HK1097060B - System and method for centralized software management in virtual machines - Google Patents

Description

System and method for centralized software management in virtual machines

Technical Field

The present invention relates generally to information handling systems in virtual machines, and more particularly to a system and method for centralized software management in virtual machines.

Background

As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. Information handling systems typically process, compile, store, and/or communicate information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Information handling systems may also vary as to what information is processed, how the information is processed, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information is processed, stored, or communicated, as the needs of technology and information handling vary from user to user or application to another. The diversity in information handling systems allows information handling systems to be generic or configured for specific users or specific uses, such as financial transaction processing, airline ticketing, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, an information handling system may include a number of hardware and software components configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.

Information handling systems typically process information using one or more application programs running on an operating system that operates in coordination with hardware components. Although discrete information handling systems are effective tools for managing information associated with a particular location or activity, the processing power of information handling systems is often underutilized during periods of inactivity. For example, information handling systems associated with a particular enterprise function may be idle for extended periods of time so that they may be used when needed. During idle periods, physical processing components, such as processors and memory components, consume energy and are depleted while reducing the enterprise's limited added value. Businesses have generally accepted the consumption of idle periods in exchange for the convenience of bringing the necessary information handling systems online and ready to perform critical operations.

The trend toward the use of resource virtualization today has allowed enterprises to have the convenience of discrete information handling systems without the expense of maintaining and running separate physical systems. Resource virtualization separates software applications from hardware information handling systems by placing them in "virtual machine" containers. A virtual machine is a software abstraction at the hardware level that, like a physical information handling system, provides all of the functionality of a physical hardware system with an operating system and application programs. A conventional virtual machine can be considered entirely as two files, a software image and a generic hardware configuration file that can be based on extensible markup language (XML). The software image represents a hard disk drive for a virtual machine, typically referred to as a "virtual disk". The virtual disk typically includes operation installation files, application files, and user data files. A plurality of virtual machines are stored in a network server environment, typically referred to as a virtual data center, so that the desired virtual machines can be used for operations on the required server resources. The virtual machine does not bind a particular resource instance so that the resource can be dynamically provisioned and resized to the required application and vice versa, the application can be transferred between resources as required by changes in resource usage. The virtual machine hardware configuration file includes details of the changes in size and current bindings to support movement of the virtual machine between hardware and vice versa.

Typically, virtual data centers utilize a data center wide data model to manage virtual machines, such as microsoft System Definition Model (SDM) and EDS data center tags that allow configuration sharing between software lifecycle, management systems, and virtualization systems through the use of static and non-distributed data. However, in a virtual data center, software maintains a close relationship with the management and control system, which in turn tightly ties the management system and hardware and users together. In other words, the flexibility of running virtual machines on various resources is limited by the management of the virtual machines and virtual data centers, such as management of updates, performance, location, priority, and permissions. As an example, in a data center environment, software management is distributed as each applicable system needs to be managed independently. This makes software management operations, such as patch management, tedious and time consuming. To perform software installation, patch management, and security updates, each system in the data center must be updated and security patches installed on an independent basis. A typical data center has thousands of virtual machines, making the resources insufficient to update all of the virtual machines simultaneously, resulting in some system updates and some multi-phase environments that use older versions. Tracking system updates to ensure that all systems are updated represents a substantial logical problem, namely that as patches are released, they are typically repeated several times a year. The software in the virtual data center also maintains a close connection with the user and the services that the user is willing to, such as by restricting the use of the software with software applications that match the user to ensure that the software and hardware comply with user-specific preferences, such as security, isolation, application, and billing/chargeback.

Disclosure of Invention

A need has therefore arisen for a system and method that uses virtual machines to separate software from users and services.

There is also a need for a system and method that uses virtual machines to separate software from a management and control system.

There is also a need for a system and method that simplifies software management of virtual machine software on a virtual data center.

In other words, a system for maintaining virtual machines of a virtual data center, the system comprising: global data used for storing a plurality of virtual machines; a plurality of virtual machines stored in the global data, each virtual machine having a hardware configuration and a software image, the software image having at least one application system provisioning file; an application read-only image stored in the global data; a plurality of processing components for running a virtual machine; and a resource virtualization engine for running the virtual machine instance on the processing component by adding the application system preparation file to the application read-only image, thereby generating a live-run instance of the application.

