Application-assisted live migration

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12333321-B2
Application number	US-202217576824-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 14, 2022
Priority date	Jan 14, 2022
Publication date	Jun 17, 2025
Grant date	Jun 17, 2025

Abstract

Techniques for implementing application-assisted VM provisioning operations, and in particular application-assisted live migration, are provided. In one set of embodiments, a hypervisor of a source host system can notify a guest application that the VM within which the guest application runs will be imminently live migrated from the source host system to a destination host system, prior to actually carrying out the live migration. In response, the guest application can execute one or more remedial actions that mitigate or avoid issues which may arise with respect to its runtime operation when the VM is stunned and switched over to the destination host system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising
receiving, by a hypervisor of a first host system, a message for initiating live migration of a virtual machine (VM) from the first host system to a second host system;
generating, by the hypervisor, a migration start notification for a guest application running within the VM;
receiving, by the hypervisor, an acknowledgement from the guest application in response to the migration start notification;
upon receiving the acknowledgement, proceeding, by the hypervisor, with live migrating the VM;
generating, by a hypervisor of the second host system, a migration end notification for a migrated copy of the guest application running on the second host system; and
in response to receiving the migration end notification, the migrated copy of the guest application reverting one or more actions.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein in response to receiving the migration start notification, the guest application performs the one or more actions to prepare for the live migration of the VM.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the one or more actions include ensuring completion of an in-progress application task prior to returning the acknowledgement to the hypervisor, quiescing one or more functionalities of the guest application, or modifying fault tolerance behavior of the guest application.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising, upon failure of the live migration of the VM:
generating, by the hypervisor, a migration end notification for the guest application running on the first host system.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein if the hypervisor does not receive the acknowledgement from the guest application within a notification timeout period, the hypervisor proceeds with live migrating the VM without waiting further for the acknowledgement.

6. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon program code executable by a hypervisor of a first host system, the program code embodying a method comprising:
receiving a message for initiating live migration of a virtual machine (VM) from the first host system to a second host system;
generating a migration start notification for a guest application running within the VM;
receiving an acknowledgement from the guest application in response to the migration start notification;
upon receiving the acknowledgement, proceeding with live migrating the VM;
generating, by a hypervisor of the second host system, a migration end notification for a migrated copy of the guest application running on the second host system; and
in response to receiving the migration end notification, the migrated copy of the guest application reverting one or more actions.

7. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 6 wherein in response to receiving the migration start notification, the guest application performs one or more actions to prepare for the live migration of the VM.

8. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 7 wherein the one or more actions include ensuring completion of an in-progress application task prior to returning the acknowledgement to the hypervisor, quiescing one or more functionalities of the guest application, or modifying fault tolerance behavior of the guest application.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 7 wherein upon failure of the live migration of the VM, the hypervisor generates a migration end notification for the guest application running on the first host system.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 6 wherein if the hypervisor does not receive the acknowledgement from the guest application within a notification timeout period, the hypervisor proceeds with live migrating the VM without waiting further for the acknowledgement.

11. A host system comprising:
a hypervisor;
a volatile memory; and
a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon program code that causes the hypervisor to:
receive a message for initiating live migration of a virtual machine (VM) from the host system to another host system;
generate a migration start notification for a guest application running within the VM;
receive an acknowledgement from the guest application in response to the migration start notification; and

upon receiving the acknowledgement, proceed with live migrating the VM;
generating, by a hypervisor of a second host system, a migration end notification for a migrated copy of the guest application running on the second host system; and
in response to receiving the migration end notification, the migrated copy of the guest application reverting one or more actions.

12. The host system of claim 11 wherein in response to receiving the migration start notification, the guest application performs one or more actions to prepare for the live migration of the VM.

13. The host system of claim 12 wherein the one or more actions include ensuring completion of an in-progress application task prior to returning the acknowledgement to the hypervisor, quiescing one or more functionalities of the guest application, or modifying fault tolerance behavior of the guest application.

14. The host system of claim 12 wherein upon failure of the live migration of the VM, the hypervisor generates a migration end notification for the guest application running on the first host system.

15. The host system of claim 11 wherein if the hypervisor does not receive the acknowledgement from the guest application within a notification timeout period, the hypervisor proceeds with live migrating the VM without waiting further for the acknowledgement.

Assignees

• VMware LLC

Inventors

• Ramanathan Arunachalam
• Kanthur Murnad Bhavana Raj
• Sheldon Jeffrey W
• Narasimhaprasad Pavan
• Zheng Li
• Zaydman Oleg
• Chandwani Anupama
• Beard Derek William

Classifications

• G06F2009/4557

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

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title