Multi-component consent-based virtual machine migration

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9558026-B2
Application number	US-201313780966-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2013
Priority date	Jan 10, 2011
Publication date	Jan 31, 2017
Grant date	Jan 31, 2017

Abstract

A system, method, and computer program product for controlling migration of a VM operable on a first site and a second site. The system includes an identify component for identifying the second site; a request component for sending a consent request message to a software component, wherein the consent request message comprises at least one of an identifier of the VM and an identifier of the second site; a calculate component, operable on the software component and responsive to receiving the consent request message, for determining consent for the second site; a send component, responsive to a positive determination, for sending a consent message; and a migrate component, responsive to receiving the consent message, for migrating the VM from the first site to the second site.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for controlling migration of a first virtual machine (VM) from a first site to a second site, the method comprising:
a data processing system identifying the second site as a target site to which the first VM can be migrated;
in response to identifying the second site as a target site, the data processing system sending a consent request message to a plurality of software components including multiple VMs running on the second site, wherein the multiple VMs running on the second site include a second VM on which a user application executes with which a client program running on a remote workstation interacts, wherein the consent request message includes at least one of a set including an identifier of the first VM and an identifier of the second site;
the data processing system receiving a migration requirement imposed by one of the plurality of software components on migration of the first VM; and
in response to receiving consent messages indicating consent of the plurality of software components including all of the multiple VMs to the migration, the data processing system initiating migration of the first VM from the first site to the second site; wherein the data processing system migrates the first VM from the first site to the second site in response to satisfying the migration requirement.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein sending the consent request message to the plurality of software components comprises sending the consent request message to the first VM.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein:
the first site comprises a first server and the second site comprises a second server;
the method further comprises sending a consent request message to the second server to request consent of the second server to migration of the first VM from the first site to the second site.

4. The method of claim 3 , and further comprising:
the second server maintaining a rule data structure including an entry associated with the first VM;
the second server determining whether to consent to migration of the first VM from the first server to the second server based on a rule specified in the entry of the rule data structure that is associated with the first VM.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
sending the consent request message to the plurality of software components comprises sending the consent request message to a hypervisor; and
the method further includes receiving a consent message from the hypervisor.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first site comprises a first server and the second site comprises a second server.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying comprises applying a plurality of rules for identifying the second site among multiple candidate sites.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein sending the consent request message comprises sending the consent request message to at least one of the plurality of software components directly via a network interface.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the plurality of software components includes the first VM and a hypervisor; and
receiving the consent messages includes receiving at least one consent message from the hypervisor via one of the first and second VMs.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first site and second site are two partitions of a same physical platform.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the identifying includes identifying the second site by reference to site-specific entries in a markup language data structure.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the identifying includes selecting the second site utilizing one or more rules specifying one or more criteria from a set including: a number of central processing units (CPUs), site temperature, site physical location, and a number of virtual machines.

13. The method of claim 1 , and further comprising at least one of the plurality of software components determining consent to the migration utilizing one or more rules specifying one or more criteria from a set including: a number of virtual machines at the second site, a number of central processing units (CPUs) at the second site, and an owner of at least one virtual machine at the second site.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the data processing system initiating migration of the first VM from the first site to the second site includes the data processing system instructing a hypervisor executing at the first site and a hypervisor executing at the second site to coordinate effecting migration of the first VM from the first site to the second site.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
identifying the second site as a target site to which the first VM can be migrated includes determining whether the second site is a suitable target site to which the first VM can be migrated;
the method further comprises:
in response to receiving said consent messages indicating consent of the plurality of software components including the second VM to the migration, the data processing system again performing the determining; and

the data processing system initiating migration of the first VM from the first site to the second site includes initiating the migration only in response to again determining that the second site is the suitable target site to which the first VM can be migrated.

16. A method for controlling migration of a first virtual machine (VM) from a first site to a second site, the method comprising:
a data processing system identifying the second site as a target site to which the first VM can be migrated;
in response to identifying the second site as a target site, the data processing system sending a consent request message to a plurality of software components including multiple VMs running on the second site, wherein the multiple VMs running on the second site include a second VM on which a user application executes with which a client program running on a remote workstation interacts, wherein the consent request message includes at least one of a set including an identifier of the first VM and an identifier of the second site;
pre-registering consent of at least one of the plurality of software components to the migration prior to the sending of the consent request message to the plurality of software components; and
in response to receiving consent messages indicating consent of the plurality of software components including all of the multiple VMs to the migration, the data processing system initiating migration of the first VM from the first site to the second site.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Gilbert David A
• Haikney David
• Mackintosh David N

Classifications

• G06F2009/4557

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

• G06F9/5088

  involving task migration · CPC title

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F9/4856

  resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration (G06F9/5088 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06F9/45533

  Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors · CPC title