In addition, the present invention provides a method of maintaining a virtual machine of a virtual data center, the method comprising: storing a read-only image of an application in a virtual data center; storing a plurality of virtual machines in a virtual data center, each virtual machine having a hardware configuration and a software image, the software image having a system provisioning file associated with an application; and generating a real-time running instance of the virtual machine by adding a system preparation file of the virtual machine to the read-only image of the application program.

In addition, the present invention also provides a virtual machine, including: hardware configuration; a software image having a system preparation file associated with the application, the system preparation file being added to the read-only image of the application, the stored read-only image being separate from the virtual machine; and the user/service is configured to receive writes generated by the application during the live running instance of the virtual machine.

In accordance with the present invention, a system and method are provided that substantially reduce the disadvantages and problems associated with previous methods and systems for managing virtual machines of a virtual data center. A real-time running instance of a virtual machine is generated from management configuration information and user/service configuration information connected to the virtual machine. Thus, virtual machines are effectively used to decouple the virtual data center management and control system from the user and the services the user is willing to use.

More specifically, the virtual machines of the virtual data center include software images and server hardware configurations that run on server hardware resources allocated by the resource virtualization engine. In addition, each virtual machine includes a separate management configuration having a management preference and a user/service configuration having a user preference. Managing preferences includes managing information about related functions, such as environmental controls like power, cooling and balancing, policies, minimizing, maximizing, or limiting user, software, or hardware. The resource usage monitor engine monitors the started virtual machines in a closed loop fashion with the global policy engine to adjust the allocation of virtual machines on the server resource handling components according to the management preferences. The user/service preferences include information on the priority and cost of the virtual machine, as well as other parameters such as backup preferences and frequency or security level. The user/service and management configuration enables the virtual machines on top of the general purpose hardware, user and system management to be self-contained for dynamic allocation of processing elements to meet desired management and service goals.

In one embodiment, the management and user/service configuration save information to allow the generation of virtual machine instances from application read-only images. For example, the management configuration tracks the application type, and the user/service configuration tracks the system unique information. Instead of providing each virtual machine with a separate virtual disk for files that are uniquely used for the individual virtual machine, such as user data files, a common virtual disk is used for multiple virtual machines that share the same operating system and application programs. An instance of a particular virtual machine runs from a copy of a common virtual disk that has unique information assembled from a unique virtual disk. The information generated by the instance is written to the unique virtual disk using the common virtual disk, which is kept read-only, to protect the integrity of other virtual machines using the common virtual disk. Access to change the common virtual disk is limited, for example, to a patch manager with write rights to install a patch, or to security update applications on the common virtual disk. For example, the patch is applied to the common virtual disk by closing all running instances that use the common virtual disk, and restarting the plurality of virtual machines from the updated common virtual disk, such that the instances run the patch to install the patch on the plurality of virtual machines.

The present invention provides a number of important technical advantages. One example of an important technical advantage is that virtual machines are used to separate software from the management and control system of a virtual data center. The separation of management and control allows for a more flexible model that matches a common system of management and user, software and hardware, manages multiple systems, allows for independent changes of management, user, software or hardware while running a virtual machine, and ensures that management adheres to policy rules, such as environmental compliance, and hardware adheres to management specific constraints, such as policies or maximum physical constraints. Separating software from management and control allows management independent software changes, updates to running and state software when the management system accesses state software (stateful software), and simplifies management system updates, such as for manager changes in view, performance, location, priority, and permissions. The virtual machines on the general purpose hardware, user, and system management are self-contained to provide a complete and reproducible snapshot of the reduced virtual data center tool directory, such as diagnostics, detection points, backup, cloning, abort/restore, and refund/accounting. The version of the file in the virtual machine simplifies the tracking of management updates, and a separate management configuration file allows role-based access to the configuration in the virtual machine.

Another example of an important technical advantage is that virtual machines are used to separate software from users and services in a virtual data center. The separation of users and services allows a more flexible model that matches software applications and users, ensures that software complies with user-specific preferences, such as security, and ensures that hardware complies with user-specific preferences, such as isolation, utilization, and billing/chargeback. Separating the software from the user and the service allows for user independent software changes, updates to the running and state software when the user accesses the state software, and simplifies the user update view, performance, location, priority, and permissions.

