said set of libraries comprising (i) a first library storing a plurality of operating systems and (ii) a second library storing a plurality of kernels, the first configuration for operating as a virtual machine running on top of the hypervisor with one or more additional virtual machines;

a set of instructions for generating the set of components for use in the first configuration upon determining that the set of components is not available in the set of libraries;

a set of instructions for storing the generated set of components in the set of libraries for subsequent use in modifying additional configurations; and

a set of instructions for incorporating the generated set of components into the first configuration to generate the second configuration for hosting on the particular set of hardware resources as made available by the hypervisor.