Distributing and managing virtual machines

• US 8,671,404 B2
• Filed: 02/12/2008
• Issued: 03/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: DeHaan, Michael Paul, Likins, Adrian Karstan, Seago, Scott Wayne
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente, Emerson
• Assistant Examiner(s): SWIFT, CHARLES M
• Application Number:
  US12/029,637
• Publication Number:
  US 20090204961A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,219 Days
• Field of Search: 718/1
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines

Abstract

An embodiment relates generally to a method of distributing virtual machines. The method includes specifying a set of requirements for a virtual machine and instantiating a virtual machine based on a lightweight reusable profile, based on the set of requirements as described in the profile. The method also includes importing the profile to a distribution server; and distributing the profile to at least one physical machine in response to a request. Software can be added to the at least one physical machine that can manage the deployment of the physical hosts as a farm to hosting the virtual images.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

provisioning, by a virtual manager server computing device, at least one physical machine to add the at least one physical machine to a collective server farm and to add software to enable the at least one physical machine to install virtual machines as directed by the virtual manager server computing device;

receiving, by the virtual manager server computing device, a set of requirements for a virtual machine (VM) specified by a user of the VM;

creating, by the virtual manager server computing device, a virtual profile associated with the VM and in view of the set of requirements provided by the user, wherein the virtual profile is maintained as a light-weight container and comprises an appliance metadata file section, a configuration management manifest section, a configuration management files section comprising files specified in the configuration manifest section, and an optional disk image section; and

distributing, by the virtual manager server computing device, the light-weight container of the virtual profile to a target physical machine of the at least one physical machine in response to a request from the user, wherein the target physical machine deploys the VM on the target physical machine in view of the provisioning and the virtual profile without use of a binary image file for the VM.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a graphical user interface module coupled to the virtual manager server computing device, wherein the graphical user interface module is to provide an interface between the user and the virtual manager server computing device.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising managing any deployed VMs through the graphical user interface module.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising managing, by the virtual manager server computing device, physical hardware on the at least one physical machine.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the provisioning further comprises provisioning the at least one physical machine from bare metal.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the managing any deployed VMs further comprises executing at least one of a start command, a stop command, a pause command, a delete command, or a migration command.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a database coupled to the virtual manager server computing device, wherein the database is to provide management of the virtual profile and other previously created virtual profiles.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the database is further to manage at least one of distribution packages, monitored systems that are being tracked, or deployed VMs.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a configuration management system coupled to the distribution system, wherein the configuration management system is to centrally manage deployed VMs.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual profile further comprises an Extensible Markup Language (XML) header, a configuration file section, and an optional data image section.

11. A system comprising:

a memory;

a processing device communicably coupled to the memory;

a user interface communicably coupled to the memory and the processing device, the user interface to provide a communication interface and to receive a set of requirements for a virtual machine (VM) specified by a user of the VM; and

a configuration management system executable from the memory by the processing device, the configuration management system to;

provision at least one physical machine to add the at least one physical machine to a collective server farm and to add software to enable the at least one physical machine to install virtual machines as directed by the configuration management system;

create a virtual profile associated with the VM and in view of the set of requirements provided by the user, wherein the virtual profile is maintained as a light-weight container and comprises an appliance metadata file section, a configuration management manifest section, a configuration management files section comprising files specified in the configuration manifest section, and an optional disk image section; and

provide the light-weight container of the virtual profile to a distribution server to deploy the VM to a target physical machine of the at least one physical machine in response to a request from the user, wherein the target physical machine deploys the VM on the target physical machine in view of the provisioning and the virtual profile without use of a binary image file for the VM.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the user interface is one of a graphical user interface and a command line interface.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the user interface accepts commands that manage any deployed VMs.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the commands that manage any deployed VMs further comprise executing at least one of a start command, a stop command, a pause command, a delete command, or a migration command.

15. The system of claim 11, further comprising a database coupled to the distribution server, wherein the database is to provide management of the virtual profile and other previously created virtual profiles.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the database is further to manage at least one of distribution packages, monitored systems that are being tracked, and deployed VMs.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the configuration management system is to centrally manage any deployed VMs.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the virtual profile further comprises an Extensible Markup Language (XML) header, a configuration file section, and an optional data image section.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including instructions that, when accessed by a processing device, cause the processing device to perform operations comprising:

provisioning, by a virtual manager server computing device comprising the processing device, at least one physical machine to add the at least one physical machine to a collective server farm and to add software to enable the at least one physical machine to install virtual machines as directed by the virtual manager server computing device;

receiving, by the virtual manager server computing device, a set of requirements for a virtual machine (VM) specified by a user of the VM;

creating, by the virtual manager server computing device, virtual profile associated with the VM and in view of the set of requirements provided by the user, wherein the virtual profile is maintained as a light-weight container and comprises an appliance metadata file section, a configuration management manifest section, a configuration management files section comprising files specified in the configuration manifest section, and an optional disk image section; and

distributing, by the virtual manager server computing device, the light-weight container of the virtual profile to a target physical machine of the at least one physical machine in response to a request from the user, wherein the target physical machine deploys the VM on the target physical machine in view of the provisioning and the virtual profile without use of a binary image file for the VM.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the operations further comprise managing the deployed VMs through a graphical user interface module communicably coupled to the virtual manager server computing device.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the operations further comprise managing physical hardware on the at least one physical machine.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the operations further comprise providing a database coupled to the virtual manager server computing device, wherein the database is to provide management of the virtual profile and other previously created virtual profiles.