Using active/passive asynchronous replicated storage for live migration

• US 9,766,930 B2
• Filed: 06/26/2015
• Issued: 09/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Tarasuk-Levin, Gabriel, Dirks, Patrick William Penzias, Langouev, Ilia, Kolovson, Curt
• Primary Examiner(s): CHAVIS, JOHN Q
• Application Number:
  US14/752,643
• Publication Number:
  US 20150378785A1
• Time in Patent Office: 816 Days
• Field of Search: 718 1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• 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
• 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 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• 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

The disclosure describes performing live migration of objects such as virtual machines (VMs) from a source host to a destination host. The disclosure changes the storage environment, directly or through a vendor provider, to active/passive synchronous or near synchronous and, during migration, migrates only data which has not already been replicated at the destination host. The source and destination VMs have concurrent access to storage disks during migration. After migration, the destination VM executes with exclusive access to the storage disks, and the system is returned to the previous storage environment of active/passive asynchronous.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a memory area associated with a computing device, said memory area storing a source object; and

a processor programmed to;

in response to receiving a request to perform a live migration of the source object on a source host to a destination object on a destination host, change a replication mode from active/passive asynchronous to active/passive synchronous or near synchronous to replicate changes to the source object on the destination host;

perform the live migration of the source object by transferring data representing the source object to the destination host, wherein the live migration is performed by;

opening one or more disks on the destination object in non-exclusive mode,

pre-copying the data from the source object to the destination object without copying any of the changes to the source object that have been replicated to the destination host,

after pre-copying the data, suspending execution of the source object, and

while the execution of the source object is suspended;

transfer a first portion of content from the source object to the destination object,

upon the destination object attempting to access a second portion of content which has not been transferred from the source object, transfer the second portion of content from the source object to the destination object, and

transfer remaining stale state of the source object to the destination object.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to downgrade locks on disks of the source object from an exclusive mode to a non-exclusive mode before opening one or more disks on the destination object in non-exclusive mode.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising, after migration, upgrading the locks on the destination object from the non-exclusive mode to the exclusive mode after closing the disks on the source object.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to close the disks on the source object after executing the destination object.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to change the replication mode from active/passive synchronous or near synchronous to active/passive asynchronous after transferring the remaining stale state of the source object to the destination object.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the data representing the source object is stored on a virtual volume managed by a storage provider.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the source host, destination host, or both, are associated with hybrid cloud service.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is programmed to open the one or more disks via an application programming interface.

9. A method comprising:

in anticipation of receiving a request to perform a live migration of a source object on a source host to a destination object on a destination host, changing a replication mode from active/passive asynchronous to active/passive synchronous or near synchronous, wherein a disk of the source host is replicated at the destination host;

maintaining the destination host as a replica of the source host via the active/passive synchronous or near synchronous replication mode;

receiving a request to perform live migration of the source object from the source host to the destination object on the destination host; and

performing the live migration of the source object by;

suspending execution of the source object; and

while the source object is suspended;

transfer a first portion of content from the source object to the destination object, and

upon the destination object attempting to access a second portion of content which has not been transferred from the source object, transfer the second portion of content from the source object to the destination object, and

wherein the live migration is performed without migrating any data that has been replicated to the destination host via the active/passive synchronous or near synchronous replication mode.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising changing the replication mode from active/passive synchronous or near synchronous to active/passive asynchronous after completion of the live migration.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising notifying a destination object on the destination host that the live migration has completed.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

executing a destination object on the destination host after the live migration has completed; and

notifying the source object that the destination object has begun execution.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the data representing the source object is stored on a virtual volume managed by a storage provider.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein changing the replication mode from active/passive asynchronous to active/passive synchronous or near synchronous comprises notifying the storage provider of the request to perform the live migration, wherein the storage provider changes the replication mode from active/passive asynchronous to active/passive synchronous or near synchronous.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein changing the replication mode from active/passive synchronous to active/passive asynchronous or near synchronous comprises notifying the storage provider that the live migration has completed, wherein the storage provider then changes the replication mode from active/passive synchronous or near synchronous to active/passive asynchronous.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the source host, destination host, or both, are associated with hybrid cloud service.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein changing the replication mode comprises executing a function call via an application programming interface.

18. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media including computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause at least one processor to perform operations comprising:

in response to receiving a request to perform a live migration of a source object on a source host to a destination object on a destination host, changing a replication mode between the source host and the destination host from active/passive asynchronous to active/passive synchronous or near synchronous to replicate changes to the source object on the destination host;

performing the live migration of the source object by;

suspending execution of the source object; and

while the source object is suspended;

transfer a first portion of content from the source object to the destination object;

upon the destination object attempting to access a second portion of content which has not been transferred from the source object to the destination object, transfer the second portion of content from the source object to the destination object, wherein the live migration is performed without migrating any of the changes that have been replicated to the destination host; and

changing the replication mode from active/passive synchronous or near synchronous to active/passive asynchronous after completion of the live migration.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein the source host, destination host, or both, are associated with hybrid cloud service.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 18, wherein changing the replication mode comprises executing a function call via an application programming interface.