Architecture for managing I/O and storage for a virtualization environment

• US 8,601,473 B1
• Filed: 08/10/2011
• Issued: 12/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Inventors: Aron, Mohit, Pandey, Dheeraj, Singh, Ajeet
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente, Emerson
• Assistant Examiner(s): SWIFT, CHARLES M
• Application Number:
  US13/207,345
• Time in Patent Office: 846 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/128 Details of file system snapshots on the file-level, e.g. snapshot creation, administration, deletion use of snapshots for error detection or correction G06F11/14, G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1748 De-duplication implemented within the file system, e.g. based on file segments de-duplication techniques in storage systems for the management of data blocks G06F3/0641
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1873 Versioning file systems, temporal file systems, e.g. file system supporting different historic versions of files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/06 Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers , e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0638 Organizing or formatting or addressing of data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0641 De-duplication techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/48 Program initiating; Program switching, e.g. by interrupt
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4806 Task transfer initiation or dispatching
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 : resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 : Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 : Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5005 : to service a request
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 : the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 : the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5022 : Mechanisms to release resources
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 : the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 : Partitioning or combining of resources
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 : Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 : Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 : Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5088 : involving task migration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/356 : for storage area networks

Abstract

Disclosed is an improved approach to implement I/O and storage device management in a virtualization environment. According to some approaches, a Service VM is employed to control and manage any type of storage device, including directly attached storage in addition to networked and cloud storage. The Service VM implements the Storage Controller logic in the user space, and can be migrated as needed from one node to another. IP-based requests are used to send I/O request to the Service VMs. The Service VM can directly implement storage and I/O optimizations within the direct data access path, without the need for add-on products.

Claims

1. A system for managing storage devices, comprising:

a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes comprises a hypervisor and user virtual machines;

a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by the user virtual machines; and

a service virtual machine on each of the plurality of nodes to manage access by the user virtual machines to the plurality of storage devices,

wherein the service virtual machine operates as a storage controller that is dedicated to a single node, and

wherein a request for storage managed by a second service virtual machine are sent to be handled by the second service virtual machine.

2. The system of claim 1, in which the service virtual machine runs as a virtual machine above the hypervisor.

3. The system of claim 1, in which the service virtual machine manages a virtual disk that is exposed to the user virtual machines.

4. The system of claim 3 in which the virtual disk corresponds to one or more block devices or server targets.

5. The system of claim 1 in which a new node that is added to the system corresponds to a new service virtual machine that acts as the storage controller for the new node.

6. The system of claim 1 in which the service virtual machine for each of the plurality of nodes corresponds to a same IP address isolated by an internal VLAN.

7. The system of claim 1 in which the service virtual machine comprises an I/O director module, wherein the I/O director module operates to intercept a request from a user virtual machine and to format the request into a virtual disk request.

8. The system of claim 7 in which the I/O director module comprises an admission control module that determines whether the service virtual machine is permitted to operate upon data storage identified in a request.

9. The system of claim 7 in which the I/O director module comprises a virtual disk controller that implements read and write requests.

10. The system of claim 7 in which the I/O director module performs quality of service (QoS) optimizations for a service request.

11. The system of claim 10 in which the QoS optimizations are implemented by establishing multiple request queues for different priority levels of requests.

12. The system of claim 1 in which the service virtual machine comprises distributed metadata service module to maintain metadata for virtual disks managed by the service virtual machine.

13. The system of claim 1 in which the service virtual machine comprises a health management module to maintain consistency of metadata for virtual disks managed by the service virtual machine.

14. The system of claim 1 in which the service virtual machine comprises a distributed configuration database module to maintain configuration data for the service virtual machine.

15. The system of claim 14 in which the distributed configuration database module operates to maintain health information for entities in a system, to handle elections, or to perform consensus management.