CONTROLLING NETWORK UTILIZATION

• US 20130007254A1
• Filed: 06/29/2011
• Published: 01/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Fries, Robert
• Granted Patent: US 10,013,281 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3433 for load management allocation of a server based on load conditions G06F9/505; load rebalancing G06F9/5083; redistributing the load in a network by a load balancer H04L67/1029
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual middleware or OS functionality using virtual machines to implement generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking G06F11/1484
• 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: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level

Abstract

Network utilization of an arbitrary application is controlled by tracking network usage statistics of virtual machines (VMs), including at least VMs hosting parts of the application. For network utilization control, VMs serve as network proxies for elements of the application. A specification for a network requirement of the application is evaluated against the network usage statistics. When a network capacity requirement to/from/through an element of the application is not satisfied, one or more VMs are adapted to satisfy the requirement. For example, a VM may be migrated from a host or network location that has excess network bandwidth. Or, for example, network bandwidth availability for an under-requirement VM may be increased and bandwidth availability for a VM at an appropriate host or network location may be decreased. Thus, application-level communication path requirements may be satisfied using VM adaptations.

Claims

1. A method of specifying and allocating network bandwidth for distributed applications executing in a network on virtual machines (VMs) executing on hosts in the network, the method comprising:

storing application network specifications, each application network specification specifying network requirements of a distributed application having application elements executing on a plurality of the VMs on a plurality of the hosts;

monitoring network usage in the network;

based on the application network specifications and the monitoring, determining a network bandwidth requirement; and

satisfying the network bandwidth requirement by migrating one or more of the VMs in the network and/or by a hypervisor on one of the hosts increasing or decreasing network transmissions of a VM managed thereby.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein an application network specification specifies a plurality of communication paths through elements of a corresponding distributed application, and the method further comprises migrating a VM from a first host to a second host to satisfy a network requirement of one of the paths.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the monitoring comprises capturing network statistics of VMs at hypervisors on the hosts and transmitting the network statistics to be stored.

4. A method according to claim 3, the monitoring further comprising receiving network statistics reported by one or more routers, switches, or load balancers of the network.

5. A method according to claim 3, the monitoring further comprising hypervisors generating and inserting probe packets for transmission, receiving the probe packets, measuring a network statistic according to the probe packets, and stripping the probe packets so that they are not passed to a virtual machine.

6. A method according to claim 1, further comprising computing the network bandwidth requirement dynamically based on a cost minimization function, wherein, according to the cost minimization function, bandwidth cost varies as a function of time.

7. A method of distributing network usage among a plurality of hosts hosting virtual machines (VMs) communicating via a network, wherein each host has a hypervisor that manages the VMs executing thereon, the method comprising:

accessing network information stored by one or more computers, the network information comprising information specifying network requirements of respective distributed applications running on the VMs, where each distributed application executes on a plurality of the VMs; and

attempting to satisfy the network requirements of the applications by migrating VMs among the hosts or by the hypervisors increasing or decreasing network capacity available to the VMs that the hypervisors manage.

8. A method according to claim 7, wherein the network comprises routers, switches, and load balancers, and the guaranteeing further comprises increasing or decreasing network allocations at the routers, switches, or load balancers.

9. A method according to claim 8, further comprising building a model of performance characteristics of the routers, switches, and load balancers, and using the model for the increasing or decreasing of network allocations.

10. A method according to claim 7, wherein the network information comprises an application specification for a given distributed application, the application specification specifying a network communication path comprising two components that represent respective application elements of the distributed application, the application specification further specifying a network requirement for the communication path.

11. A method according to claim 7, wherein the distributed application comprises a first set of application instances corresponding to a first of the components, and a second set of application instances corresponding to a second of the components.

12. A method according to claim 11, further comprising guaranteeing a single bandwidth requirement between one or more of the application instances in the first set and one or more of the application instances in the second set.

13. A method according to claim 7, further comprising storing VM network usage statistics of individual VMs and using the VM network usage statistics to select one or more VMs to either be migrated or to have available network capacity increased or decreased.

14. A method according to claim 13, further comprising decreasing network capacity of a VM by suspending the VM.

15. One or more computer-readable storage media storing information to enable one or more devices to execute a network controller, the network controller, when executed, performing a process comprising:

accessing stored network statistics data comprising network usage statistics of individual VMs executing on hosts, the statistics including individual statistics of respective VMs executing elements of an application on the hosts;

accessing a network specification for the application, the application comprised of the elements executing on VMs executing on the hosts, the network specification specifying a network requirement for an element of the application; and

evaluating the network specification against the network statistics to identify one or more target VMs to receive a VM adaptation.

16. One or more computer-readable storage media according to claim 15, wherein the VM adaptation comprises an instruction to migrate a VM.

17. One or more computer-readable storage media according to claim 15, wherein the VM adaptation comprises an instruction for a hypervisor to increase or decrease the network rate or bandwidth of one or more of the target VMs.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media according to claim 15, wherein the network requirement specifies a statistical calculation for a class or group of the elements.

19. One or more computer-readable storage media according to claim 15, wherein the network requirement specifies a communication path between an element and a network resource that communicates with the application.

20. One or more computer-readable storage media according to claim 15, wherein the evaluating comprises identifying a particular VM according to the network specification, selecting a network statistic of the particular VM that was reported by a host hosting the VM, and comparing the network statistic against the network specification.