Storage quality-of-service control in distributed virtual infrastructure

• US 9,274,817 B1
• Filed: 12/31/2012
• Issued: 03/01/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Fan, Chenhui, Yang, Ziye, Wan, Lintao, Chen, Xi, Black, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente, Emerson
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kamran, Mehran
• Application Number:
  US13/731,271
• Time in Patent Office: 1,156 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• 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 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Techniques for delivering and measuring storage quality-of-service to virtual machines in a distributed virtual infrastructure. In one example, a method comprises the following steps. A controller obtains quality-of-service data from at least a portion of components of a distributed virtual infrastructure, wherein the components of the distributed virtual infrastructure comprise one or more storage units, one or more processing units, and one or more switches operatively coupled to form the distributed virtual infrastructure. The controller manages at least one input/output request throughout a path defined by at least one of the one or more processing units, at least one of the one or more switches, and at least one of the one or more storage units, based on at least a portion of the collected quality-of-service data.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

collecting, at a controller, quality-of-service data from components of a distributed virtual infrastructure, wherein the components of the distributed virtual infrastructure comprise one or more storage units, one or more processing units, and one or more switches operatively coupled to form the distributed virtual infrastructure;

storing, via the controller, the obtained quality-of-service data in a quality-of-service knowledge database of the controller, wherein the database aggregates and consolidates the quality-of-service data collected from the components of the distributed virtual infrastructure; and

managing, via the controller, quality-of-service control for at least one input/output request received by the distributed virtual infrastructure, wherein for the at least one input/output request, a path is identified comprising a plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure through which the input/output request passes, and the input/output request is serviced based on the quality-of-service data stored for each of the plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure, and wherein the plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure comprises at least one of the one or more processing units, at least one of the one or more switches, and at least one of the one or more storage units, and further wherein the managing step comprises receiving a storage provisioning request, at the controller, from at least one of the one or more processing units, wherein the storage provisioning request comprises one or more quality-of-service requirements, and managing provisioning of the one or more storage units based on at least a portion of the collected quality-of-service data in response to the storage provisioning request;

wherein the obtaining, storing and managing steps are executed via at least one processor coupled to a memory.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the managing step further comprises, in response to the at least one input/output request, managing data delivery from the one or more storage units based on at least a portion of the collected quality-of-service data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the managing step further comprises checking, at the controller, the stored quality-of-service data for availability of at least one of the one or more storage units, in response to the received storage provisioning request.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the managing step further comprises selecting, at the controller, an appropriate one of the one or more storage units based on the availability check.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the managing step further comprises causing, by the controller, the provisioning of the selected one of the one or more storage units.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the managing step further comprises identifying, at the controller, a service level associated with one of the one or more processing units, in response to a request received from one of the one or more switches operatively positioned between the one or more storage units and the one or more processing units.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the request received at the controller from the switch is in response to the at least one input/output request being received at the switch from the one of the one or more processing units.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the switch responds to the input/output request by relaying the request to at least one of the one or more storage units with a given priority level.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the switch receives data from the one of the one or more storage units based on the relayed input/output request.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the switch identifies the received data as being associated with the one of the one or more processing units that sent the input/output request.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the service level is identified by recognition of at least one of a storage protocol and a processing unit identifier.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the switch requests, from the controller, the identified service level associated with the one of the one or more processing units that sent the input/output request.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the switch delivers the received data to the one of the one or more processing units that sent the input/output request in accordance with the service level identified by the controller.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more switches comprise one or more software-defined switches.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more storage units comprise one or more storage arrays, and the one or more processing units comprise one or more virtual machines.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the distributed virtual infrastructure comprises a cloud computing environment.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the managing step further comprises assigning, by the controller, a priority status to the at least one input/output request based on the stored quality-of-service information collected for the components of the distributed virtual infrastructure.

17. A computer program product comprising a processor-readable storage medium having encoded therein executable code of one or more software programs, wherein the one or more software programs when executed by at least one processor implement the steps of:

collecting, at a controller, quality-of-service data from components of a distributed virtual infrastructure, wherein the components of the distributed virtual infrastructure comprise one or more storage units, one or more processing units, and one or more switches operatively coupled to form the distributed virtual infrastructure;

storing, via the controller, the obtained quality-of-service data in a quality-of-service knowledge database of the controller, wherein the database aggregates and consolidates the quality-of-service data collected from the components of the distributed virtual infrastructure; and

managing, via the controller, quality-of-service control for at least one input/output request received by the distributed virtual infrastructure, wherein for the at least one input/output request, a path is identified comprising a plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure through which the input/output request passes, and the input/output request is serviced based on the quality-of-service data stored for each of the plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure, and wherein the plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure comprises at least one of the one or more processing units, at least one of the one or more switches, and at least one of the one or more storage units, and further wherein the managing step comprises receiving a storage provisioning request, at the controller, from at least one of the one or more processing units, wherein the storage provisioning request comprises one or more quality-of-service requirements, and managing provisioning of the one or more storage units based on at least a portion of the collected quality-of-service data in response to the storage provisioning request.

18. A storage quality-of-service controller, comprising:

at least one memory; and

at least one processor operatively coupled to the at least one memory, forming the storage quality-of-service controller, configured to;

collect quality-of-service data from components of a distributed virtual infrastructure, wherein the components of the distributed virtual infrastructure comprise one or more storage units, one or more processing units, and one or more switches operatively coupled to form the distributed virtual infrastructure;

store the obtained quality-of-service data in a quality-of-service knowledge database, wherein the database aggregates and consolidates the quality-of-service data collected from the components of the distributed virtual infrastructure; and

manage quality-of-service control for at least one input/output request received by the distributed virtual infrastructure, wherein for the at least one input/output request, a path is identified comprising a plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure through which the input/output request passes, and the input/output request is serviced based on the quality-of-service data stored for each of the plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure, and wherein the plurality of components of the distributed virtual infrastructure comprises at least one of the one or more processing units, at least one of the one or more switches, and at least one of the one or more storage units, and further wherein managing quality-of-service control comprises receiving a storage provisioning request from at least one of the one or more processing units, wherein the storage provisioning request comprises one or more quality-of-service requirements, and managing provisioning of the one or more storage units based on at least a portion of the collected quality-of-service data in response to the storage provisioning request.