Systems, methods and apparatus for a virtual machine cache

• US 9,612,966 B2
• Filed: 07/03/2012
• Issued: 04/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/03/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Joshi, Vikram, Luan, Yang, Brown, Michael, Mehta, Bhavesh
• Primary Examiner(s): Etienne, Ario
• Assistant Examiner(s): Halim, Sahera
• Application Number:
  US13/541,659
• Publication Number:
  US 20140012940A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,736 Days
• Field of Search: 709214, 711 6
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0875 with dedicated cache, e.g. instruction or stack
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A virtual machine cache provides for maintaining a working set of the cache during a transfer between virtual machine hosts. In response to the transfer, a previous host retains cache data of the virtual machine, which is provided to the new host of the virtual machine. The cache data may be transferred via a network transfer.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a virtual machine cache configured to cache data, of one or more virtual machines operating on a host computing device, in a cache storage device of the host computing device, wherein the cache data is admitted into the cache storage device in response to storage requests of the respective virtual machines;

a cache retention module configured to retain cache data of a virtual machine of the one or more virtual machines in response to the virtual machine being transferred from the host computing device to a remote host computing device, the retained cache data corresponding to data of a primary storage system; and

a cache transfer module configured to provide retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine to the remote host computing device in response to a request of the transferred virtual machine operating on the remote host computing device.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the cache transfer module is configured to provide the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine to the remote host computing device in response to a request from the remote host computing device, wherein the request from the remote host computing device is responsive to the request of the transferred virtual machine operating on the remote host computing device.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine cache is configured to maintain mappings between virtual machine identifiers of virtual machines operating on the host computing device and cache addresses of the cache storage device, and wherein the cache transfer module is configured to identify the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine using the mappings.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the cache transfer module is configured to push at least a portion of the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine to the remote host computing device.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the cache retention module is configured to retain the cache data of the transferred virtual machine in accordance with a cache data retention policy.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the cache data retention policy provides for removing the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine in response to one or more of:

expiration of a retention threshold,

determining that the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine has been transferred to the remote host computing device, and

receiving an indication that the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine no longer needs to be retained.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the cache transfer module is configured to verify that the transferred virtual machine has been transferred to the remote host computing device.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the cache transfer module is configured to identify the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine stored on the cache storage device of the host computing device based on a virtual machine identifier of the transferred virtual machine.

9. A method, comprising:

retaining cache data of a virtual machine on a cache storage device of a first host computing device in response to determining that the virtual machine was transferred to a second host computing device, the retained cache data admitted into the cache storage device in response to storage requests at the first host computing device, the retained cache data corresponding to data of a primary storage system;

determining a cache address of the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine in the cache storage device of the first host computing device; and

transferring retained cache data at the determined cache address in the cache storage device of the first host computing device to the second host computing device via a network, wherein the retained cache data is transferred in response to a request of the transferred virtual machine operating on the second host computing device.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the request of the transferred virtual machine operating on the second host computing device is one of:

a storage request of the transferred virtual machine operating on the second host computing device, and

a request to prefetch retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine operating on the second host computing device.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising pushing at least a portion of the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine from the first host computing device to the second host computing device.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

maintaining mappings between virtual machine identifiers and cache addresses of the cache storage device; and

determining the cache address of the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine based on a virtual machine identifier of the transferred virtual machine included in a request for the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising assigning respective virtual machine identifiers to virtual machines operating on the first host computing device, the virtual machine identifiers comprising an identifier of the first host computing device.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising removing the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine from the cache storage device in response to one or more of:

expiration of a retention threshold;

determining that the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine has been transferred to the second host computing device; and

receiving an indication that the retained cache data of the transferred virtual machine no longer needs to be retained by the first host computing device.

15. An apparatus, comprising:

an input/output (I/O) driver for a particular virtual machine operating on a first host computing device configured to direct I/O operations of the particular virtual machine pertaining to a primary storage system to a virtual machine cache of the first host computing device;

a cache manager configured to maintain cache tags corresponding to cache data of the particular virtual machine, wherein the cache tags associate identifiers of the particular virtual machine with cache data corresponding to the primary storage system admitted into the virtual machine cache of the first host computing device, wherein the cache data is admitted into the virtual machine cache in response to I/O operations of the particular virtual machine operating on the first host computing device; and

a cache tag retention module configured to retain the cache tags corresponding to the cache data of the particular virtual machine admitted into the virtual machine cache of the first host computing device in response to determining that the particular virtual machine has been transferred from the first host computing device to a second host computing device, and

wherein the cache manager is configured to request data of a retained cache tag of the particular virtual machine operating on the second host computing device in response to an I/O operation of the virtual machine pertaining to data of the primary storage system admitted into the virtual machine cache of the first host computing device.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the cache manager is configured to provide a virtual machine identifier to the virtual machine cache of the first host computing device in response to determining that the particular virtual machine was transferred to the second host computing device.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the cache manager is configured to identify cache tags to prefetch from the first host computing device.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, further comprising a clock sweep module configured to maintain cache aging metadata, wherein the cache manager is configured to identify the cache tags to prefetch based on the cache aging metadata.

19. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the cache manager is configured to remove one or more of the retained cache tags of the particular virtual machine in response to being allocated less cache capacity on the second host computing device than the particular virtual machine was allocated on the first host computing device.