Another example of an important technical advantage of virtual machines is that software management on a virtual data center is simplified. The patch of the application is applied to the read-only copy of the application. A virtual machine including an application is booted from the read-only image to include a patch, such that applying the patch to the application at a separate time effectively updates all virtual machines including the application. The use of read-only images to support multiple virtual machine starts reduces overall storage on the virtual data center, since a read-only copy of an application can be saved as the only permanent copy of the application, and all virtual machines using the read-only copy share a common state associated with the application. In addition, a clone of a virtual machine having the same configuration is executable in a reduced time, since the user service profile associated with the application is copied, rather than requiring a copy of the entire application. In addition, applications are self-contained with enough information to be independent of specific bindings to users and services, system management, or hardware.

Drawings

The present invention may be better understood, and its numerous objects, features, and advantages made apparent to those skilled in the art by referencing the accompanying drawings. The use of the same reference number throughout the several figures designates a like or similar element.

FIG. 1 depicts a block diagram of a virtual data center having a management configuration and a user/service configuration associated with each virtual machine;

FIG. 2 depicts a block diagram of a virtual data center with an application read-only image that supports live-run images of multiple virtual machines with application system provisioning files; and

FIG. 3 depicts a layered view of virtual machines with common images.

Detailed Description

Virtual machine instances are generated and monitored by reference to information in the management configuration and user/service configuration associated with each virtual machine. Management and user/service configuration assists the allocation and monitoring of information handling system processing resources by virtual machines to achieve desired goals. For purposes of this disclosure, an information handling system may include any instrumentality or aggregate of instrumentalities operable to compute, classify, process, transmit, receive, retrieve, originate, switch, store, display, manifest, detect, record, reproduce, handle, or utilize any form of information, intelligence, or data for business, scientific, control, or other purposes. For example, an information handling system may be a personal computer, a network storage device, or any other suitable device and may vary in size, shape, performance, functionality, and price. The information handling system may include Random Access Memory (RAM), one or more processing resources such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU) or hardware or software control logic, ROM, and/or other types of nonvolatile memory. Additional components of the information handling system may include one or more disk drives, one or more network interfaces for communicating with external devices as well as various input and output (I/O) devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, and a video display. The information handling system may also include one or more buses operable to transmit communications between the various hardware components.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a block diagram depicts a virtual data center 10, the virtual data center 10 having a management configuration 14 and a user/service configuration 16 associated with each virtual machine 12. The virtual machine 12 operates on the server hardware resources 22 by invoking the software image 18 according to the server hardware configuration 20. The standby virtual machines are stored in global data 24 and started up using resource virtualization engine 26 to assign the stored virtual machines to the desired processing components of server hardware resources 22. For example, data processing functions are performed at the end of a work day by calling a virtual machine that performs the data processing functions as soon as the data becomes available. Resource virtualization engine 26 assigns virtual machine 12 to the CPU of server hardware resources 22 and starts the operating system of virtual machine 12 on the CPU to run the function. After completing the data processing functions, resource virtualization engine 26 deactivates virtual machine 12 for storage in global data 24. Conventional virtual data centers tightly connect software to management and control systems, as well as the services that the user and user are willing to perform, thus limiting the flexibility of virtual data center operations, such as by tightly connecting management systems with hardware and users. The virtual data center 10 of fig. 1 includes a management configuration 14 with virtual machines 12 and a user/service configuration 16 to separate software from the management and control system and from user and user-desired services for increased operational flexibility.

Management configuration 14 provides increased flexibility by coupling management information to each virtual machine 12 to allow matching management with a common system of users, software and hardware, to allow management of multiple systems, to allow independent changes to management while running virtual machine 12, to allow independent changes to users, software or hardware while running, to ensure that management complies with policy compliance rules 28, such as environmental compliance, and to ensure that hardware complies with management specific constraints, such as policies or maximum physical constraints defined by policy compliance rules 28. The management configuration 14 may be an XML file that stores management preferences in a standardized format. The connection of management preferences to the virtual machine with management configuration 14 supports the input of manager to virtualization layer through resource usage monitor engine 30 and the output of manager to virtualization layer through global policy engine 32 to avoid conflicts in manager-to-user, software and hardware updates when the virtual machine is running. For example, the hypervisor configuration 14 defines preferences for virtual machine view, performance, location, priority, and permissions. By changing the values in the management configuration, preferences can be updated through the management interface 34 when the virtual machine is running. Role-based updates provide the authority to change management configuration values according to the level of access recognized by global policy engine 32. Since the management preferences are saved as part of the virtual machine itself, a complete, reproducible snapshot of the virtual machine simplifies the tasks of several tools, such as diagnostics, detection points, backup, cloning, abort/restore, and refund/accounting, and versions can be tracked in a management configuration.

