Method of managing virtual machines using a virtual machine monitor

• US 9,092,251 B2
• Filed: 12/18/2009
• Issued: 07/28/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Virtuallogix SA (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Virtuallogix SA (Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.)
• Inventors: Grouzdev, Vladimir
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Tammy
• Application Number:
  US12/642,207
• Publication Number:
  US 20100162242A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,048 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A method for managing virtual machines, the method comprising providing a virtual Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, ACPI, arranged to interact with the virtual machines, and interacting with a real ACPI based on interaction between the virtual ACPI and the plurality of virtual machines.

Claims

1. A method for managing virtual machines that use one or more physical devices in a data processing system, the method comprising:

providing, in a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM), a virtual Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) arranged to interact with the virtual machines;

interacting the VMM with a real ACPI based on interaction between the virtual ACPI and the plurality of virtual machines;

providing, in at least one of the virtual machines, an ACPI driver in a kernel to enable the at least one of the virtual machines to interact directly with one or more of said physical devices;

maintaining, within the virtual ACPI, a respective virtual device state of the physical device for each of the multiple ones of the virtual machines, wherein the virtual device state includes at least one of a device performance state, a device power state, or a device clock throttling state, the device power state includes at least one intermediate power setting between a maximum power setting and a power-off setting, wherein each virtual device state is requested by a corresponding one of the virtual machines;

determining a maximum requested device state from the virtual device states; and

setting, by the VMM, a real device state for the physical device based on the maximum requested device state.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the physical device is one of a data processing system, on-board device, PCI device, power resource, or CPU.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising interacting with a leaf device based on interaction between the virtual machine monitor and one of the virtual machines to which the leaf device is assigned.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising providing virtual power buttons waking devices that are usable by the virtual machines to send ACPI waking device notification events to others of the virtual machines.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising receiving a first event notification from the real ACPI, and providing a second event notification to one or more of the virtual machines based on the first event notification.

6. A method as claimed in claim 5, comprising determining an event number of the first event notification, and providing the event number to one of the virtual machines in response to a query from that virtual machine.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising providing to each virtual machine respective virtual ACPI tables corresponding to physical devices available to the virtual machine.

8. A method as claimed in claim 7, comprising adding one or more wrapper control methods corresponding to the physical devices available to one of the virtual machines to a virtual Differentiated System Description Table, vDSDT, for the virtual machine.

9. A method as claimed in claim 1 comprising using the VMM to provide the virtual ACPI, interact the VMM with the real ACPI, and provide the ACPI methods.

10. A method as claimed in claim 1 comprising using the data processing system to provide the virtual ACPI, interact the VMM with the real ACPI, and provide the ACPI methods.

11. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program for managing virtual machines that use one or more physical devices in a data processing system, wherein at least one of said physical devices are shared between multiple ones of the virtual machines, comprising:

providing, in a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM), a virtual Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) arranged to interact with the virtual machines;

interacting the VMM with a real ACPI based on interaction between the virtual ACPI and the plurality of virtual machines;

providing, in at least one of the virtual machines, an ACPI driver in a kernel to enable at least one of the virtual machines to interact directly with one or more of said physical devices;

maintaining, within the virtual ACPI, a respective virtual device state of the physical device for each of the multiple ones of the virtual machines, wherein the virtual device state includes at least one of a device performance state, a device power state, or a device clock throttling state, the device power state having at least three different possible values, wherein each virtual device state is requested by a corresponding one of the virtual machines;

determining a maximum requested device state from the virtual device states; and

setting, by the VMM, a real device state for the physical device based on the maximum requested device state.