Virtual appliance supporting multiple instruction set architectures

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10552172-B2
Application number	US-201815880964-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 26, 2018
Priority date	Aug 24, 2017
Publication date	Feb 4, 2020
Grant date	Feb 4, 2020

Abstract

An example method of provisioning a virtual appliance to a virtualized computing system, comprising: deploying the virtual appliance to the virtualized computing system, the virtual appliance including a system partition, one or more disk images, and configuration data, the configuration data defining a virtual machine executable on each of a plurality of processor architectures, the system partition configured to boot on any one of the plurality of processor architectures; and booting the virtual appliance from the system partition.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of provisioning a virtual appliance to a virtualized computing system, comprising:
deploying the virtual appliance to the virtualized computing system, the virtual appliance including a system partition, one or more disk images, and configuration data, the configuration data defining a virtual machine executable on each of a plurality of processor architectures, the system partition configured to boot on any one of the plurality of processor architectures; and
booting the virtual appliance from the system partition.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a single disk image, and wherein the step of booting comprises executing one or more binary files each having a universal binary format.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a plurality of disk images, and wherein the step of booting comprises:
selecting a disk image from the plurality of disk images based on a processor architecture of the virtualized computing system; and
executing one or more binary files from the disk image each having a format compliant with the processor architecture of the virtualized computing system.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the plurality of disk images includes a shared disk image having files agnostic to the processor architecture of the virtualized computing system, and wherein the step of booting comprises:
merging the disk image and the shared disk image to create a filesystem.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the step of merging comprises creating symbolic links.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the step of merging comprises using a union filesystem where the disk image is a bottom layer and the shared disk image is an upper layer of the union filesystem.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a first disk image having first binary files compliant with a first processor architecture and second binary files compliant with a second processor architecture, and wherein the step of booting comprises:
creating a filesystem using symbolic links to either the first or the second binary files depending on whether the processor architecture is the first processor architecture or the second processor architecture.

8. A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform a method of provisioning a virtual appliance to a virtualized computing system, comprising:
deploying the virtual appliance to the virtualized computing system, the virtual appliance including a system partition, one or more disk images, and configuration data, the configuration data defining a virtual machine executable on each of a plurality of processor architectures, the system partition configured to boot on any one of the plurality of processor architectures; and
booting the virtual appliance from the system partition.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a single disk image, and wherein the step of booting comprises executing one or more binary files each having a universal binary format.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a plurality of disk images, and wherein the step of booting comprises:
selecting a disk image from the plurality of disk images based on a processor architecture of the virtualized computing system; and
executing one or more binary files from the disk image each having a format compliant with the processor architecture of the virtualized computing system.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of disk images includes a shared disk image having files agnostic to the processor architecture of the virtualized computing system, and wherein the step of booting comprises:
merging the disk image and the shared disk image to create a filesystem.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the step of merging comprises creating symbolic links.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein the step of merging comprises using a union filesystem where the disk image is a bottom layer and the shared disk image is an upper layer of the union filesystem.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a first disk image having first binary files compliant with a first processor architecture and second binary files compliant with a second processor architecture, and wherein the step of booting comprises:
creating a filesystem using symbolic links to either the first or the second binary files depending on whether the processor architecture is the first processor architecture or the second processor architecture.

15. A computing system, comprising:
a hardware platform including a processor and a memory; and
a software platform executing on the hardware platform, the software platform including a hypervisor and a virtual appliance, the virtual appliance including a system partition, one or more disk images, and configuration data, the configuration data defining a virtual machine executable on each of a plurality of processor architectures, the system partition configured to boot on any one of the plurality of processor architectures, the hypervisor configured to boot the virtual appliance from the system partition.

16. The computing system of claim 15 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a single disk image, and wherein the step of booting comprises executing one or more binary files each having a universal binary format.

17. The computing system of claim 15 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a plurality of disk images, and wherein the hypervisor is configured to boot the virtual appliance by:
selecting a disk image from the plurality of disk images based on a processor architecture of the virtualized computing system; and
executing one or more binary files from the disk image each having a format compliant with the processor architecture of the virtualized computing system.

18. The computing system of claim 17 , wherein the plurality of disk images includes a shared disk image having files agnostic to the processor architecture of the virtualized computing system, and wherein the hypervisor is configured to boot the virtual appliance by:
merging the disk image and the shared disk image to create a filesystem.

19. The computing system of claim 18 , wherein the hypervisor is configured to boot the virtual appliance by using a union filesystem where the disk image is a bottom layer and the shared disk image is an upper layer of the union filesystem.

20. The computing system of claim 15 , wherein the virtual appliance includes a first disk image having first binary files compliant with a first processor architecture and second binary files compliant with a second processor architecture, and wherein the hypervisor is configured to boot the virtual appliance by:
creating a filesystem using symbolic links to either the first or the second binary files depending on whether the processor architecture is the first processor architecture or the second processor architecture.

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Li Ye
• Laplace Cyprien
• Warkentin Andrei
• Fainkichen Alexander
• Duchesne Regis

Classifications

• G06F9/44547

  Fat binaries · CPC title

• G06F2009/45575

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

• G06F9/4408 Primary

  Boot device selection · CPC title

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F16/188

  Virtual file systems · CPC title