Diagnosing causes of performance issues of virtual machines

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9990265-B2
Application number	US-201514688040-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 16, 2015
Priority date	Apr 15, 2014
Publication date	Jun 5, 2018
Grant date	Jun 5, 2018

Abstract

Virtual machine data records are obtained from a virtual system manager that manages one or more virtual machines. Storage data records are obtained from a storage controller. The virtual machine data records include one or more particular virtual machine data records relating to a particular virtual machine and identify a particular volume that is configured for use by the particular virtual machine. The storage data records including one or more particular storage data records that specify performance information associated with the particular volume. Based on information in the particular virtual machine data records and information in the particular storage data records, it is determined that the particular storage data records are related to the particular volume used by the particular virtual machine. Graphical user interface(s) displaying virtual machine information relating to the particular virtual machine in association with volume performance information relating to the particular volume are displayed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
at one or more data management computers:
obtaining, from a virtual system manager that manages one or more virtual machines, both (a) particular virtual machine data that relates to a particular virtual machine, and (b) an indication that the particular virtual machine uses a particular volume of data storage that contains data of the particular virtual machine and is managed by a storage controller that manages one or more storage units and that is separate from the virtual system manager;
obtaining, from the storage controller, both (a) particular storage data that relates to the particular volume, and (b) an indication that the particular storage data relates to the particular volume;
correlating the particular storage data to the particular virtual machine data based on both the indication that the particular virtual machine uses the particular volume and the indication that the particular storage data relates to the particular volume;
determining performance information related to the particular volume that is based at least in part on an outcome of the correlating, the performance information including an indication that the particular volume that contains data of the particular virtual machine is a cause of a performance issue of the particular virtual machine based on information indicating a latency associated with the particular volume or a rate associated with the storage controller; and
reconfiguring the particular virtual machine to use a volume of data storage other than the particular volume that is the cause of the performance issue of the particular virtual machine.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance information includes information for use in generating a visualization of performance of the particular volume.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance information includes information for use in generating a graph of a metric related to performance of the particular volume over time.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance information includes a latency rate for a storage controller that manages the particular volume.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance information includes information indicating an average latency of write operations for data stored by the particular volume.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance information includes information indicating an average latency of read operations for data stored by the particular volume.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance information includes information indicating an average number of input/output operations performed per second (IOPS) by the storage controller.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance information includes an amount of space available in the particular volume.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performance information includes a percentage of the particular volume that is overprovisioned.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of an amount of space provisioned in the particular volume for virtual machines.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of a path of the particular volume.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of a URL of the particular volume.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of a number of virtual machines that use the particular volume.

14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of names of one or more virtual machines that use the particular volume.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of a name of a physical host of the particular virtual machine.

16. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of a name of the particular virtual machine.

17. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of an amount of space in the particular volume committed to the particular virtual machine.

18. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of an amount of uncommitted space in the particular volume for the particular virtual machine.

19. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing display, concurrently with a display of the performance information, of, an amount of space in the particular volume provisioned for the particular virtual machine.

20. The method of claim 1 , wherein the particular volume is referenced by a volume name or an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

21. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtual system manager stores the particular virtual machine data in a data store separate from a data store in which the storage controller stores the particular storage data.

22. The method of claim 1 , further comprising modifying the obtained particular storage data to conform to a particular format and storing the particular storage data in the particular format.

23. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
changing the state of a performance metric of the particular volume that is the cause of the performance issue of the particular virtual machine.

24. An apparatus comprising:
a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, that obtains, from a virtual system manager that manages one or more virtual machines, both (a) particular virtual machine data that relates to a particular virtual machine, and (b) an indication that the particular virtual machine uses a particular volume of data storage that contains data of the particular virtual machine and is managed by a storage controller that manages one or more storage units and that is separate from the virtual system manager;
a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, that obtains, from the storage controller, both (a) particular storage data that relates to the particular volume, and (b) an indication that the particular storage data relates to the particular volume;
a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, that correlates the particular storage data to the particular virtual machine data based on both the indication that the particular virtual machine uses the particular volume and the indication that the particular storage data relates to the particular volume;
a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, that determines performance information related to the particular volume that is based at least in part on an outcome of the correlating, the performance information including an indication that the particular volume that contains data of the particular virtual machine is a cause of a performance issue of the particular virtual machine based on information indicating a latency associated with the particular volume or a rate associated with the storage controller; and
a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, that reconfigures the particular virtual machine to use a volume of data storage other than the particular volume that is the cause of the performance issue

Assignees

• Splunk Inc

Inventors

• Bhide Alok A
• Malviya Poorva
• Alekseyev Leonid V

Classifications

• G06F11/301

  where the computing system is a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems (virtual machines G06F9/45533; logical partitioning of resources G06F9/5077) · CPC title

• G06F11/3409

  for performance assessment · CPC title

• G06F11/3065

  Monitoring arrangements determined by the means or processing involved in reporting the monitored data (error or fault reporting or logging G06F11/0766) · CPC title

• G06F11/3034

  where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based (digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; 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], H04L67/1097) · CPC title

• G06F11/328 Primary

  Computer systems status display (G06F11/327 takes precedence) · CPC title