Image instance mapping

• US 9,645,843 B2
• Filed: 01/15/2016
• Issued: 05/09/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Jayachandran, Praveen, Kothari, Ravi, Verma, Akshat
• Primary Examiner(s): APONTE, FRANCISCO JAVIER
• Application Number:
  US14/996,434
• Publication Number:
  US 20160132353A1
• Time in Patent Office: 480 Days
• Field of Search: 717170, 718 1, 718104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45587 Isolation or security of virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A method and system for tracking a virtual machine is provided. The method includes determining updates applied to virtual machine instances and tracking updates associated with a master image used to generate the virtual machine instances. High level semantic updates to the master image are identified by performing a breadth-first search on a version graph to identify a cut on the version graph such that each edge in the cut comprises all elements of the high level semantic updates and splitting a node that immediately follows the cut into a node V1 and a node V2. The node V1 captures changes of the high level semantic updates and the node V2 captures changes not in the high level semantic updates. The node V1 is promoted to a root. A version tree configured to track drift of each virtual machine instance with respect to the master image is maintained.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

determining based on results of analyzing periodic monitoring data indicating changes for each virtual machine instance of a plurality of virtual machine instances, by a computer processor executing an aggregator module, unique updates applied to said plurality of virtual machine instances;

tracking, by said computer processor executing a change agent of a plurality of change agents of a mapping application, updates associated with a golden master image used to generate said plurality of virtual machine instances;

identifying, by said computer processor executing an image update manager of said mapping application, high level semantic updates to said golden master image, wherein said identifying comprises;

performing a breadth-first search on a version graph to identify a cut on the version graph such that each edge in said cut comprises all elements of said high level semantic updates;

splitting a node that immediately follows said cut into a node V1 and a node V2, wherein said node V1 captures changes of said high level semantic updates, and wherein said node V2 captures changes not in said high level semantic updates;

promoting said node V1 to a root; and

maintaining in response to results of said first identifying, said tracking and said second identifying, by said computer processor executing a version manager of said mapping application, a version tree configured to track drift of each said virtual machine instance with respect to said golden master image.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein generating said periodic monitoring data comprises:

determining disk or file system changes to each said virtual machine instance within a specified time period;

generating a list specifying said disk or file system changes;

sorting said disk or file system changes based on a time and location;

generating a hash for each change file of said disk or file system changes; and

transmitting each said hash to said aggregator module.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said determining said unique updates comprises:

generating a hash-table comprising each said hash;

clustering changes to said plurality of virtual machine instances into semantic changes by merging keys and values in said hash table;

after said merging, returning all elements in said hash-table as tuples.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said determining said unique updates further comprises:

comparing a checksum of a file in each said hash to a current file.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein said keys and said values are associated with changes comprising a same time stamp in a given virtual machine instance of said virtual machine instances.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said keys and said values are associated with a group of virtual machine instances of said virtual machine instances impacted by similar changes.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing at least one support service for at least one of creating, integrating, hosting, maintaining, and deploying computer-readable code in a computer comprising said computer processor, said code being executed by the computer processor to implement;

said receiving, said determining, said tracking, said identifying, and said maintaining.

8. A computer program product, comprising a computer readable hardware storage device storing a computer readable program code, said computer readable program code comprising an algorithm that when executed by a computer processor of a computing system implements a method, said method comprising:

determining based on results of analyzing periodic monitoring data indicating changes for each virtual machine instance of a plurality of virtual machine instances, by said computer processor executing an aggregator module, unique updates applied to said plurality of virtual machine instances;

tracking, by said computer processor executing a change agent of a plurality of change agents of a mapping application, updates associated with a golden master image used to generate said plurality of virtual machine instances;

identifying, by said computer processor executing an image update manager of said mapping application, high level semantic updates to said golden master image, wherein said identifying comprises;

performing a breadth-first search on a version graph to identify a cut on the version graph such that each edge in said cut comprises all elements of said high level semantic updates;

splitting a node that immediately follows said cut into a node V1 and a node V2, wherein said node V1 captures changes of said high level semantic updates, and wherein said node V2 captures changes not in said high level semantic updates;

promoting said node V1 to a root; and

maintaining in response to results of said first identifying, said tracking and said second identifying, by said computer processor executing a version manager of said mapping application, a version tree configured to track drift of each said virtual machine instance with respect to said golden master image.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein generating said periodic monitoring data comprises:

determining disk or file system changes to each said virtual machine instance within a specified time period;

generating a list specifying said disk or file system changes;

sorting said disk or file system changes based on a time and location;

generating a hash for each change file of said disk or file system changes; and

transmitting each said hash to said aggregator module.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein said determining said unique updates comprises:

generating a hash-table comprising each said hash;

clustering changes to said plurality of virtual machine instances into semantic changes by merging keys and values in said hash table;

after said merging, returning all elements in said hash-table as tuples.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein said determining said unique updates further comprises:

comparing a checksum of a file in each said hash to a current file.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein said keys and said values are associated with changes comprising a same time stamp in a given virtual machine instance of said virtual machine instances.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein said keys and said values are associated with a group of virtual machine instances of said virtual machine instances impacted by similar changes.

14. A computer system comprising a computer processor coupled to a computer-readable memory unit, said memory unit comprising instructions that when executed by the computer processor implements a method comprising:

determining based on results of analyzing periodic monitoring data indicating changes for each virtual machine instance of a plurality of virtual machine instances, by said computer processor executing an aggregator module, unique updates applied to said plurality of virtual machine instances;

tracking, by said computer processor executing a change agent of a plurality of change agents of a mapping application, updates associated with a golden master image used to generate said plurality of virtual machine instances;

identifying, by said computer processor executing an image update manager of said mapping application, high level semantic updates to said golden master image, wherein said identifying comprises;

performing a breadth-first search on a version graph to identify a cut on the version graph such that each edge in said cut comprises all elements of said high level semantic updates;

splitting a node that immediately follows said cut into a node V1 and a node V2, wherein said node V1 captures changes of said high level semantic updates, and wherein said node V2 captures changes not in said high level semantic updates;

promoting said node V1 to a root; and

maintaining in response to results of said first identifying, said tracking and said second identifying, by said computer processor executing a version manager of said mapping application, a version tree configured to track drift of each said virtual machine instance with respect to said golden master image.

15. The computer system of claim 14, wherein generating said periodic monitoring data comprises:

determining disk or file system changes to each said virtual machine instance within a specified time period;

generating a list specifying said disk or file system changes;

sorting said disk or file system changes based on a time and location;

generating a hash for each change file of said disk or file system changes; and

transmitting each said hash to said aggregator module.

16. The computer system of claim 15, wherein said determining said unique updates comprises:

generating a hash-table comprising each said hash;

clustering changes to said plurality of virtual machine instances into semantic changes by merging keys and values in said hash table;

after said merging, returning all elements in said hash-table as tuples.

17. The computer system of claim 16, wherein said determining said unique updates further comprises:

comparing a checksum of a file in each said hash to a current file.

18. The computer system of claim 16, wherein said keys and said values are associated with changes comprising a same time stamp in a given virtual machine instance of said virtual machine instances.

19. The computer system of claim 18, wherein said keys and said values are associated with a group of virtual machine instances of said virtual machine instances impacted by similar changes.