Live migration of virtual machines using packet duplication

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9880870-B1
Application number	US-201514864682-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 24, 2015
Priority date	Sep 24, 2015
Publication date	Jan 30, 2018
Grant date	Jan 30, 2018

Abstract

A virtualization management component of a particular host at a virtualized computing determines that a packet duplication phase of a migration of a virtual machine from a source host to the particular host has begun. The virtualization management component detects that a migrated version of the virtual machine, instantiated at the particular virtualization host, has generated a baseline packet directed to a destination address. The virtualization management component sends a first encapsulation packet comprising the baseline packet to an encapsulation intermediary associated with the destination address. The virtualization management component sends a second encapsulation packet comprising the baseline packet to the source virtualization host, with a directive to forward the second encapsulation packet to the encapsulation intermediary.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
transmitting, by a first virtualization management component of a first virtualization host of a virtual computing service, an indication to a second virtualization management component of a second virtualization host that a packet duplication phase of a migration procedure for a particular guest virtual machine being migrated to the second virtualization host from the first virtualization host has begun, wherein the migration procedure does not include a reboot of the particular guest virtual machine;
in response to determining, by the second virtualization management component during the packet duplication phase, that a migrated version of the particular guest virtual machine instantiated at the second virtualization host has generated a first baseline packet directed to a different guest virtual machine instantiated at a third virtualization host, transmitting: (a) a first encapsulation packet comprising the first baseline packet from the second virtualization host to the third virtualization host and (b) a second encapsulation packet comprising the first baseline packet from the second virtualization host to the first virtualization host;
in response to receiving, at the first virtualization management component, the second encapsulation packet, forwarding a transformed version of the second encapsulation packet to a third virtualization management component of the third virtualization host;
in response to (a) receiving, at the third virtualization management component, the first encapsulation packet and (b) determining, at the third virtualization management component, that a network mapping database of the third virtualization host does not include a mapping indicating that the particular guest virtual machine is instantiated at the second virtualization host, discarding the first encapsulation packet by the third virtualization management component; and
in response to (a) receiving, at the third virtualization management component, the transformed version of the second encapsulation packet and (b) determining, at the third virtualization management component, that the network mapping database includes a mapping indicating that the particular guest virtual machine is instantiated at the first virtualization host,
extracting the first baseline packet from the transformed version; and
providing the first baseline packet to the different guest virtual machine.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, at the third virtualization management component after said providing, a new mapping indicating that the particular guest machine is instantiated at the second virtualization host;
replacing, with the new mapping, at the third virtualization management component, the mapping indicating that the particular guest virtual mapping is instantiated at the first virtualization host; and
determining, at the third virtualization management component, based at least in part on the new mapping, that a second baseline packet is to be extracted from a third encapsulation packet received at the third virtualization management component from the second virtualization host.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the transformed version of the second encapsulation packet indicates that the first baseline packet was generated at the first virtualization host.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to determining, by the second virtualization management component during the packet duplication phase, that a migrated version of the particular guest virtual machine instantiated at the second virtualization host has generated a second baseline packet directed to a particular destination external to the virtual computing service, transmitting: (a) a third encapsulation packet comprising the second baseline packet from the second virtualization host to an edge router of the virtual computing service and (b) a fourth encapsulation packet comprising the second baseline packet from the second virtualization host to the first virtualization host;
in response to receiving, at the second virtualization management component, the fourth encapsulation packet, forwarding a transformed version of the fourth encapsulation packet to the edge router of the third virtualization host;
in response to (a) receiving, at an encapsulation intermediary component of the edge router, the third encapsulation packet and (b) determining, at the encapsulation intermediary component, that a network mapping database of the edge router does not include a mapping indicating that the particular guest virtual machine is instantiated at the second virtualization host, discarding the third encapsulation packet by the encapsulation intermediary component; and
in response to (a) receiving, at the encapsulation intermediary component, the transformed version of the fourth encapsulation packet and (b) determining, at the encapsulation intermediary component, that the network mapping database of the edge router includes a mapping indicating that the particular guest virtual machine is instantiated at the first virtualization host, transmitting at least a portion of the second baseline packet to the particular destination.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
assigning, by one or more components of the virtual computing service, to the particular guest virtual machine prior to migration of the particular guest virtual machine, a particular network address selected from a range of network addresses of an isolated virtual network of the virtual computing service, wherein the particular network address is not advertised outside the isolated virtual network, and wherein the particular guest virtual machine retains the particular network address after migration to the second virtualization host.

6. A system, comprising:
a plurality of virtualization hosts of a virtual computing service, including a first virtualization host comprising a first virtualization management component, a second virtualization host comprising a second virtualization management component, and a third virtualization host comprising a third virtualization management component;
wherein the second virtualization management component is configured to:
transmit, during a packet duplication phase of a migration of a particular guest virtual machine from the first virtualization host to the second virtualization host: (a) a first encapsulation packet to the third virtualization host, wherein the first encapsulation packet comprises a first baseline packet generated by a migrated version of the particular guest virtual machine, and wherein the first baseline packet is directed to a different guest virtual machine instantiated at the third virtualization host and (b) a second encapsulation packet to the first virtualization host, wherein the second encapsulation packet comprises the first baseline packet; and

wherein the third virtualization management component is configured to:
based at least in part on an examination of a particular mapping database comprising one or more virtual-machine-to-host mappings, designate, as a valid encapsulation packet, one of: (a) the first encapsulation packet, or (b) a forwarded version of the second encapsulation packet transmitted by the first virtualization management component to the third virtualization host; and
provide, to the different guest virtual machine, the first baseline packet after extracting the first baseline packet from the valid encapsulation packet.

7. The system as recited in claim 6 , further comprising a control plane component implemented at one or more computing devices of the virtual computing service, wherein the control plane component is configured to:
prior to initiation of

Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Danilov Mikhail
• Kowalski Marcin Piotr

Classifications

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

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

• G06F2009/45595

  Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances · CPC title