Automated system and method to provision and allocate hosting resources

• US 8,468,535 B1
• Filed: 04/09/2009
• Issued: 06/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Original Assignee: GoGrid LLC (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Keagy, John Martin, Lappas, Paul, Carr, Jeffery
• Primary Examiner(s): LI, AIMEE J
• Application Number:
  US12/421,605
• Time in Patent Office: 1,531 Days
• Field of Search: 718/1, 718/104
• US Class Current: 718/104
• 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 virtual machine hosting system. The virtual machine hosting system includes several nodes. Each node includes resources for hosting at least one virtual machine. The virtual machine hosting system includes a first management module for automatedly provisioning resources of the several to a several virtual machines by identifying a particular node with sufficient available resources to host a user-specified virtual machine configuration and by allocating to the virtual machine, an amount of resources of the particular node required to host said virtual machine. The virtual machine hosting system includes, at the particular node, a second management module for receiving the user-specified virtual machine configuration from the first management module and for configuring the allocated resources of the particular node to perform the virtual machine as specified within the user-specified virtual machine configuration.

Claims

1. A virtual machine hosting system comprising:

a plurality of nodes, each node comprising resources for hosting at least one virtual machine;

a centralized hypervisor management module, separate from the nodes, that interfaces with the plurality of nodes, the hypervisor management module for automatedly provisioning resources of the plurality of nodes to a plurality of virtual machines by identifying a particular node with sufficient available resources to host a particular user-specified virtual machine configuration and by allocating to the virtual machine configuration an amount of resources of the particular node required to host said virtual machine configuration; and

at the particular node, a utility management module operating as a virtual machine on the particular node, the utility management module for receiving the user-specified virtual machine configuration from the hypervisor management module and for configuring the allocated resources of the particular node to configure the virtual machine as specified within the user-specified virtual machine configuration, wherein the utility management module and the configured virtual machine operate on a same hypervisor on the particular node.

2. The virtual machine hosting system of claim 1 further comprising an image store for storing a plurality of software images for use by the utility management module to configure the allocated resources of the particular node.

3. The virtual machine hosting system of claim 1, wherein the utility management module is for configuring the allocated resources by partitioning disk storage of the allocated resources.

4. The virtual machine hosting system of claim 3, wherein the utility management module is further for configuring the allocated resources by installing a software image to the partitioned disk storage.

5. The virtual machine hosting system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes are distributed across multiple geographic regions.

6. The virtual machine hosting system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprises a plurality of server computers managed by the hypervisor management module.

7. The virtual machine hosting system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes are located at a single geographic location.

8. The virtual machine hosting system of claim 1, wherein the hypervisor management module identifies the particular node by monitoring resource usage of the plurality of nodes in order to generate a mapping of available resources for nodes of the plurality of nodes.

9. The virtual machine hosting system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of nodes further comprises one of a plurality of different hypervisors for facilitating access to resources of a node for the virtual machines, wherein the hypervisor management module is for provisioning resources of a node by interfacing with a hypervisor of the node to instruct the hypervisor to allocate a set of resources.

10. A method for automatedly deploying a plurality of virtual machines to a plurality of nodes of a hosting system, the method comprising:

providing a hypervisor management module for operation on a centralized set of servers, the hypervisor management module for (i) interfacing with each particular node of the plurality of nodes and (ii) automatedly provisioning resources of the plurality of nodes to the plurality of virtual machines by identifying a particular node with sufficient available resources to host a user-specified virtual machine configuration and by allocating to the virtual machine configuration, an amount of resources of the particular node required to host said virtual machine configuration; and

providing a utility management module for operation as a virtual machine on the particular node separate from the user-specified virtual machines hosted on the particular node, the utility management module for receiving the user-specified virtual machine configuration from the hypervisor management module and for configuring the allocated resources of the particular node to configure the virtual machine as specified within the user-specified virtual machine configuration.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of nodes are distributed across multiple geographic regions.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise a plurality of server computers managed by the hypervisor management module.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of nodes are located at a single geographic location.