Facilitation of live virtual machine migration

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10146594-B2
Application number	US-201514976430-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 21, 2015
Priority date	Dec 31, 2014
Publication date	Dec 4, 2018
Grant date	Dec 4, 2018

Abstract

Embodiment pertain to facilitation of live migration of a virtual machine in a network system. The network system includes a first host, a second host, a first appliance for providing service to the first host, a second appliance for providing service to the second host, and a third appliance. At least one virtual machine is disposed on the first host and has an ongoing first network flow. The first appliance has generated state information about the first network flow. During the migration of the at least one virtual machine to the second host, the third appliance obtains a copy of the state information about the first network flow; and the third appliance takes over from the first appliance to serve the first network flow during the migration of the at least one virtual machine, until the first network flow is terminated.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method applied to a processor in communication with memory, the method comprising:
configuring a network system including a first host having a first appliance and a second host having a second appliance;
at least one virtual machine being disposed on the first host and having a first network flow, and the first appliance generating state information about the first network flow, the state information including history and context information of the at least one virtual machine;
performing a live migration of the at least one virtual machine from the first host to the second host;
during the live migration, directly cloning the first appliance to a resource pool, the cloned first appliance becoming a temporary third appliance, the temporary third appliance being independent of the first and second hosts;
obtaining, without interruption, by the temporary third appliance, a copy of the state information about the first network flow comprising monitoring the first network flow for a malicious attack against the migrated virtual machine;
utilizing the state information to re-direct, by the temporary third appliance, operations of the first network flow; and
removing the temporary third appliance from the resource pool upon termination of the first network flow.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the state information about the first network flow includes a count of specific network events.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising: controlling the second appliance to provide service to a second network flow of the at least one virtual machine occurring after the migration of the at least one virtual machine to the second host.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the temporary third appliance functions as a temporary appliance for two or more appliances.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein removing the temporary third appliance includes releasing one or more hardware resources.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein removing the temporary third appliance includes providing the temporary third appliance to another application.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein directly cloning the first appliance comprises synchronizing the state information between the first appliance and the second appliance.

8. A system comprising:
a processor in communication with memory;
a module in communication with the processor, the module comprising:
a hardware management controller, disposed in a network system including a first host having a first appliance and a second host having a second appliance;
a virtual machine disposed on the first host and having a first network flow, and the first appliance generates state information about the first network flow, the state information including history and context information of the virtual machine;
the management controller to manage live migration of the virtual machine including the management controller to:
perform a live migration of the virtual machine from the first host to the second host;
during the live migration, directly clone the first appliance to a resource pool, the cloned first appliance becoming a temporary third appliance, the temporary third appliance being independent of the first and second hosts;
obtain, without interruption, by the temporary third appliance, a copy of the state information about the first network flow comprising monitoring the first network flow for a malicious attack against the migrated virtual machine;
utilize the state information to take over, by the temporary third appliance, operations of the first network flow; and
remove the temporary third appliance from the resource pool upon termination of the first network flow.

9. The network system as claimed in claim 8 , wherein the first appliance is disposed on the first host as a virtual appliance.

10. The network system as claimed in claim 8 , wherein the second appliance is disposed on the second host as a virtual appliance.

11. The network system as claimed in claim 8 , further comprising the temporary third appliance to monitor the first network flow for a malicious attack against the migrated virtual machine.

12. The network system as claimed in claim 8 , wherein the temporary third appliance contains a complete historical record of the first network flow, the record including a count of network events.

13. The network system as claimed in claim 8 , wherein the second network flow is directed to the first appliance.

14. The network system as claimed in claim 13 , further comprising the first appliance to monitor the second network flow.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Chao Chih-Wen
• Lee Cheng-Ta
• Suen Wei-Shiau
• Wu Ming Hsun
• Yuan Lun Pin

Classifications

• G06F9/5088 Primary

  involving task migration · CPC title

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F9/505

  considering the load · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

  Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing · CPC title