Automated data migration of services of a virtual machine to containers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10740133-B2
Application number	US-201815884022-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 30, 2018
Priority date	Jan 30, 2018
Publication date	Aug 11, 2020
Grant date	Aug 11, 2020

Abstract

Examples described herein may include migration of data associated with a service to a container. An example method includes creating of a user virtual machine associated with a service and an associated virtual disk storing data associated with running the service, and creating a volume group and an associated storage container at a node of a computing system. The example method further includes storing a cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container, and, in response to discovery of the cloned version of the virtual disk in the storage container, mounting the cloned version of the virtual disk on the volume group to provide access to clients running the service.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
creating a virtual machine associated with a service and an associated virtual disk storing data for running the service;
creating a volume group and an associated storage container at a controller virtual machine, wherein the controller virtual machine is configured to manage storage requests for the virtual machine;
storing a cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container;
mounting the cloned version of the virtual disk on the volume group at the controller virtual machine; and
running the service from the cloned version of the virtual disk mounted on the volume group responsive to an application running on the virtual machine.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein creating the volume group and the associated storage container at the controller virtual machine comprises placing an original virtual disk in the storage container for discovery of the storage container prior to copying of the cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising, in response to a discovery request, facilitating discovery of the original virtual disk of the storage container.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising, after storing the cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container, deleting the original virtual disk from the storage container.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising receiving a rescan request to discover virtual disks stored in the storage container.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the discovery request and the rescan request are based on internet small computer systems interface (ISCSI) protocol.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein mounting the cloned version of the virtual disk on the volume group comprises creating an instance of a partition of the cloned version of the virtual disk on the volume group.

8. The method of claim I, wherein creation of the virtual machine associated with the service and the associated virtual disk storing data associated with running the service comprises creating the virtual disk with at least one of a root partition, a boot partition, and a home partition.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein mounting the cloned version of the virtual disk on the volume group comprises mounting one or more directories of the cloned version of the virtual disk to an application docker container accessible by the volume group.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein running the service from the cloned version of the virtual disk comprises accessing one or more directories to run the service from one or more of a root partition, a boot partition, and a home partition of the cloned version of the virtual disk.

11. Non-transitory computer readable media encoded with instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause a computing node to:
create a user virtual machine associated with a service and an associated virtual disk storing data associated with running the service,
create a volume group and an associated storage container at a controller virtual machine, wherein the controller virtual machine is configured to manage storage requests for the user virtual machine,
store a cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container,
mount the cloned version of the virtual disk on the volume group at the controller virtual machine; and
run the service from the cloned version of the virtual disk mounted on the volume group responsive to an application running on the user virtual machine.

12. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 11 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing node to facilitate the creation of the volume group and the storage container and to copy the cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container.

13. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 12 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing node to facilitate discovery of the cloned version of the virtual disk stored in the storage container in response to a received request.

14. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 13 , wherein the received request is based on internet small computer systems interface (ISCSI) protocol.

15. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 11 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing node to, prior to storing the cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container, facilitate discovery of an original virtual disk stored in the storage container in response to a discovery request.

16. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 11 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing node to, after storing the cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container, deleting the original virtual disk stored in the storage container.

17. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 11 , wherein the instructions that cause the computing node to mount the cloned version of the virtual disk on the volume group include instructions that cause the computing node to create instances of a partition of the cloned version of the virtual disk on the volume group.

18. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 11 , wherein the service is associated with an operating system running on a client.

19. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 11 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing node to run the service from the cloned version of the virtual disk by accessing one or more directories to run the service from one or more of a root partition, a boot partition, and a home partition of the cloned version of the virtual disk.

20. A computing system comprising:
a plurality of computing nodes, wherein a first computing node of the plurality of computing nodes is configured to create a virtual disk storing data associated with running a service on local storage associated with the first computing node, the first computing node is further configured to create a volume group and an associated storage container at a controller virtual machine running on the first computing node and to store a cloned version of the virtual disk into the storage container, wherein the first computing node is further configured to run the service from the cloned version of the virtual disk mounted on the volume group at the controller virtual machine responsive to an application running on a user virtual machine running on the first computing node.

21. The computing system of claim 20 , wherein the first computing node is configured to run the controller virtual machine to facilitate access to data stored on the virtual disk.

22. The computing system of claim 20 , wherein the first computing node comprises a plurality of clients running in virtual machines that are connected to the cloned version of the virtual disk.

23. The computing system of claim 22 , wherein the first computing node is configured to store data associated with multiple services in the virtual disk and the cloned version of the virtual disk.

24. The computing system of claim 20 , wherein the cloned version of the virtual disk includes cloned versions of one or more of a root partition, boot partition, and home partition of the virtual disk.

Assignees

• Nutanix Inc

Inventors

• Singh Arpit
• Khole Akshay
• Jayaraman Anand
• Ramachandran Arun
• Ahmad Mohammad
• Chintalapati Vs Kalyan Ram

Classifications

• G06F2009/4557

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

• G06F9/5077 Primary

  Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources (specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455) · CPC title

• G06F2009/45562

  Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F9/4856

  resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration (G06F9/5088 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06F3/0647

  Migration mechanisms · CPC title