Network adapter hardware state migration discovery in a stateful environment

• US 8,830,870 B2
• Filed: 08/09/2012
• Issued: 09/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cardona, Omar, Jain, Vinit, Sharma, Rakesh, Recio, Renato J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chery, Dady
• Application Number:
  US13/570,773
• Publication Number:
  US 20130086582A1
• Time in Patent Office: 761 Days
• Field of Search: 370/252, 370/254
• US Class Current: 370/254
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44 Arrangements for executing specific programs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• 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 9/5077 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: H04L 12/28 characterised by path configuration, e.g. LAN [Local Area Networks] or WAN [Wide Area Networks] wireless communication networks H04W ; arrangements for dividing the transmission path H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass networks security protocols H04L9/40; wireless communication networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/12 Protocol engines
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/32 Architecture of open systems interconnection [OSI] 7-layer type protocol stacks, e.g. the interfaces between the data link level and the physical level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/326 in the transport layer [OSI layer 4] H04L69/16 takes precedence

Abstract

An approach is provided in which a discovery system receives a migration request to move a virtual machine that executes on a first system. The discovery system identifies a first network adapter corresponding to the first system, and identifies hardware state data used by the first network adapter to process data packets generated by the virtual machine. In turn, the discovery system identifies a second network adapter that is compatible with a native format of the hardware state data, and migrates the virtual machine to a second system corresponding to the identified second network adapter.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a migration request to move a virtual machine executing on a first system;

identifying a first network adapter that corresponds to the first system, wherein the first network adapter includes hardware state data based upon a stateful offload format and used by the first network adapter to process data packets generated by the virtual machine, the hardware state data stored in a native format in a memory area located on the first network adapter;

identifying a second network adapter that is compatible with the native format based upon one or more first network adapter properties of the first network adapter being equivalent to one or more second network adapter properties of the second network adapter, wherein the second network adapter is included in a second system; and

migrating the virtual machine to the second system.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the one or more first network adapter properties matches one of the one or more second network adapter properties.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the first system includes a first host and the second system includes a second host, the method further comprising:

identifying one or more first host requirements that correspond to the virtual machine, wherein at least one of the first host requirements is selected from the group consisting of a processing requirement, a memory requirement, and a bandwidth requirement; and

determining that the second host supports each of the one or more first host requirements.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the stateful offload format is selected from the group consisting of a Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) format, an Internet Wide RDMA Protocol (iWARP) format, an Infiniband (IB) format, and a TCP Offload Engine (TOE) format.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the data packets are sent by the first network adapter through an overlay network environment to a destination virtual machine, the overlay network environment including one or more virtual networks that are independent of physical topology constraints of a physical network.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the overlay network environment includes a distributed policy service that determines that the second network adapter is equivalent to the first network adapter.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system according to the hardware state data; and

freeing one or more resources on the first system in response to resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system.

8. A method comprising:

receiving a migration request to move a virtual machine executing on a first system, wherein the first system includes a first network adapter;

identifying one or more host requirements that correspond to the virtual machine;

identifying a plurality of compatible hosts that each support the one or more host requirements;

identifying one or more first network adapter properties corresponding to the first network adapter, wherein the first network adapter includes hardware state data stored in a native format and utilized by the first network adapter to process data packets according to a stateful offload format;

selecting a second network adapter corresponding to one of the plurality of compatible hosts that is compatible with the native formation and equivalent to each of the one or more first network adapter properties; and

migrating the virtual machine to a second system that includes the selected second network adapter.

9. An information handling system comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory coupled to at least one of the processors;

a set of computer program instructions stored in the memory and executed by at least one of the processors in order to perform actions of;

receiving a migration request to move a virtual machine executing on a first system;

identifying a first network adapter that corresponds to the first system, wherein the first network adapter includes hardware state data based upon a stateful offload format and used by the first network adapter to process data packets generated by the virtual machine, the hardware state data stored in a native format in a memory area located on the first network adapter;

identifying a second network adapter that is compatible with the native format based upon one or more first network adapter properties of the first network adapter being equivalent to one or more second network adapter properties of the second network adapter, wherein the second network adapter is included in a second system; and

migrating the virtual machine to the second system.

10. The information handling system of claim 9 wherein each of the one or more first network adapter properties matches one of the one or more second network adapter properties.

11. The information handling system of claim 9 wherein the first system includes a first host and the second system includes a second host, and wherein the processors perform additional actions comprising:

identifying one or more first host requirements that correspond to the virtual machine, wherein at least one of the first host requirements is selected from the group consisting of a processing requirement, a memory requirement, and a bandwidth requirement; and

determining that the second host supports each of the one or more first host requirements.

12. The information handling system of claim 9 wherein the stateful offload format is selected from the group consisting of a Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) format, an Internet Wide RDMA Protocol (iWARP) format, an Infiniband (IB) format, and a TCP Offload Engine (TOE) format.

13. The information handling system of claim 12 wherein the data packets are sent by the first network adapter through an overlay network environment to a destination virtual machine, the overlay network environment including one or more virtual networks that are independent of physical topology constraints of a physical network.

14. The information handling system of claim 13 wherein the information handling system is a distributed policy service included in the overlay network environment.

15. The information handling system of claim 9 wherein the processors perform additional actions comprising:

resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system according to the hardware state data; and

freeing one or more resources on the first system in response to resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system.

16. A computer program product stored in a computer readable memory device, comprising computer program code that, when executed by an information handling system, causes the information handling system to perform actions comprising:

receiving a migration request to move a virtual machine executing on a first system;

identifying a first network adapter that corresponds to the first system, wherein the first network adapter includes hardware state data based upon a stateful offload format and used by the first network adapter to process data packets generated by the virtual machine, the hardware state data stored in a native format in a memory area located on the first network adapter;

identifying a second network adapter that is compatible with the native format based upon one or more first network adapter properties of the first network adapter being equivalent to one or more second network adapter properties of the second network adapter, wherein the second network adapter is included in a second system; and

migrating the virtual machine to the second system.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein each of the one or more first network adapter properties matches one of the one or more second network adapter properties.

18. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein the first system includes a first host and the second system includes a second host, and wherein the information handling system performs additional actions comprising:

identifying one or more first host requirements that correspond to the virtual machine, wherein at least one of the first host requirements is selected from the group consisting of a processing requirement, a memory requirement, and a bandwidth requirement; and

determining that the second host supports each of the one or more first host requirements.

19. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein the stateful offload format is selected from the group consisting of a Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) format, an Internet Wide RDMA Protocol (iWARP) format, an Infiniband (IB) format, and a TCP Offload Engine (TOE) format.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the data packets are sent by the first network adapter through an overlay network environment to a destination virtual machine, the overlay network environment including one or more virtual networks that are independent of physical topology constraints of a physical network.

21. The computer program product of claim 20 wherein the overlay network environment includes a distributed policy service that determines that the second network adapter is equivalent to the first network adapter.

22. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein the information handling system performs perform additional actions comprising:

resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system according to the hardware state data; and

freeing one or more resources on the first system in response to resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system.