Mechanism for performing rolling updates with data unavailability check in a networked virtualization environment for storage management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9733958-B2
Application number	US-201414278363-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 15, 2014
Priority date	May 15, 2014
Publication date	Aug 15, 2017
Grant date	Aug 15, 2017

Abstract

A method for performing rolling updates with data unavailability checks in a networked virtualization environment for storage management.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for performing rolling updates with data unavailability checks in a networked virtualization environment for storage management, comprising:
performing a leadership election amongst controller virtual machines distributed across a cluster of nodes in the networked virtualization environment to elect a controller virtual machine from amongst the controller virtual machines as a master controller virtual machine, the cluster of nodes being implemented as a networked virtualization environment, wherein controller virtual machines not elected are slave controller virtual machines, the controller virtual machines managing access by the cluster of nodes to a global storage pool comprising a plurality of storage devices distributed across the cluster of nodes, wherein any node distributed across the cluster of nodes that has a controller virtual machine utilizes its respective controller virtual machine to read and write to the plurality of storage devices in the global storage pool;
acquiring update data by a node from among the cluster of nodes, wherein any node in the cluster of nodes having a controller virtual machine is capable of initially acquiring the update data on behalf of the cluster of nodes for distribution to the cluster of nodes in the networked virtualization environment, wherein update data information to identify an existence of update data to all nodes is stored in a global storage pool accessible by any node distributed across the cluster of nodes that has a controller virtual machine, including a node having the master controller virtual machine;
determining whether a replication status at the node in the networked virtualization environment is acceptable by the master controller virtual machine or a corresponding slave controller virtual machine; and
granting approval to complete installation of the update data at the node in the networked virtualization environment by the master controller virtual machine when the replication status at the node is acceptable.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein acquiring update data comprises:
receiving the update data at a first node;
updating configuration data for the networked virtualization environment by the first node to indicate existence of the update data;
recognizing the existence of the update data by one or more other nodes in the networked virtualization environment; and
acquiring the update data by the one or more other nodes.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein acquiring the update data by the one or more other nodes comprises identifying a location of the update data by consulting the configuration data.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein acquiring the update data by the one or more other nodes comprises iterating through the nodes in the networked virtualization environment until the update data is located.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining whether the replication status at the node in the networked virtualization environment is acceptable is performed by the master controller virtual machine.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the master controller virtual machine determines whether the replication status of the node in the networked virtualization environment is acceptable by checking metadata.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the replication status of the node is acceptable when a current replication factor for data at the node meets a desired replication factor.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the replication status of the node is acceptable when failure of the node is supportable.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining whether the replication status at the node in the networked virtualization environment is acceptable is performed by the corresponding slave controller virtual machines.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the corresponding slave controller virtual machine determines whether a replication status of its corresponding node is acceptable by checking metadata.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the replication status of the node is acceptable when a current replication factor for data at the node meets a desired replication factor.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein granting approval to complete installation of the update data at the node in the networked virtualization environment by the master controller virtual machine comprises providing a token to the node for completing installation.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein completing installation of the update data at a node at which the master controller virtual machine resides causes another leadership election process to be performed.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein completing installation of the update data at the node in the networked virtualization environment requires data residing at the node to be unavailable for a period of time.

15. A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, the non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a processor causes the processor to execute a method for performing rolling updates with data unavailability checks in a networked virtualization environment for storage management, comprising:
performing a leadership election amongst controller virtual machines distributed across a cluster of nodes in the networked virtualization environment to elect a controller virtual machine from amongst the controller virtual machines as a master controller virtual machine, the cluster of nodes being implemented as a networked virtualization environment, wherein controller virtual machines not elected are slave controller virtual machines, the controller virtual machines managing access by the cluster of nodes to a global storage pool comprising a plurality of storage devices distributed across the cluster of nodes, wherein any node distributed across the cluster of nodes that has a controller virtual machine utilizes its respective controller virtual machines to read and write to the plurality of storage devices in the global storage pool;
acquiring update data by a node from among the cluster of nodes, wherein any node in the cluster of nodes having a controller virtual machine is capable of initially acquiring the update data on behalf of the cluster of nodes for distribution to the cluster of nodes in the networked virtualization environment, wherein update data information to identify an existence of update data to all nodes is stored in a global storage pool accessible by any node distributed across the cluster of nodes that has a controller virtual machine, including a node having the master controller virtual machine;
determining whether a replication status at a node in the networked virtualization environment is acceptable by the master controller virtual machine or a corresponding slave controller virtual machine; and
granting approval to complete installation of the update data at the node in the networked virtualization environment by the master controller virtual machine when the replication status at the node is acceptable.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein acquiring the update data comprises:
receiving the update data at a first node;
updating configuration data for the networked virtualization environment by the first node to indicate existence of the update data;
recognizing the existence of the update data by one or more other nodes in the networked virtualization environment; and
acquiring the update data by the one or more other nodes.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 , wherein acquiring the upda

Assignees

• Nutanix Inc

Inventors

• Cui Miao
• Schwenz Robert William

Classifications

• H04L67/1097 Primary

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title

• G06F9/455 Primary

  Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines · CPC title

• G06F9/50

  Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU] · CPC title

• G06F15/173

  using an interconnection network, e.g. matrix, shuffle, pyramid, star, snowflake · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

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