Providing a virtualized replication and high availability environment including a replication and high availability engine

• US 8,893,147 B2
• Filed: 01/13/2012
• Issued: 11/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Dun, Pengcheng, Yin, Jinxing
• Primary Examiner(s): An, Meng
• Assistant Examiner(s): Zhao, Bing
• Application Number:
  US13/349,709
• Publication Number:
  US 20130185716A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,040 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 718/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1794 Details of file format conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• 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]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/131 Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality

Abstract

The system and method described herein may provide a virtualized replication and high availability environment. In particular, a virtualized production server may run one or more virtual machines in one or more child partitions and have a replication and high availability engine installed in a parent partition. The replication and high availability engine may automatically discover the virtual machines running in the child partitions and automatically synchronize all files associated with the virtual machines to a virtualized replica server. Furthermore, the replication and high availability engine may continuously replicate subsequent changes to the files associated with the virtual machines running in the child partitions to the virtualized replica server, which may then create on-demand virtual machines from the synchronized and replicated files to handle switchover, failover, switchback, and failback events associated with the virtualized production server or the virtual machines running in the child partitions associated therewith.

Claims

1. A system to provide a virtualized replication and high availability environment, the system comprising:

a production server having hardware to host a virtualization architecture, wherein the virtualization architecture comprises a parent partition that contains a virtualization stack having access to the hardware associated with the production server, and one or more child partitions configured to execute a plurality of virtual machines; and

a replication and high availability engine, installed in the parent partition associated with the production server, to function with the plurality of virtual machines executing in the one or more child partitions, wherein the replication and high availability engine is configured to;

discover the plurality of virtual machines executing in the one or more child partitions;

synchronize virtual machine operation files associated with one or more of the plurality of discovered virtual machines executing in the one or more child partitions to a replica server configured to host the virtualization architecture; and

run a replication scenario to replicate a change to the virtual machine operation files associated with the one or more discovered virtual machines to the replica server,

wherein the virtualization architecture is configured to;

create an on-demand virtual machine at the replica server from the synchronized virtual machine operation files associated with the replication scenario, and

redirect an end user and/or workload from the one or more discovered virtual machines to the on-demand virtual machine.

2. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the replication and high availability engine is further configured to invoke a volume shadow copy service writer associated with the virtualization stack to capture the virtual machine operation files synchronized to the replica server.

3. The system recited in claim 2, wherein the virtual machine operation files associated with the one or more discovered virtual machines comprise a virtual hard disk file having a *.vhd file format, a configuration file having a *.xml file format, and a snapshot file having a *.avhd file format.

4. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the virtualization architecture further comprises a hypervisor configured to isolate the parent partition from the one or more child partitions.

5. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the virtualization stack comprises a component configured to manage inter-partition communication between the parent partition and the one or more child partitions.

6. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the virtualization architecture hosted on the replica server is configured to:

start the on-demand virtual machine in a child partition on the replica server.

7. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the virtualization architecture is configured to automatically redirect the end user and/or the workload to the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server in response to a switchover event that relates to planned downtime associated with the production server or the virtual machines executed thereon.

8. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the virtualization architecture is configured to automatically redirect the end user and/or the workload to the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server in response to a failover event that relates to unplanned downtime associated with the production server or the virtual machines executed thereon.

9. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the virtualization architecture is configured to automatically redirect the end user and/or the workload to the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server to balance a load associated with the production server.

10. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the virtualization architecture is configured to redirect the end user and/or the workload to the demand virtual machine on the replica server to test the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server without disrupting the one or more discovered virtual machines executing on the production server.

11. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the virtualization architecture is further configured to run the replication scenario in reverse to synchronize virtual machine operation files associated with the on-demand virtual machine or a change to the virtual machine operation files associated with the on-demand virtual machine, to the production server.

12. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the replication and high availability engine is further is configured to redirect the end user and/or the workload from the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server to one or more of the virtual machines in the one or more child partitions on the production server in response to the replica server having run the replication scenario in reverse to perform switchback or fallback from the replica server to the production server.

