Cluster-based network file server

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016127307-A1
Application number	US-201514628028-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 20, 2015
Priority date	Nov 4, 2014
Publication date	May 5, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Methods and systems for managing, storing, and serving data within a virtualized environment are described. In some embodiments, a data management system may manage the extraction and storage of virtual machine snapshots, provide near instantaneous restoration of a virtual machine or one or more files located on the virtual machine, and enable secondary workloads to directly use the data management system as a primary storage target to read or modify past versions of data. The data management system may allow a virtual machine snapshot of a virtual machine stored within the system to be directly mounted to enable substantially instantaneous virtual machine recovery of the virtual machine.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for operating a cluster-based network file server, comprising:
assigning a first floating IP address to a first node in a cluster; detecting that the first node has failed; determining a set of nodes within the cluster that are responsive in response to detecting that the first node has failed, the set of nodes includes a second node in the cluster; generating a set of priority values corresponding with the set of nodes, the generating a set of priority values includes assigning a set of identification numbers to the set of nodes, each node of the set of nodes is assigned a different identification number of the set of identification numbers, the generating a set of priority values includes assigning an identification number of the set of identification numbers to the second node and determining a difference between the identification number and the first floating IP address; determining that the second node should be assigned the first floating IP address based on the set of priority values; and assigning the first floating IP address to the second node in response to determining that the second node should be assigned the first floating IP address.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the determining that the second node should be assigned the first floating IP address includes determining that the second node is associated with a highest priority value of the set of priority values; and the assigning the first floating IP address includes assigning the first floating IP address to the second node in response to determining that the second node is associated with the highest priority value of the set of priority values.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the determining that the second node should be assigned the first floating IP address includes identifying a set of virtual machines that were running on the first node when the first node failed, identifying a subset of the set of nodes within the cluster that are running the set of virtual machines, determining a subset of the set of priority values corresponding with the subset of the set of nodes, and determining that the second node is associated with a highest priority value of the subset of the set of priority values; and the assigning the first floating IP address includes assigning the first floating IP address to the second node in response to determining that the second node is associated with the highest priority value of the subset of the set of priority values.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the generating a set of priority values includes determining a number of nodes within the cluster and generating a priority value for the second node equal to the difference between the identification number and the first floating IP address modulo the number of nodes within the cluster.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the generating a set of priority values includes determining a maximum number of nodes for the cluster and generating a priority value for the second node equal to the identification number minus the first floating IP address modulo the maximum number of nodes for the cluster.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the set of priority values comprises an ordered list of priority values, each priority value of the set of priority values is different from any of the other priority values of the set of priority values.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
detecting that the first node is back up and causing the second node to release the first floating IP address in response to detecting that the first node is back up.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the detecting that the first node has failed includes determining that the first node has failed to communicate within a threshold period of time.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the detecting that the first node has failed includes detecting that the first node has experienced a hardware failure.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the cluster-based network file server does not include a front-end load balancer; each node in the cluster is stateless, the cluster comprises a plurality of physical machines in communication with each other via a network, the first node is associated with a first physical machine of the plurality of physical machines, the second node is associated with a second physical machine of the plurality of physical machines; and the cluster is backed by a distributed file system.

11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
each node in the cluster runs a Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol daemon.

12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the second node runs a Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol daemon, the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol daemon determines a priority value of the set of priority values for the second node and determines that the second node should be assigned the first floating IP address based on the priority value.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the second node runs a Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol daemon, the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol daemon detects that the first node has failed, determines that the second node should be assigned the first floating IP address in response to detecting that the first node has failed, and assigns the first floating IP address to the second node.

14 . A cluster-based network file server, comprising:
a first node of a cluster, the first node is assigned a first floating IP address; and a second node of the cluster in communication with the first node, the second node runs a daemon, the daemon detects that the first node has failed and determines a set of nodes within the cluster that are responsive in response to detecting that the first node has failed, the set of nodes includes the second node, the daemon assigns a set of identification numbers to the set of nodes, each node of the set of nodes is assigned a different identification number of the set of identification numbers, the daemon assigns an identification number of the set of identification numbers to the second node and determines a difference between the identification number and the first floating IP address, the daemon generates a set of priority values corresponding with the set of nodes, the daemon generates a priority value of the set of priority values for the second node based on the difference between the identification number and the first floating IP address, the daemon determines that the second node should be assigned the first floating IP address based on the set of priority values, the daemon assigns the first floating IP address to the second node in response to determining that the second node should be assigned the first floating IP address.

15 . The cluster-based network file server of claim 14 , wherein:
the daemon determines that the second node is associated with a highest priority value of the set of priority values and assigns the first floating IP address to the second node in response to determining that the second node is associated with the highest priority value of the set of priority values.

16 . The cluster-based network file server of claim 14 , wherein:
the daemon determines a number of nodes within the cluster and generates the priority value for the second node based on the difference between the identification number and the first floating IP address modulo the number of nodes within the cluster.

17 . The cluster-based network file server of claim 14 , wherein:
the cluster comprises a plurality of physical machines in communication with each other vi

Assignees

• Rubrik Inc

Inventors

• Jain Arvind
• Jain Gaurav
• Gee Adam

Classifications

• G06F11/1446

  Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data · CPC title

• G06F16/113

  Details of archiving (lifecycle management in storage systems G06F3/0649; point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data G06F11/1446) · CPC title

• G06F9/5077

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

• G06F2009/4557

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

• G06F16/128

  Details of file system snapshots on the file-level, e.g. snapshot creation, administration, deletion (error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operations or in hardware G06F11/14, G06F11/16) · CPC title