Techniques for streaming virtual machines from a server to a host

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9928091-B2
Application number	US-89568510-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2010
Priority date	Sep 30, 2010
Publication date	Mar 27, 2018
Grant date	Mar 27, 2018

Abstract

Techniques for configuring a commodity server to host virtual hard disks are disclosed herein. In an exemplary embodiment, a virtual hard disk file can be split into a plurality of differencing VHD files and one or more of the files can be downloaded to a virtualization host as it runs off the VHD files stored on the server. After the one or more VHD files are downloaded, the virtualization host can be configured to use the local copy instead of the copy on the commodity server. In addition to the foregoing, other techniques are described in the claims, the detailed description, and the figures.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for deploying virtual hard drives to virtual machine hosts, comprising:
a first server, comprising:
a first processor; and
a first memory coupled to the first processor, the first memory including instructions that upon execution cause the first server to:
execute a guest operating system off of a collection of remote virtual hard disk files stored on a second server, wherein the collection of remote virtual hard disk files comprise a single virtual hard disk for the guest operating system, and wherein the collection of remote virtual hard disk files comprises a machine differencing hard disk file, wherein the machine differencing hard disk file provisions a master virtual hard disk for a user;
store, while simultaneously executing the guest operating system off the collection of remote virtual hard disk files, a copy of the collection of remote virtual hard disk files received from at least the second server in a storage device attached to the first server; and
execute the guest operating system off the stored copy of the collection of the remote virtual hard disk files in response to determining that the copy of the collection of the remote virtual hard disk files was stored in the storage device attached to the first server.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first memory further comprises instructions that upon execution cause the first server to:
boot the guest operating system from the collection of remote virtual hard disk files, wherein the collection of remote virtual hard disk files includes the master virtual hard disk file, the machine differencing virtual hard disk file, and a user differencing virtual hard disk file.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first memory further comprises instructions that upon execution cause the first server to:
boot the guest operating system from the collection of remote virtual hard disk files and a pre-cached copy of the master virtual hard disk file stored in the storage device attached to the first server.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first memory further comprises instructions that upon execution cause the first server to:
boot the guest operating system from the collection of remote virtual hard disk files and a user differencing virtual hard disk file stored in the storage device attached to the first server.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first memory further comprises instructions that upon execution cause the first server to:
merge a user differencing virtual hard disk file into a machine differencing virtual hard disk file and send the machine differencing virtual hard disk file to the second server.

6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
the second server, comprising:
a second processor; and
a second memory coupled to the second processor, the second memory including instructions that upon execution cause the second server to:
merge a user differencing virtual hard disk file received from the first server into a machine differencing virtual hard disk file stored on the second server.

7. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
the second server, comprising:
a second processor; and
a second memory coupled to the second processor, the second memory including instructions that upon execution cause the second server to:
receive at least a user differencing virtual hard disk file from the first server; and
send at least the user differencing virtual hard disk file to a third server.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
the second server, comprising:
a second processor; and
a second memory coupled to the second processor, the second memory including instructions that upon execution cause the second server to:
pre-cache at least a portion of the collection of the remote virtual hard disk files in random access memory of the second server.

9. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a fourth server, comprising:
a fourth processor; and
a fourth memory coupled to the fourth server, the fourth memory including instructions that upon execution cause the fourth server to:
direct a client computer system to connect to the first server in response to determining that the first server includes a current copy of the machine differencing virtual hard disk file.

10. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a fourth server, comprising:
a fourth processor; and
a fourth memory coupled to the fourth server, the fourth memory including instructions that upon execution cause the fourth server to:
direct a client computer system to connect to the first server in response to determining that a load on the first server is low.

11. A method for streaming a virtual hard disk carried out on at least a first server, the method comprising:
booting a guest operating system from a machine differencing virtual hard disk file stored in a second server and a master virtual hard disk file stored in a storage device attached to the first server, wherein the master virtual hard disk file includes a copy of an operating system and the machine differencing virtual hard disk file provisions the master virtual hard disk for a user and includes machine identification information for customizing the copy of the operating system for a user;
downloading, while simultaneously booting the guest operating system, a copy of the machine differencing virtual hard disk file from the second server; and
executing the guest operating system from the copy of the machine differencing virtual hard disk and the master virtual hard disk file in response to determining that the copy of the machine differencing virtual hard disk file was downloaded.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
downloading a user differencing virtual hard disk file from the second server, the user differencing virtual hard disk file storing blocks of data written to the virtual hard disk during a session.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
writing blocks of data to a user differencing virtual hard disk file that is pre-cached in the storage device attached to the first server.

14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
merging a user differencing virtual hard disk file with the copy of the machine differencing virtual hard disk file and sending the copy of the machine differencing virtual hard disk file to the second server.

15. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
sending a user differencing virtual hard disk file to the second server.

16. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
writing data stored in a user differencing virtual hard disk file into the machine differencing virtual hard disk file stored in a second server.

17. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
sending a user differencing virtual hard disk file to the second server during a migration operation.

18. The method of claim 11 , wherein downloading the copy of the machine differencing virtual hard disk file from the storage server further comprises:
downloading, using idle bandwidth, the copy of the machine differencing virtual hard disk file from the second server.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage device including executable instructions for streaming a virtual machine to a first server, comprising instructions that upon execution cause the first server to:
boot a guest operating system from a collection of remote virtual hard disk files into a virtual machine, wherein a first portion of the collection is stored on a storage device attached to the first server and a second portion is stor

Assignees

• Lotlikar Mahesh
• Sampath Sriram
• Palekar Ashwin
• Ivanova Olga B
• Green Dustin L
• Ben Shachar Ido
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Lotlikar Mahesh
• Sampath Sriram
• Palekar Ashwin
• Ivanova Olga B
• Green Dustin L
• Ben-Shachar Ido

Classifications

• H04L67/1097

  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

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

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