Activity initiated virtual machine migration

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10176010-B2
Application number	US-201715670936-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 7, 2017
Priority date	Mar 15, 2013
Publication date	Jan 8, 2019
Grant date	Jan 8, 2019

Abstract

Briefly, embodiments of methods or systems for activity initiated virtual machine migration are disclosed.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
issuing a first set of at least one executable instruction to a first host operating system of a first computing device to operate as a low-power computing device;
issuing a second set of at least one executable instruction to a second host operating system of a second computing device to operate as a performance computing device;
wherein the low-power computing device and the performance computing device have substantially the same hardware characteristics;
determining that an activity level of one or more virtual machines hosted on the first host operating system of the first computing device exceeds a first threshold; and
migrating, to the second computing device, the one or more virtual machines having the activity level that has exceeded the threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the migrating comprises live migration.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the live migration further comprises:
pre-copying contents of a first plurality of memory locations from a plurality of memory locations accessible to the one or more virtual machines in which the activity level has exceeded the first threshold;
suspending the activity performed by the one or more virtual machines in which the activity level has exceeded the first threshold; and
post-copying, after the suspending, contents of a second plurality of memory locations from the plurality of memory locations accessible to the one or more virtual machines having the activity level that has exceeded the threshold.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the execution of the first set of at least one executable instruction issued to the first operating system further determines a number of virtual machines to be hosted by the first operating system, and wherein the execution of the second set of at least one executable instruction issued to the second operating system further determines a number of virtual machines to be hosted by the second operating system; and
wherein the number of virtual machines to be hosted by the second operating system is less than the number of virtual machines to be hosted by the first operating system.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first computing device comprises hardware characteristics substantially identical to the hardware characteristics of the second computing device.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first computing device and the second computing device comprise different hardware characteristics.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
determining that an activity level of one or more virtual machines hosted on the second host operating system of the second computing device has reached a second threshold; and
migrating, to the first computing device, the one or more virtual machines that has reached the second threshold.

8. A system comprising:
a virtual machine manager; and
a first computing device and a second computing device, the first computing device comprising a first host operating system, the second computing device comprising a second host operating system, the virtual machine manager to issue a first set of one or more executable instructions to the first operating system of the first computing device to operate as a performance computing device and to issue a second set of one or more executable instructions to the second operating system of the second computing device to operate as a low-power computing device,
wherein the low-power computing device and the performance computing device have substantially the same hardware characteristics,
wherein the virtual machine manager is to detect a decrease in activity level of one or more virtual machines to be hosted on the first host operating system of the first computing device and to migrate, to the second computing device, the one or more virtual machines in which the decrease in the activity level has been detected.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the virtual machine manager is further to perform live migration of the one or more virtual machines in which the decrease in the activity level has been detected to the second computing device.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the live migration is to further comprise:
the virtual machine manager to:
pre-copy contents of a first plurality of memory locations from a plurality of memory locations accessible to the one or more virtual machines in which the decrease in the activity level has been detected;
suspend the activity performed by the one or more virtual machines in which the decrease in the activity level has been detected; and
post-copy, after the suspending, contents of a second plurality of memory locations from the plurality of memory locations accessible to the one or more virtual machines in which the decrease in the activity level has been detected.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the virtual machine manager is further to determine a number of virtual machines to be hosted by the first operating system, and to determine a number of virtual machines to be hosted by the second operating system; and
wherein the number of virtual machines to be hosted by the second operating system is to be less than the number of virtual machines to be hosted by the first operating system.

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the first computing device is to comprise hardware characteristics different from the second computing device.

13. The system of claim 8 , wherein the virtual machine manager is to detect an increase in an activity level of one or more virtual machines to be hosted on the second host operating system of the second computing device and to responsively migrate, to the first computing device, the one or more virtual machines in which the decrease in the activity level has been detected.

14. An article comprising:
a non-transitory storage medium comprising executable computer instructions stored thereon executable by at least one processor in communication with at least one memory, the computer instructions to be fetched from the at least one memory for execution on the at least one processor, the fetched computer instructions to be executed on the at least one processor to comprise computer instructions to manage one or more virtual machines hosted on a first computing device and computer instructions to manage one or more virtual machines hosted on a second computing device,
execution of the virtual machine management instructions to:
determine a first set of operating parameters for a first set of one or more virtual machines and to determine a second set of operating parameters for a second set of one or more virtual machines, a first operating system to operate on the first computing device as a performance computing device and a second operating system to operate on the second computing device as a low-power computing device,
wherein the performance computing device and the low-power computing device have substantially the same hardware characteristics; and
detect a decrease in an activity level of one or more virtual machines to be hosted on a first host operating system of the first computing device and to migrate, responsive to the detection, to the second computing device, the one or more virtual machines in which the decrease in the activity level has been detected.

15. The article of claim 14 , the execution of the virtual machine management instructions stored thereon to further perform live migration, to the second computing device, of the one or more virtual machines in which the decrease in the activity level has been detected.

16. The article of claim 15 , the live migration to

Assignees

• Excalibur Ip Llc

Inventors

• Daly Tim
• Budzinski Jeff
• Cheng Annie

Classifications

• G06F2009/45575

  Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F2009/45591

  Monitoring or debugging support · CPC title

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

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