Flexible deployment and migration of virtual machines

• US 9,658,898 B2
• Filed: 10/14/2014
• Issued: 05/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Amann, Stefan, Banzhaf, Gerhard, Friedrich, Ralph, Nambi, Muthumanikandan, Pillai, Kishorekumar G., Verma, Parakh P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Park, Ilwoo
• Application Number:
  US14/513,325
• Publication Number:
  US 20150370611A1
• Time in Patent Office: 952 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/28 using burst mode transfer, e.g. direct memory access DMA, cycle steal G06F13/32 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4022 using switching circuits, e.g. switching matrix, connection or expansion network G06F13/4009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/426 using an embedded synchronisation, e.g. Firewire bus, Fibre Channel bus, SSA bus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/0008 High speed serial bus, e.g. Fiber channel
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/28 DMA
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/3812 USB port controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/4004 Universal serial bus hub with a plurality of upstream ports
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• 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: G06F 9/5088 involving task migration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/3015 Name registration, generation or assignment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1038 Load balancing arrangements to avoid a single path through a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

Virtual machines in a computer system cluster, or cloud environment, require access to their assigned storage resources connected to the virtual machines via storage area networks (SAN). Such virtual machines may be independent from associated physical servers in the computer system cluster on which they are deployed. These virtual machines may dynamically migrate among assigned physical servers while maintaining access to their connected storage resources both from the source physical server and the target physical server during the migration.

Claims

1. A method for assigning a set of network names to storage access paths of virtual machines accessing storage resources via storage area networks, the method comprising:

creating a computer system cluster, wherein the computer system cluster includes;

a plurality of virtual machines; and

a plurality of servers, wherein each server of the plurality of servers includes one or more access paths that allows the plurality of virtual machines to access a plurality of storage related resources in a storage area network;

identifying a maximum number of storage access paths that a virtual machine is able to use on any server of the plurality of servers;

selectively deploying the plurality of virtual machines on the plurality of servers;

for each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines deployed on the plurality of servers;

assigning a plurality of source port names equal to the maximum number of storage access paths that the virtual machine can use on any of the plurality of servers;

selecting a maximum number of concurrent live-migrations between the plurality of virtual machines;

generating a plurality of target port names, wherein a quantity of the plurality of target port names is based on the product of;

the maximum number of access paths that the virtual machine can use on any of the plurality of servers; and

the maximum number of concurrent live-migrations between the plurality of virtual machines; and

storing the plurality of target port names in a port name pool.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein each access path is established by instantiating a virtual host bus adaptor of the virtual machine on a host bus adaptor of the server.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein:

each virtual host bus adaptor to be instantiated on each server of the plurality of servers is defined in a storage access group; and

each port name assigned to each virtual machine from the port name pool is defined in the storage access group.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

performing a live migration of the virtual machine from a source server to a target server; and

dynamically assigning at least one target port name from the port name pool to the virtual machine.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

responsive to the virtual machine completing the live migration from the source server to the target server, storing the source port name of the virtual machine as a target port name in the port name pool.