13. A method to provide a virtualized replication and high availability environment, the method comprising:

hosting a virtualization architecture on a production server, wherein the virtualization architecture comprises a parent partition that contains a virtualization stack having access to hardware associated with the production server, and one or more child partitions configured to execute a plurality of virtual machines;

discovering, via a replication and high availability engine installed in the parent partition associated with the production server, the plurality of virtual machines executing in the one or more child partitions;

synchronizing, via the replication and high availability engine, virtual machine operation files associated with one or more of the plurality of discovered virtual machines executing in the one or more child partitions to a replica server configured to host the virtualization architecture; and

running, via the replication and high availability engine, a replication scenario to replicate a change to the virtual machine operation files associated with the one or more discovered virtual machines to the replica server,

wherein the virtualization architecture is configured to;

create an on-demand virtual machine at the replica server from the synchronized virtual machine operation files associated with the replication scenario, and

redirect an end user and/or workload from the one or more discovered virtual machines to the on-demand virtual machine.

14. The method recited in claim 13, further comprising invoking, via the replication and high availability engine, a volume shadow copy service writer associated with the virtualization stack to capture the virtual machine operation files synchronized to the replica server.

15. The method recited in claim 14, wherein the virtual machine operation files associated with the one or more discovered virtual machines comprise a virtual hard disk file having a *.vhd file format, a configuration file having a *.xml file format, and a snapshot file having a *.avhd file format.

16. The method recited in claim 13, wherein the virtualization architecture further comprises a hypervisor configured to isolate the parent partition from the one or more child partitions.

17. The method recited in claim 13, wherein the virtualization stack comprises a component configured to manage inter-partition communication between the parent partition and the one or more child partitions.

18. The method recited in claim 13, further comprising:

starting, via the virtualization architecture hosted in a parent partition on the replica server, the on-demand virtual machine in a child partition on the replica server.

19. The method recited in claim 18, wherein the replica server automatically redirects the end user and/or the workload to the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server in response to a switchover event that relates to planned downtime associated with the production server or the virtual machines executed thereon.

20. The method recited in claim 18, wherein the replica server automatically redirects the end user and/or the workload to the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server in response to a failover event that relates to unplanned downtime associated with the production server or the virtual machines executed thereon.

21. The method recited in claim 18, wherein the replica server automatically redirects the end user and/or the workload to the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server to balance a load associated with the production server.

22. The method recited in claim 18, wherein the replica server automatically redirects the end user and/or the workload to the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server to test the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server without disrupting the one or more discovered virtual machines executing on the production server.

23. The method recited in claim 18, further comprising running the replication scenario in reverse to synchronize virtual machine operation files associated with the on-demand virtual machine or a change to the virtual machine operation files associated with the on-demand virtual machine, to the production server.

24. The method recited in claim 23, further comprising redirecting the end user and/or the workload from the on-demand virtual machine on the replica server to one or more of the virtual machines in the one or more child partitions on the production server in response to the replica server having run the replication scenario in reverse to perform switchback or failback from the replica server to the production server.

25. A computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing information, the stored information comprising;

instructions configured to cause a computing device to;

host a virtualization architecture on a production server, wherein the virtualization architecture comprises a parent partition that contains a virtualization stack having access to hardware associated with the production server, and one or more child partitions configured to execute a plurality of virtual machines;

discover, via a replication and high availability engine installed in the parent partition associated with the production server, the plurality of virtual machines executing in the one or more child partitions;

synchronize, via the replication and high availability engine, virtual machine operation files associated with one or more of the plurality of discovered virtual machines executing in the one or more child partitions to a replica server;

run, via the replication and high availability engine, a replication scenario to replicate a change to the virtual machine operation files associated with the one or more discovered virtual machines to the replica server;

create an on-demand virtual machine at the replica server from the synchronized virtual machine operation files associated with the replication scenario; and

redirect an end user and/or workload from the one or more discovered virtual machines to the on-demand virtual machine.