One example of a management configuration preference is an environmental objective, such as with respect to power, cooling, and task balancing at a virtual data center. Since a given virtual resource may not exist physically, globally, or long enough to allow discovery, monitoring, and management, the resource usage monitor engine 30 monitors the virtualization runtime according to environmental target management preferences, rather than monitoring the hardware directly. Resource usage monitor engine 30 creates a feedback loop with global policy engine 32 to dynamically adjust the allocation of virtual machines 12 on the processing components of server hardware resources 22. For example, when the load and priority of virtual machines running on a virtual data center are granted, the load is balanced as the power is cycled on and off the nodes to save energy and gracefully reduce energy consumption. As another example, if environmental constraints, such as cooling, are met, resource usage monitor engine 30 analyzes priorities associated with virtual machine management preferences for use so that global policy engine 32 can selectively sacrifice lower priorities to reduce cooling requirements. In an alternative embodiment, resource usage monitor engine 30 and global policy engine 32 are utilized to manage preferences directing the allocation of virtual machines to meet goals related to various policies, minimization, maximization, or restrictions on users, software, or hardware. The management configuration is encrypted and interpreted at the file or subfile level for role-based security.

By linking user/service information to each virtual machine 12 to allow software applications and users to match, user/service configuration 16 provides greater flexibility in order to ensure that software complies with user-specific preferences, such as security, and in order to ensure that hardware complies with user-specific preferences, such as isolation, utilization, and billing/chargeback. The user/service profile 16 is an XML file that stores the preferences of the user and the services that the user would like in a standardized format. User/service preferences are coupled to the virtual machines using user/service provisioning 16 to support manager input to the virtualization layer through user/service interface 36 and service virtualization engine 38. Utilizing the virtual machine association management configuration 14 and the user/service configuration 16 provides a fully self-contained system that is dynamically and simply assignable so that applications of the virtual machine can run on general purpose hardware and users. The fully self-contained virtual machine represents reproducible snapshots to simplify tools such as diagnostics, checkpoint, backup, clone, abort/restore, and refund/accounting, and to allow simplified tracking of version changes over time. Service configuration is utilized to separate virtual machines from users and services that users would like to allow software to change independently of users, including updates to running state software when users access state software. The user is updated with updates to user/service preferences such as user view, capabilities, location, priority, and permissions. The connection user and local buffer status are updated by updating the user/service configuration even when the user accesses the software.

One example of user/service preferences stored in the user/service configuration is user/service preferences for priorities and costs associated with the virtual machines. For example, through user/service interface 36, a user or user-willing service enters price and cost parameters for virtual machine 12 into user/service configuration 16. Service virtualization engine 38 requests the creation of a real-time running instance of a virtual machine with priority and cost preferences, such that resource usage monitor engine 30 and global policy engine 32 adjust the allocation of virtual machines to the processing components of server hardware resources 22 according to the available capacity and pricing constraints set by the consistency rules. Another example of user/service preferences is adjustable backup preferences and frequency settings to ensure data integrity, or adjustable security levels to properly limit access to data. The current binding details are updated at runtime as the user is changed, and the user state is re-bound to the software and the software state. Service virtualization may be a runtime environment from a pool of virtual machines and a live running instance of the pool of services that the user and user are willing to treat, to treat the virtual machines as a utility resource, including personal specialization of applications.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a block diagram depicts a virtual data center with an application read-only image 40 that supports real-time running images of multiple virtual machines with application system provisioning files in their software images 18. As the virtual machine 12 is called from the global data 24 to operate on the server hardware resource 22, the resource virtualization engine 26 reads the application read-only image 40 to launch the virtual machine 12 with the application read-only image 40 with the information from the application system provisioning file stored in the software image 18 added to the application read-only image 40. For example, application read-only image 40 is a read-only copy of the WINDOWS operating system with configuration information unique to the use of the operating system for each virtual machine, such as an IP address and system name, with the appropriate tools removed, such as running the sysprep program. Application unique configuration information separate from the sysprep tool is stored in user/service configuration 16, and versions or classifications of operating systems or applications are stored in management configuration 14. Thus, the application read-only image 40 acts as a global image to support the population of system-unique information in multiple virtual machine live-running instances on a virtual data center, with the virtual machines to perform writes to the user/service configuration 16.

