Method of facilitating live migration of virtual machines

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10915374-B2
Application number	US-201816131199-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 14, 2018
Priority date	Dec 31, 2014
Publication date	Feb 9, 2021
Grant date	Feb 9, 2021

Abstract

Embodiments pertain to facilitation of live migration of a virtual machine in a network system. During live migration, a first appliance is cloned and state information directed to a first network flow is obtained. The state information is utilized by the cloned appliance to re-direct operations associated with the first network flow. At such time as the first network flow is terminated, the cloned is removed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a processor in communication with memory;
a module in communication with the processor, the module comprising:
a hardware management controller to manage live migration of a virtual machine including the management controller to:
perform a live migration of the virtual machine;
during the live migration, directly clone a first appliance local to a first host, to a resource pool, the cloned first appliance becoming a temporary appliance, the temporary appliance being independent;
obtain, without interruption, by the temporary appliance, a copy of state information about a first network flow, the state information including history and context information of a virtual machine having the first network flow;
utilize the state information to re-direct, by the temporary appliance, operations of the first network flow; and
remove the temporary appliance from the resource pool upon termination of the first network flow.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the state information about the first network flow is generated through the first appliance.

3. The system of claim 1 , further comprising the management controller to synchronize the state information between the first appliance and a second appliance.

4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising the temporary appliance to monitor the first network flow for a malicious attack against the migrated virtual machine.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the first and second appliances are virtual intrusion prevention systems for protecting the security of the migrated virtual machine.

6. A computer program product for migrating virtual machines, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage device having program code embodied therewith, the program code executable by a processing unit to:
perform a live migration of at least one virtual machine;
during the live migration, directly clone a first appliance to a resource pool, the cloned first appliance becoming a temporary appliance, the temporary appliance being independent;
obtain, without interruption, by the temporary appliance, a copy of state information about a first network flow, the state information including history and context information of a virtual machine having the first network flow;
utilize the state information to re-direct, by the temporary appliance, operations of the first network flow; and
remove the temporary appliance from the resource pool upon termination of the first network flow.

7. The computer program product of claim 6 , further comprising program code to generate the state information about the first network flow through the first appliance.

8. The computer program product of claim 6 , further comprising program code to synchronize the state information between the first appliance and a second appliance.

9. The computer program product of claim 6 , further comprising program code to monitor the first network flow for a malicious attack against the migrated virtual machine.

10. The computer program product of claim 8 , further comprising program code to operate the first and second appliances as virtual intrusion prevention systems for protecting the security of the migrated virtual machine.

11. A method applied to a processor in communication with memory, the method comprising:
performing a live migration of at least one virtual machine;
during the live migration, directly cloning a first appliance to a resource pool, the cloned first appliance becoming a temporary appliance, the temporary appliance being independent;
obtaining, without interruption, by the temporary appliance, a copy of state information about a first network flow, the state information including history and context information of a virtual machine having the first network flow;
utilizing the state information to re-direct, by the temporary appliance, operations of the first network flow; and
removing the temporary appliance from the resource pool upon termination of the first network flow.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising the first appliance generating the state information about the first network flow.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein directly cloning the first appliance comprises synchronizing the state information between the first appliance and a second appliance.

14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising monitoring the first network flow for a malicious attack against the migrated virtual machine.

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the first and second appliances are virtual intrusion prevention systems for protecting the security of the migrated virtual machine.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

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

Classifications

• G06F9/5088 Primary

  involving task migration · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

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

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title