Hypervisor Exchange With Virtual-Machine Consolidation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016306648-A1
Application number	US-201615189108-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 22, 2016
Priority date	Jan 19, 2015
Publication date	Oct 20, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A hypervisor exchange, e.g., an upgrade, can include consolidating resident virtual machines into a single host virtual machine, exchanging an old hypervisor with a new (upgraded) hypervisor, and disassociating the virtual resident virtual machines by migrating them to the new hypervisor. The consolidating can involve migrating the resident virtual machines from the old hypervisor to a guest hypervisor on the host virtual machine. The exchange can involve: 1) suspending the host virtual machine before the exchange; and 2) resuming the host virtual machine after the exchange; or migrating the host virtual machine from a partition including the old hypervisor to a partition hosting the new hypervisor. Either way, an exchange (upgrade) is achieve without requiring a bandwidth consuming migration over a network to a standby machine.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A hypervisor-exchange process comprising:
executing plural virtual machines on an old hypervisor that executes on a machine; consolidating the plural virtual machines by migrating them from the old hypervisor to a guest hypervisor running in a host virtual machine executing on the old hypervisor; exchanging the old hypervisor for a new hypervisor; and disassociating the plural virtual machines by migrating them from the guest hypervisor to the new hypervisor.

2 . The hypervisor-exchange process of claim 1 wherein the new hypervisor is an upgrade of the old hypervisor.

3 . The hypervisor-exchange process of claim 1 further comprising;
suspending, before the exchanging and by the old hypervisor, the host virtual machine; and
resuming, after the exchanging and by he new hypervisor, the host virtual machine.

4 . The hypervisor-exchange process of claim 1 further comprising:
partitioning the machine to form source and target partitions, with the plural virtual machines executing on the source partition;
installing the new hypervisor on the target partition; and
migrating the host virtual machine from the source partition to the target partition.

5 . The hypervisor-exchange process of claim 4 wherein the consolidating occurs before the partitioning.

6 . The hypervisor-exchange process of claim 4 wherein the consolidating occurs after the partitioning.

7 . The hypervisor-exchange process of claim 1 wherein:
the executing includes executing additional virtual machines on the old hypervisor;
the consolidating includes migrating the additional virtual machines to additional guest hypervisors running on additional host virtual machines running on the old hypervisor; and
the disassociating includes migrating the additional virtual machines from the additional guest hypervisors to the new hypervisor.

8 . A hypervisor-exchange system comprising media encoded with code that, when executed by a processor, implements a process including;
executing plural virtual machines on an old hypervisor that executes on a machine; consolidating the plural virtual machines by migrating them from the old hypervisor to a guest hypervisor running in a host virtual machine executing on the old hypervisor; exchanging the old hypervisor for a new hypervisor; and disassociating the plural virtual machines by migrating them from the guest hypervisor to the new hypervisor.

9 . The hypervisor-exchange system of claim 8 wherein the new hypervisor is an upgrade of the old hypervisor.

10 . The hypervisor-exchange system of claim 8 wherein the process further includes:
suspending, before the exchanging and by the old hypervisor, the host virtual machine; and
resuming, after the exchanging and by the new hypervisor, the host virtual machine.

11 . The hypervisor-exchange system of claim 8 wherein the process further includes:
partitioning the machine to form source and target partitions, with the plural virtual machines executing on the source partition;
installing the new hypervisor on the target partition; and
migrating the host virtual machine from the source partition to the target partition.

12 . The hypervisor-exchange system of claim 11 wherein the consolidating occurs before the partitioning.

13 . The hypervisor-exchange system of claim 11 wherein the consolidating occurs after the partitioning.

14 . The hypervisor-exchange system of claim 8 wherein:
the executing includes executing additional virtual machines on the old hypervisor;
the consolidating includes migrating the additional virtual machines to additional guest hypervisors running on additional host virtual machines; and
the disassociating includes migrating the additional virtual machines from the additional guest hypervisors to the new hypervisor.

15 . The hypervisor-exchange system of claim 8 further comprising the processor.

Assignees

• Deguillard Xavier
• Gunti Mukund
• Drzewiecki Adrian
• Venkatasubramanian Rajesh
• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Deguillard Xavier
• Gunti Mukund
• Drzewiecki Adrian
• Venkatasubramanian Rajesh

Classifications

• G06F9/4406

  Loading of operating system · CPC title

• G06F8/656

  while running · CPC title

• G06F3/0673

  Single storage device · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

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

• G06F3/061

  Improving I/O performance · CPC title