Policy based provisioning of containers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016378518-A1
Application number	US-201514859378-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 21, 2015
Priority date	Jun 29, 2015
Publication date	Dec 29, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Techniques for placing containers in a cloud (e.g., into virtual machines (“VMs”)) based on container policies. The container policies may specify compute-related qualities, storage-related quality, and/or network-related qualities that are to be met by the underlying software and hardware that supports execution of the virtual machines. A cloud director or other entity receives requests to place containers in a particular virtual machine based on the container policies and directs placement of the virtual machine based on the policies. The cloud director may migrate and/or reconfigure VMs, virtual machine disk files, and/or virtual network interface controllers to satisfy the container placement policy. After placement, the cloud director may disable migration to maintain the VM in a desired state.

First claim

1 . A method, comprising:
provisioning a container in a virtual machine (VM) based on compute policies included in user-specified container placement policies; identifying a virtual machine disk file (VMDK) for the VM based on storage policies included in the container placement policies; and identifying a virtual network interface controller (vNIC) for the VM based on network policies included in the container placement policies.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the compute policies specify at least one of characteristics of a physical host computer on which the VM executes and configuration characteristics of the VM.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the storage policies specify at least one of characteristics of a storage device in which the VMDK is stored, characteristics of the VMDK, and characteristics of a data store in which the VMDK is stored.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the network policies specify at least one of characteristics of the vNIC and characteristics of a physical network device through which network traffic associated with the vNIC flows.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein provisioning the container in the virtual machine comprises:
determining whether a plurality of VMs executing within a data center includes a compliant VM that meets the compute policies, if the plurality of VMs includes the compliant VM, then selecting, as the VM into which the container is placed, the compliant VM, if the plurality of VMs does not include the compliant VM, then determining whether the plurality of VMs includes a semi-compliant VM that would be compliant if migrated between physical hosts, if the plurality of VMs includes the semi-compliant VM, then migrating the semi-compliant VM so that the semi-compliant VM becomes a now-compliant VM and selecting, as the VM into which the container is placed, the now-compliant VM, and if the plurality of VMs does not include the semi-compliant VM, then provisioning a new VM to meet the compute polices and selecting, as the VM into which the container is placed, the new VM.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein specifying the VMDK comprises:
determining whether a candidate VMDK associated with the VM meets the storage policies, if the candidate VMDK meets the storage policies, then selecting, as the VMDK, the candidate VMDK, if the VMDK does not meet the storage policies, then determining whether a semi-compliant VMDK exists that can be migrated to meet the storage policies, if a semi-compliant VMDK exists that can be migrated to meet the storage policies, then migrating the semi-compliant VM to form a now-compliant VMDK, and selecting the now-compliant VMDK as the VMDK, and if a semi-compliant VMDK does not exist, then provisioning a new VMDK that meets the storage policies and selecting the new VMDK as the VMDK.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein specifying the vNIC comprises:
determining whether a candidate vNIC associated with the VM exists that meets the network policies, if the candidate vNIC exists, then selecting the candidate vNIC as the vNIC, if the candidate vNIC does not exist, then determining whether a semi-compliant vNIC associated with the VM would meet the network policies if reconfigured, if the semi-compliant vNIC exists, then reconfiguring the semi-compliant vNIC to form a now-compliant vNIC and selecting, as the vNIC, the now-compliant vNIC, and if the semi-compliant vNIC does not exist, then provisioning a new vNIC to meet the network policies.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
disabling migration and reconfiguration of the VM and the VMDK; and disabling reconfiguration of the vNIC.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the compute policies include at least one of a selection between on-premise and off-premise hardware to execute the VM, a CPU family of a host that executes the VM, a non-volatile storage controller type for the host, a type of operating system executed by the VM, a hardware version of the VM, a number of virtual CPUs included within the VM, a selection of whether high availability is enabled for the VM, a selection of whether distributed resource scheduling is enabled for the VM, a selection of whether fault tolerance is enabled for the VM, and an amount of RAM allocated to the VM; the storage policies include at least one of a datastore identifier, a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) level of storage for the VM, a selection of whether storage deduplication is enabled for the VM, a selection of whether storage-array based snapshotting is enabled, a type for the VMDK, and a controller type for the VMDK; and the network policies include at least one of a selection of private network to which the vNIC is attached, a physical network speed for a physical network interface controller (NIC) that underlies the vNIC, whether physical NIC teaming is enabled for physical NICs associated with the VM, a type of the vNIC, a selection of whether the vNIC is connected to a distributed virtual switch or a non-distributed virtual switch, and settings for VM network input/output control.

10 . A system, comprising:
a cloud director; a plurality of hosts executing a plurality of virtual machines (VMs); a plurality of storage devices storing a plurality of virtual machine disk files (VDMKs) associated with the VMs; and a plurality of network devices supporting a plurality of virtual network interface controllers (vNICs), wherein the cloud director is configured to:
provision a container in a VM of the plurality of VMs based on compute policies included in user-specified container placement policies;
identify a VMDK of the plurality of VMDKs for the VM based on storage policies included in the container placement policies; and
identify a vNIC of the plurality of vNICs for the VM based on network policies included in the container placement policies.

11 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the compute policies specify at least one of characteristics of a physical host computer on which the VM executes and configuration characteristics of the VM.

12 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the storage policies specify at least one of characteristics of a storage device in which the VMDK is stored, characteristics of the VMDK, and characteristics of a data store in which the VMDK is stored.

13 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the network policies specify at least one of characteristics of the vNIC and characteristics of a physical network device through which network traffic associated with the vNIC flows.

14 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the cloud director is configured to provision the container in the virtual machine by:
determining whether a plurality of VMs executing within a data center includes a compliant VM that meets the compute policies, if the plurality of VMs includes the compliant VM, then selecting, as the VM into which the container is placed, the compliant VM, if the plurality of VMs does not include the compliant VM, then determining whether the plurality of VMs includes a semi-compliant VM that would be compliant if migrated between physical hosts, if the plurality of VMs includes the semi-compliant VM, then migrating the semi-compliant VM so that the semi-compliant VM becomes a now-compliant VM and selecting, as the VM into which the container is placed, the now-compliant VM, and if the plurality of VMs does not include the semi-compliant VM, then provisioning a new VM to meet the compute polices and selecting, as the VM into which the container is placed, the new VM.

15 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the cloud director is configured to spe

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Antony Jinto
• Ganesan Hariharan Jeyaraman
• Chengat Saju
• Gangadharan Madhusudhanan

Classifications

• G06F2009/45595

  Network integration; Enabling network access in 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

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · 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

• G06F9/45533 Primary

  Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors · CPC title