Secure virtual machine memory allocation management via dedicated memory pools

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9323552-B1
Application number	US-201313830117-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Mar 14, 2013
Priority date	Mar 14, 2013
Publication date	Apr 26, 2016
Grant date	Apr 26, 2016

Abstract

Embodiments are disclosed for recycling memory from a memory pool dedicated to a virtual machine instance. For example, memory sub-pools can be pre-allocated to respective virtual machine instances. Memory scrubbing can be ordinarily performed to avoid data leakage between different customers. However, scrubbing can be inhibited when a given virtual machine reclaims memory previously released to the dedicated pool because the memory remains dedicated to the instance. Further features, such as partition and merge of sub-pools can be supported. Control of the features can be accomplished via API calls as part of a web service.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executable instructions causing a computing system to perform a method comprising:
managing a memory pool for allocation to virtual machine instances executing in a multi-customer hosting environment;
assigning dedicated memory pools out of the memory pool for respective virtual machine instances executing in a multi-customer hosting environment;
storing associations between the dedicated memory pools and respective of the virtual machine instances;
within the memory pool, maintaining a memory pool for cross-virtual-machine-instance use;
during deallocation of memory for a virtual machine instance, reclaiming the memory to the dedicated memory pool for the virtual machine instance;
responsive to a ballooning memory allocation request from the virtual machine instance after the virtual machine instance is created, reallocating the memory that was deallocated and reclaimed to the dedicated memory pool to the virtual machine instance without scrubbing, wherein the memory that was deallocated is recycled within the dedicated memory pool and provided back to the virtual machine instance without scrubbing ordinarily performed before memory allocation; and
before allocating memory reclaimed to the memory pool for cross-virtual-machine-instance use, scrubbing the memory reclaimed to the memory pool for cross-virtual-machine-instance use.

2. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
scrubbing a given dedicated memory pool after termination of a respective virtual machine instance associated with the given dedicated memory pool.

3. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
after reboot of the virtual machine instance, increasing a size of the dedicated memory pool for the virtual machine instance to a size of the virtual machine instance immediately before reboot.

4. A method comprising:
managing a memory pool for allocation to virtual machine instances;
assigning dedicated memory pools for respective of the virtual machine instances, wherein the assigning comprises assigning sub-pools within the memory pool to the respective virtual machine instances;
storing associations between the dedicated memory pools and respective of the virtual machine instances;
maintaining a memory pool for cross-virtual-machine-instance use;
reallocating memory to a given virtual machine instance after reclamation to a dedicated memory pool for the given virtual machine instance without scrubbing, wherein the reallocating recycles memory within the dedicated memory pool and inhibits scrubbing ordinarily performed before allocating memory; and
before reallocating memory reclaimed to the memory pool for cross-virtual-machine-instance use, scrubbing the memory reclaimed to the memory pool for cross-virtual-machine-instance use.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:
for a virtual machine instance having a dedicated memory pool, upon termination of a virtual machine instance, scrubbing the dedicated memory pool.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein:
the dedicated memory pools are isolated from each other.

7. The method of claim 4 further comprising:
after reboot of the given virtual machine instance, increasing a size of the dedicated memory pool for the given virtual machine instance to size of the given virtual machine instance immediately before reboot.

8. The method of claim 4 further comprising:
for a virtual machine instance having a dedicated memory pool, receiving a request to partition the dedicated memory pool; and
responsive to the request, partitioning the dedicated memory pool into at least two partitions, wherein one of the partitions remains dedicated to the virtual machine instance.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising:
receiving an API call indicating that a dedicated memory pool is to be partitioned; and
responsive to receiving the API call, performing the partitioning.

10. The method of claim 4 further comprising:
for a virtual machine instance having a dedicated memory pool, receiving a request to merge the dedicated memory pool with another dedicated memory pool; and
responsive to the request, merging the dedicated memory pool and the other dedicated memory pool.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:
receiving an API call indicating that dedicated memory pools are to be merged; and
responsive to receiving the API call, performing the merging.

12. A system comprising:
a memory pool;
a plurality of virtual machine instances; and
a memory manager configured to allocate a plurality of memory sub-pools within the memory pool for respective of the virtual machine instances and track associations between the virtual machine instances and respective of the memory sub-pools;
wherein the memory manager is further configured to scrub memory before allocating it to the virtual machine instances;
wherein the memory manager is further configured to inhibit memory scrubbing when allocating memory from a memory sub-pool associated with a given virtual machine instance to the given virtual machine instance, thereby recycling memory within the memory sub-pool for the given virtual machine instance; and
wherein the memory manager is further configured to maintain a memory cross pool allocable to any of the virtual machine instances; and
the memory manager is further configured to scrub memory returned to the memory cross pool.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein:
the memory manager is further configured to scrub a given memory sub-pool after termination of a respective virtual machine instance associated with the given memory sub-pool.

14. The system of claim 12 further comprising:
a hypervisor managing the virtual machine instances;
wherein the hypervisor comprises the memory manager.

15. The system of claim 12 further comprising:
a plurality of stored relationships between the virtual machine instances and respective of the memory sub-pools.

16. The system of claim 12 further comprising:
a control plane management interface configured to accept an API call that enables sub-pool creation for a virtual machine instance.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein:
the API call comprises a parameter for specifying the virtual machine instance.

18. The system of claim 12 further comprising:
a control plane management interface configured to accept an API call that indicates that at least two memory sub-pools are to be merged.

19. The system of claim 12 further comprising:
a control plane management interface configured to accept an API call that indicates that a memory sub-pool is to be partitioned.

20. The system of claim 12 wherein:
the memory pool is shared among virtual machine instances executing for different customers.

Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Adogla Eden Grail
• Nesser Ii Philip John
• Noonan Steven Michael

Classifications

• G06F2009/45587

  Isolation or security of virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F21/00

  Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity · CPC title

• G06F2009/45583

  Memory management, e.g. access or allocation · CPC title

• G06F9/5016

  the resource being the memory · CPC title

• G06F9/45533 Primary

  Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors · CPC title