Mechanism for providing load balancing to an external node utilizing a clustered environment for storage management

• US 9,699,251 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2014
• Issued: 07/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Inventors: Cui, Miao
• Primary Examiner(s): Eskandarnia, Arvin
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mohammadi, Kamran
• Application Number:
  US14/276,737
• Publication Number:
  US 20160205179A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,148 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1017 based on a round robin mechanism

Abstract

A method for providing load balancing to a client node external to a clustered environment for storage management, includes deploying a lightweight load balancing component at the client node, receiving I/O requests issued by virtual machines hosted at the client node by the lightweight load balancing component, performing a hashing algorithm on content of the I/O requests by the lightweight load balancing component to identify one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for handling the I/O requests and dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the lightweight load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for storage management.

Claims

1. A method for providing load balancing to a client node external to a clustered environment for storage management, comprising:

identifying a clustered environment having a plurality of nodes, wherein at least some of the plurality of nodes comprise a controller virtual machine functioning as a storage controller for virtual machines hosted at respective nodes, the controller virtual machine working with other controller virtual machines to form a distributed system within the clustered environment to manage a storage pool comprising a plurality of storage resources spread across the at least some of the plurality of nodes;

deploying a load balancing component at the client node, wherein the client node is external to the clustered environment and the client node hosts virtual machines;

receiving I/O requests issued by the virtual machines hosted at the client node by the load balancing component;

performing a hashing algorithm on content of the I/O requests by the load balancing component to identify one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for handling the I/O requests; and

dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for storage management, wherein the load balancing component maintains metadata related to I/O requests issued by the virtual machines hosted at the client node, the metadata including information pertaining to which controller virtual machines at the clustered environment previously handled I/O requests for virtual machines hosted at the client node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the load balancing component is a process.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the load balancing component is a virtual machine.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the load balancing component appears as a networked storage server with a corresponding IP address to the virtual machines hosted at the client node.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the I/O requests are issued as network file system (NFS) requests.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests by the load balancing component comprises identifying a state of the clustered environment for storage management through communication with the one or more controller virtual machines.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the state of the clustered environment for storage management includes information pertaining to a number of active controller virtual machines in the clustered environment, a current load of the active controller virtual machines in the clustered environment and a health status of the active controller virtual machines.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the metadata includes information pertaining to where data associated with previous I/O requests issued by virtual machines hosted at the client node reside within the clustered environment for storage management.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment comprises employing a load balancing algorithm to determine which controller virtual machines at the clustered environment the I/O requests should be directed.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the load balancing algorithm implements a round robin distribution of the I/O requests.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the load balancing algorithm implements a weighted distribution of the I/O requests.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment comprises distributing I/O requests directed at pieces of data previously serviced by a set of controller virtual machines at the clustered environment to the same set of controller virtual machines at the clustered environment.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the content is a file handle.

14. A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, the non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a processor causes the processor to execute a method for providing load balancing to a client node external to a clustered environment for storage management, comprising:

identifying a clustered environment having a plurality of nodes, wherein at least some of the plurality of nodes comprise a controller virtual machine functioning as a storage controller for virtual machines hosted at respective nodes, the controller virtual machine working with other controller virtual machines to form a distributed system within the clustered environment to manage a storage pool comprising a plurality of storage resources spread across the at least some of the plurality of nodes;

deploying a load balancing component at the client node, wherein the client node is external to the clustered environment and the client node hosts virtual machines;

receiving I/O requests issued by the virtual machines hosted at the client node by the load balancing component;

performing a hashing algorithm on content of the I/O requests by the load balancing component to identify one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for handling the I/O requests; and

dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for storage management, wherein the load balancing component maintains metadata related to I/O requests issued by the virtual machines hosted at the client node, the metadata including information pertaining to which controller virtual machines at the clustered environment previously handled I/O requests for virtual machines hosted at the client node.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the load balancing component is a process.

16. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the load balancing component is a virtual machine.

17. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the load balancing component appears as a networked storage server with a corresponding IP address to the virtual machines hosted at the client node.

18. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the I/O requests are issued as network file system (NFS) requests.

19. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests by the load balancing component comprises identifying a state of the clustered environment for storage management through communication with the one or more controller virtual machines.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the state of the clustered environment for storage management includes information pertaining to a number of active controller virtual machines in the clustered environment, a current load of the active controller virtual machines in the clustered environment and a health status of the active controller virtual machines.

21. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the metadata includes information pertaining to where data associated with previous I/O requests issued by virtual machines hosted at the client node reside within the clustered environment for storage management.

22. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment comprises employing a load balancing algorithm to determine which controller virtual machines at the clustered environment the I/O requests should be directed.

23. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the load balancing algorithm implements a round robin distribution of the I/O requests.

24. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the load balancing algorithm implements a weighted distribution of the I/O requests.

25. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment comprises distributing I/O requests directed at pieces of data previously serviced by a set of controller virtual machines at the clustered environment to the same set of controller virtual machines at the clustered environment.

26. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the content is a file handle.

27. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory comprising computer code executed using the processor, in which the computer code implements a method for providing load balancing to a client node external to a clustered environment for storage management, the method comprising;

identifying a clustered environment having a plurality of nodes, wherein at least some of the plurality of nodes comprise a controller virtual machine functioning as a storage controller for virtual machines hosted at respective nodes, the controller virtual machine working with other controller virtual machines to form a distributed system within the clustered environment to manage a storage pool comprising a plurality of storage resources spread across the at least some of the plurality of nodes;

deploying a load balancing component at the client node, wherein the client node is external to the clustered environment and the client node hosts virtual machines;

receiving I/O requests issued by the virtual machines hosted at the client node by the load balancing component;

performing a hashing algorithm on content of the I/O requests by the load balancing component to identify one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for handling the I/O requests; and

dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment for storage management, wherein the load balancing component maintains metadata related to I/O requests issued by the virtual machines hosted at the client node, the metadata including information pertaining to which controller virtual machines at the clustered environment previously handled I/O requests for virtual machines hosted at the client node.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the load balancing component is a process.

29. The system of claim 27, wherein the load balancing component is a virtual machine.

30. The system of claim 27, wherein the load balancing component appears as a networked storage server with a corresponding IP address to the virtual machines hosted at the client node.

31. The system of claim 27, wherein the I/O requests are issued as network file system (NFS) requests.

32. The system of claim 27, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests by the load balancing component comprises identifying a state of the clustered environment for storage management through communication with the one or more controller virtual machines.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the state of the clustered environment for storage management includes information pertaining to a number of active controller virtual machines in the clustered environment, a current load of the active controller virtual machines in the clustered environment and a health status of the active controller virtual machines.

34. The system of claim 27, wherein the metadata includes information pertaining to where data associated with previous I/O requests issued by virtual machines hosted at the client node reside within the clustered environment for storage management.

35. The system of claim 27, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment comprises employing a load balancing algorithm to determine which controller virtual machines at the clustered environment the I/O requests should be directed.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the load balancing algorithm implements a round robin distribution of the I/O requests.

37. The system of claim 35, wherein the load balancing algorithm implements a weighted distribution of the I/O requests.

38. The system of claim 27, wherein dynamically distributing the I/O requests from the load balancing component to the one or more controller virtual machines at the clustered environment comprises distributing I/O requests directed at pieces of data previously serviced by a set of controller virtual machines at the clustered environment to the same set of controller virtual machines at the clustered environment.

39. The system of claim 27, wherein the content is a file handle.