Virtual desktop migration

• US 9,537,938 B2
• Filed: 09/23/2014
• Issued: 01/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Thomas, Nathan Bartholomew, Farrell, Eugene Michael, Tellvik, Erik Jonathon, Mehta, Gaurang Pankaj, Suryanarayanan, Deepak
• Primary Examiner(s): Hussain, Tauqir
• Application Number:
  US14/494,157
• Publication Number:
  US 20160088066A1
• Time in Patent Office: 833 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/452 Remote windowing, e.g. X-Window System, desktop virtualisation protocols for virtual reality H04L67/131
• 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 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/20 the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or software-defined entities, e.g. SDN or NFV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/148 Migration or transfer of sessions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal

Abstract

It may be determined that a cloud desktop should be migrated from a current region. A destination region to which the cloud desktop will be migrated can be identified. A data volume of the cloud desktop may be copied from the current region to the destination region. The data volume at the current region and the data volume at the destination region may be maintained in sync during the copying. Upon completion of the copying, a current user session associated with the cloud desktop at the current region may be frozen, a current memory and processor state of the current user session may be copied to the destination region, and a second cloud desktop instance at the destination region may be started using the copied data volume and current memory and processor state. The current user session may be connected to the second cloud desktop instance.

Claims

1. A method for migrating a cloud desktop between regions, comprising:

determining to migrate the cloud desktop from a current region based on at least one of network latency of a user computing device to the current region or geographical location of the user computing device relative to the current region, wherein the determining comprises;

determining that the network latency of the user computing device to the current region exceeds a latency threshold;

identifying a destination region to which to migrate the cloud desktop based on at least one of network latency of the user computing device to the destination region or geographical location of the user computing device relative to the destination region;

copying a data volume of the cloud desktop from the current region to the destination region, the data volume comprising user data associated with a user of the cloud desktop;

maintaining the data volume at the current region and the data volume at the destination region in sync during the copying; and

upon completion of the copying;

freezing a current user session associated with the cloud desktop at the current region;

copying a current memory and processor state of the current user session to the destination region;

starting a cloud desktop instance at the destination region using the copied data volume and current memory and processor state; and

reconnecting the current user session to the cloud desktop instance at the destination region;

wherein copying the current memory and processor state to the destination region enables applications that were running in the cloud desktop at the current region to be running in the cloud desktop instance at the destination region.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

calculating the network latency of the user computing device to the current region.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the calculating comprises performing a ping operation, the ping operation determining a time signature of a packet sent by the user computing device to the current region.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

identifying a current geographical location of the user computing device; and

determining that the cloud desktop should be migrated based on the current geographical location of the user computing device relative to the current region.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the current geographical location is identified by an IP address of the user computing device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

prompting one of a user and an administrator associated with the cloud desktop to migrate the cloud desktop; and

receiving a selection from the one of a user and an administrator to migrate the cloud desktop to the destination region.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining is automatically performed during the current user session without input from a user of the cloud desktop.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying comprises:

identifying one or more candidate regions; and

based on at least one of network latency of the user computing device to the one or more candidate regions or geographical location of the user computing device relative to the one or more candidate regions, evaluating the one or more candidate regions to determine the destination region.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying comprises:

identifying the destination region based at least on historical network latency data for a current geographical location of the user computing device.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying comprises:

identifying one or more candidate regions; and

based on at least one of latency of the user computing device to the one or more candidate regions or geographical location of the user computing device to the one or more candidate regions, evaluating the one or more candidate regions to determine the destination region.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the identifying one or more candidate regions comprises:

identifying the one or more candidate regions based on a charge structure for the one or more candidate regions.

12. A computing system for migrating a virtual desktop between data centers, the computing system comprising:

a current data center, the current data center comprising a virtual desktop and a data volume, the data volume comprising user data associated with a user of the virtual desktop;

one or more candidate data centers;

a management component configured to perform operations comprising;

determining to migrate a virtual desktop from the current data center based on at least one of network latency of a user computing device to the current data center or geographical location of the user computing device relative to the current data center, wherein the determining comprises;

determining that the network latency of the user computing device to the current data center exceeds a latency threshold;

identifying one of the one or more candidate data centers to which to migrate the virtual desktop as a destination data center based on at least one of network latency of the user computing device to the destination data center or geographical location of the user computing device relative to the destination data center;

moving the data volume of the virtual desktop from the current data center to the destination data center;

copying a current memory and processor state of a current user session to the destination data center; and

starting an instance of the virtual desktop at the destination data center using the moved data volume and the copied current memory and processor state;

wherein copying the current memory and processor state to the destination data center enables applications that were running in the in the virtual desktop at the current data center to be running in the virtual desktop instance at the destination data center; and

a control plane layer, the control plane layer tracking the data volume of the virtual desktop and the one or more data centers, the control plane layer configured to perform operations comprising;

upon receiving a user connection request, directing the user connection request to the instance of the virtual desktop running at the destination data center.

13. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the network latency of the user computing device to the destination data center is less than the network latency of the user computing device to the current data center.

14. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the geographical location of the user computing device to the destination data center is closer than a geographical location of the user computing device to the current data center.

15. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the management component is configured to perform further operations comprising:

shutting down an instance of the virtual desktop running at the current data center.

16. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the management component is configured to perform further operations comprising:

maintaining a copy of the data volume at the current data center and a copy of the data volume at the destination data center in sync during the moving; and

upon completion of the moving;

freezing the current user session associated with the virtual desktop at the current data center; and

reconnecting the current user session to the started instance of the virtual desktop at the destination data center;

wherein copying the current memory and processor state and starting the instance at the destination data center are performed upon completion of the moving.

17. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions thereon for performing operations for migrating a cloud-based service between regions, the operations comprising:

determining to migrate a cloud-based service from a current region based on at least one of network latency of a user computing device to the current region or geographical location of the user computing device relative to the current region, wherein the determining comprises;

determining that the network latency of the user computing device to the current region exceeds a latency threshold;

identifying a destination region to which to migrate the cloud-based service based on at least one of network latency of the user computing device to the destination region or geographical location of the user computing device relative to the destination region;

copying a data volume of the cloud-based service from the current region to the destination region;

copying a current memory and processor state of a current user session associated with the cloud-based service to the destination region;

starting a cloud-based service instance using the data volume and the copied current memory and processor state at the destination region; and

connecting the current user session associated with the cloud-based service to the cloud-based service instance at the destination region;

wherein copying the current memory and processor state to the destination region enables applications that were running in the in the cloud-based service at the current region to be running in the cloud-based service instance at the destination region.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

maintaining a copy of the data volume at the current region and a copy of the data volume at the destination region in sync during the copying; and

upon completion of the copying;

freezing the current user session associated with the cloud-based service at the current region.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the determining comprises:

calculating the network latency of the user computing device to the current region.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the determining is automatically performed during the current user session associated with the cloud-based service without input from a user.