System for implementing a virtual disk in a virtualization environment

• US 8,997,097 B1
• Filed: 01/18/2013
• Issued: 03/31/2015
• 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): SWIFT, CHARLES M
• Application Number:
  US13/744,703
• Time in Patent Office: 802 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

A system for implementing a virtual disk in a virtualization environment, including a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes implements a virtualization environment, and a node comprises a hypervisor, user virtual machines, and a storage controller implemented as a service virtual machine; a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by user virtual machines and are managed by storage controllers, in which a first and a second virtual disk (vDisk) are formed from the plurality of storage devices and the first virtual disk is accessible by just a first user virtual machine and the second virtual disk is accessible by just a second user virtual machine.

Claims

1. A system for implementing a shared virtual disk in a virtualization environment, comprising:

a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes implements a virtualization environment, and a node comprises a hypervisor, a user virtual machine, and a storage controller implemented as a service virtual machine;

a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by user virtual machines and are managed by storage controllers, in which a virtual disk is formed from the plurality of storage devices and the virtual disk can be accessed by both a first user virtual machine and a second user virtual machine;

the first user virtual machine is associated with a first storage controller on a first node, wherein the first storage controller is implemented as a first service VM;

the second user virtual machine is associated with a second storage controller on a second node, wherein the second storage controller is implemented as a second service VM;

the virtual disk is managed by the first service VM; and

I/O requests that are issued by second user virtual machine on the second node are forwarded by the second service VM to the first node to be handled by the first service VM.

2. The system of claim 1 in which the I/O requests are implemented using a networking protocol.

3. The system of claim 2 in which the networking protocol comprises iSCSI or NFS, and the I/O requests are iSCSI request or NFS requests.

4. The system of claim 2 in which the I/O requests are transmitted over a virtual network.

5. The system of claim 1 in which both the first service VM and the second service VM correspond to an IP address that is identical.

6. The system of claim 5 in which a VLAN configures the IP address to be local to a subnet on a node.

7. The system of claim 5 in which the I/O requests are forwarded upon recognition that the second service VM on the second node is not owner of the virtual disk.

8. The system of claim 1 in which an addressing structure is maintained to forward the I/O request to the first node.

9. The system of claim 8 in which the addressing structure comprises a network address table.

10. The system of claim 8 in which address lookup is performed at network layers of an operating systems stack within the second service VM.

11. A method for implementing a virtual disk in a virtualization environment, comprising:

implementing a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes implements a virtualization environment, and a node comprises a hypervisor, user virtual machines, and a storage controller implemented as a service virtual machine;

implementing a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by user virtual machines and are managed by storage controllers, in which a first and a second virtual disk (vDisk) are formed from the plurality of storage devices and the first virtual disk is accessible by just a first user virtual machine and the second virtual disk is accessible by just a second user virtual machine;

wherein the first user virtual machine is associated with a first storage controller on a first node, wherein the first storage controller is implemented as a first service VM;

wherein the second user virtual machine is associated with a second storage controller on a second node, wherein the second storage controller is implemented as a second service VM;

wherein the virtual disk is managed by the first service VM; and

wherein I/O requests that are issued by second user virtual machine on the second node are forwarded by the second service VM to the first node to be handled by the first service VM.

12. The method of claim 11 in which first virtual disk I/O requests that are issued by the first user virtual machine are handled by the first service VM and second virtual disk I/O requests that are issued by the second user virtual machine are handled by the second service VM.

13. The method of claim 12 in which the first and second virtual I/O requests are implemented using a networking protocol.

14. The method of claim 13 in which the networking protocol comprises iSCSI or NFS, and the I/O requests are iSCSI request or NFS requests.

15. The method of claim 13 in which the first and second virtual I/O requests are transmitted over a virtual network.

16. The method of claim 11 in which both the first service VM and the second service VM correspond to an IP address that is identical.

17. The method of claim 16 in which a VLAN configures the IP address to be local to a subnet on a node.

18. The method of claim 11 in which ownership of the first virtual disk is moved from the first service VM to another service VM.