Self-moving operating system installation in cloud-based network

• US 8,984,104 B2
• Filed: 05/31/2011
• Issued: 03/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Morgan, Christopher Edwin
• Primary Examiner(s): Cho, Un C
• Assistant Examiner(s): Deng, Fangyan
• Application Number:
  US13/149,877
• Publication Number:
  US 20120311106A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,386 Days
• Field of Search: 709220-228
• US Class Current: 709/220
• 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 8/63 Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order
• 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: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0813 characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings

Abstract

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for a self-moving operating system installation in cloud-based network. A guest operating system can be instantiated in a cloud-based host environment to support a set of virtual machines. The operating system can be configured with resources in the kernel to detect and manage the identity of the cloud in which the operating system is installed, as well as to interrogate potentially new target host clouds to determine the configuration settings required to move or copy the guest operating system to that target. The resulting mobility of the guest operating system affords the ability to be self-moving, and an administrator or other user can simply specify a desired target cloud to host the operating system without a need to manually configure APIs or other resources.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a processing device executing a kernel of a guest operating system, an identification of host cloud to receive an installation of the guest operating system;

receiving, by the processing device, a set of configuration requirements associated with the host cloud for installation of the guest operating system in the host cloud;

accessing, by the processing device, a set of installation resources in the kernel of the guest operating system to extract resources corresponding to the set of configuration requirements of the host cloud;

generating, by the processing device, a migrated operating system image of the guest operating system in view of the extracted resources corresponding to the set of configuration requirements of the host cloud;

transmitting, by the processing device, the migrated operating system image of the host cloud for installation in the host cloud;

generating, by the processing device, an update to the migrated operating system image of the guest operating system in view of changed set of configuration requirements received from the host cloud; and

causing, using the processing device, generated update to the migrated operating system image of the guest operating system to be installed in the host cloud, wherein the host cloud comprises a plurality of target cloud, and wherein at least two migrated operating system images transmitted to at least two of the plurality of target clouds comprise different versions of the guest operating system in view of corresponding different sets of configuration requirements for the at least two of the plurality of target clouds.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of configuration requirements comprises at least one of a set of application programming interface (API) requirements, a set of driver requirements, a set of file system requirements, or a set of directory system requirements.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a set of installation queries from an installation tool of the kernel of the guest operating system to receive the set of configuration requirements.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein generating the migrated operating system image comprises accessing a set of installation resources in the kernel via the installation tool to build the migrated operating system image.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the migrated operating system image is transmitted to the host cloud for an original installation.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the migrated operating system image is transmitted to the host cloud to migrate the guest operating system to the host cloud from a source host cloud.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the migrated operating system image is transmitted to a target cloud to copy the guest operating system to the host cloud from a source cloud.

8. A system comprising:

an interface to a host cloud; and

a processing device executing a kernel of a guest operating system, to communicate with the host cloud via the interface and to;

receive an identification of the host cloud to receive an installation of the guest operating system,

receive a set of configuration requirements associated with the host cloud for installation of the guest operating system in the host cloud,

access a set of installation resources in the kernel of the guest operating system to extract resources corresponding to the set of configuration requirements of the host cloud,

generate a migrated operating system image of the guest operating system in view of the extracted resources corresponding to the set of configuration requirements of the host cloud,

transmit the migrated operating system image to the host cloud for installation in the host cloud and,

generate an update to the migrated operating system image of the guest operating system in view of a changed set of configuration requirements received from the host cloud; and

cause the generated update to the migrated operating system image of the guest operating system to be installed in the host cloud, wherein the host cloud comprises a plurality of target clouds, and wherein at least two migrated operating system images transmitted to at least two of the plurality of target clouds comprise different versions of the guest operating system in view of corresponding different sets of configuration requirements for the at least two of the plurality of target clouds.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the set of configuration requirements comprises at least one of a set of application programming interface (API) requirements, a set of driver requirements, a set of file system requirements, or a set of directory system requirements.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the processor is further to generate a set of installation queries from an installation tool of the kernel of the guest operating system to receive the set of configuration requirements.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein generating the migrated operating system image comprises accessing a set of installation resource in the kernel via the installation tool build the migrated operating system image.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the migrated operating system image is transmitted to the host cloud for original installation.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the migrated operating system image is transmitted to the host cloud to migrate the guest operating system to the host cloud from a source cloud.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the migrated operating system image is transmitted to a target cloud to copy the guest operating system to the host cloud from a source cloud.