Management of a virtual machine in a virtualized computing environment based on a fabric limit

• US 9,990,218 B2
• Filed: 08/28/2015
• Issued: 06/05/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Matzek, Samuel D., Tenner, Jeffrey W., McBrearty, Gerald F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nooristany, Sulaiman
• Application Number:
  US14/839,671
• Publication Number:
  US 20170010909A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,012 Days
• 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 9/4401 Bootstrapping security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/15 Interconnection of switching modules
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/356 for storage area networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches

Abstract

A method manages virtual machines in a virtualized computing environment based at least in part on limitations associated with storage fabrics through which virtual machines may access one or more storage systems in such an environment. The storage fabric limitations may be used, for example, in connection with placing virtual machines on hosts in a virtualized computing environment. As another example, storage fabric limitations may be used in connection with deploying virtual machines into a virtualized computing environment to reduce the likelihood of boot errors. As still another example, storage fabric limitations may be used in connection with load balancing across multiple fabrics in a virtualized computing environment.

Claims

1. A method of managing virtualization in a computing environment of the type including one or more fabrics coupling a plurality of hosts to one or more storage systems, the method comprising:

determining a fabric limit for a limited fabric resource of a first fabric among the one or more fabrics, wherein the limited fabric resource constrains a capacity of the fabric and the fabric limit comprises a limit on the limited fabric resource, wherein the limited fabric resource comprises a fabric login for a storage switch in the first fabric, and wherein the fabric limit comprises an active login limit of the storage switch;

determining an allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric, wherein the allocation is associated with a current usage of the limited fabric resource; and

controlling placement of a virtual machine on a first host among the plurality of hosts using at least one processor based at least in part upon the determined fabric limit and determined allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric such that the virtual machine is selectively deployed on the first host to access a storage system among the one or more storage systems using the first fabric during execution of the virtual machine on the first host.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the fabric includes a Fibre Channel switch, and wherein the fabric limit is an active Fabric Login (FLOGI) limit, an active Fabric Discovery (FDISC) limit, a zone limit, or a host limit.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the fabric limit comprises querying the storage switch to retrieve the fabric limit.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the allocation of the limited fabric resource comprises accessing the storage switch to retrieve a current allocation of fabric logins for the storage switch.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the allocation of the limited fabric resource comprises tracking active fabric logins in the computing environment.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining an overcommitted fabric capacity for the first fabric from the fabric limit, wherein controlling placement of the virtual machine on the host is based at least in part on the determined overcommitted fabric capacity for the first fabric.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein determining the overcommitted fabric capacity includes adjusting the fabric limit by a fabric overcommit ratio.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising setting the fabric overcommit ratio in response to user input.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein controlling placement of the virtual machine on the first host includes:

determining a plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations from among the plurality of hosts, one or more fabrics and one or more storage systems;

scoring each of the plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations based at least in part on the determined fabric limit and determined allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric; and

placing the virtual machine on the first host based upon a score of a first candidate host, fabric and storage system combination including the first host.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein scoring each of the plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations is further based at least in part on one or more of a host processor capacity, a host memory capacity, network capacity, or a storage system capacity.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein determining the plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations is based upon at least one requirement of the virtual machine.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting an alternate fabric or alternate storage access technology for the virtual machine in response to determining a lack of capacity in the first fabric.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein controlling placement of the virtual machine on the first host includes deploying the virtual machine on the first host.

14. A method of managing virtualization in a computing environment of the type including one or more fabrics coupling a plurality of hosts to one or more storage systems, the method comprising:

determining a fabric limit for a limited fabric resource of a first fabric among the one or more fabrics, wherein the limited fabric resource constrains a capacity of the fabric and the fabric limit comprises a limit on the limited fabric resource, wherein the first fabric includes a Fibre Channel switch, and wherein the fabric limit is an active Fabric Login (FLOGI) limit, an active Fabric Discovery (FDISC) limit, a zone limit, or a host limit;

determining an allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric, wherein the allocation is associated with a current usage of the limited fabric resource; and

controlling placement of a virtual machine on a first host among the plurality of hosts using at least one processor based at least in part upon the determined fabric limit and determined allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric such that the virtual machine is selectively deployed on the first host to access a storage system among the one or more storage systems using the first fabric during execution of the virtual machine on the first host.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising determining an overcommitted fabric capacity for the first fabric from the fabric limit, wherein controlling placement of the virtual machine on the host is based at least in part on the determined overcommitted fabric capacity for the first fabric.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein determining the overcommitted fabric capacity includes adjusting the fabric limit by a fabric overcommit ratio.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising setting the fabric overcommit ratio in response to user input.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein controlling placement of the virtual machine on the first host includes:

determining a plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations from among the plurality of hosts, one or more fabrics and one or more storage systems;

scoring each of the plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations based at least in part on the determined fabric limit and determined allocation of the limited fabric resource for the first fabric; and

placing the virtual machine on the first host based upon a score of a first candidate host, fabric and storage system combination including the first host.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein scoring each of the plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations is further based at least in part on one or more of a host processor capacity, a host memory capacity, network capacity, or a storage system capacity.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein determining the plurality of candidate host, fabric and storage system combinations is based upon at least one requirement of the virtual machine.