The common read-only application with system unique information generally provides simplified application maintenance, such as installing updates or patches to the application through a virtual data center, or cloning virtual machines. As depicted in FIG. 2, the launched virtual machine 12 has one or more application programs 42 running on an operating system 44 and a CPU 46. Updating the application read-only image 40 is performed by the application patch manager 48, also running on the virtual machine 12, the virtual machine 12 having write permission to apply an update or patch to the application read-only image 40. Before the application patch manager 48 applies the update to the application read-only image 40, the virtual machine running the application is either shut down or buffered so that no update is requested from the application read-only image 40 during the update. Buffering of the application's image prior to an update allows the critical virtual machine to continue to function as updates occur. After the application patch manager 48 performs the update, the closed virtual machine is restarted to run the updated application read-only image 40. The virtual machine running the buffered copy of the pre-update application may be restarted from the updated application read-only image 40 at a convenient time. The use of a single point of software management ensures that all virtual machines using the application read-only image 40 are updated in a single operation with less storage resources. As such, leveraging of application read-only images during cloning of the virtual machine by the virtual machine cloner 50 reduces the time and resources required to perform cloning. By copying the software image with the software image having the application system provisioning file, rather than copying the application read-only image 40, the copy time may be reduced.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a layered view depicts virtual machines having a common image. The hardware layer 52 has physical hardware to support instances of virtual machines, such as processor and memory resources. For example, a data center typically includes a plurality of information handling system servers that are assigned to virtual machine instances. The hardware layer includes shared memory 54, such as one or more interconnected hard disk drives. The shared memory 54 stores application read-only images that are cloned to create instances of the virtual machines 12. Resource virtualization layer 56 allocates hardware resources of hardware layer 52 for use by virtual machine layer 58. At virtual machine layer 58, multiple virtual machines 12 are running as clones of application read-only image 40, with the addition of unique information for each virtual machine 12. Application patch manager 48 operates as a virtual machine that has access to application read-only image 40. When the patch is applied to the read-only image, the application patch manager 48 shuts down the cloned virtual machine 12 using the read-only image, applies the patch to the read-only image, and then restarts the virtual machine 12 running the image clone.

Although the present invention has been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made hereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Claims (20)

1. A system for maintaining virtual machines of a virtual data center, the system comprising:

the system comprises a data storage module, a data processing module and a data processing module, wherein the data storage module is used for storing global data of a plurality of virtual machines to be operated;

a plurality of virtual machines stored in the global data, each virtual machine having a hardware configuration and a software image, the software image having at least one application system provisioning file;

an application read-only image stored in the global data;

a plurality of processing components for running a virtual machine: and

a resource virtualization engine to run a virtual machine instance on the processing component by adding an application system preparation file to the application read-only image, thereby generating a live run instance of the application.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the application program comprises an operating system.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising an application patch manager for updating the application with the one or more patches by applying the patches to the application read-only image.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the patch manager comprises a virtual machine for running on the processing component.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the application patch manager updates the application by shutting down all virtual machines accessing the read-only image, installing a patch on the read-only image, and restarting the shut down virtual machines.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the application patch manager updates the application by storing a copy of the application in a buffer memory, running one or more virtual machines from the buffer memory that access the read-only image, installing a patch on the read-only image, and restarting the virtual machine that accesses the buffer memory.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine further comprises a management configuration having application version information.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine further comprises a user/service configuration having secure access information associated with the application.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual machine further comprises a user/service configuration operable to store system specific information on the virtual machine related to operation of the application program.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a virtual machine cloner to clone the virtual machine by copying the application system provisioning files.

11. A method of maintaining virtual machines of a virtual data center, the method comprising:

storing a read-only image of an application in a virtual data center;

storing a plurality of virtual machines in a virtual data center, each virtual machine having a hardware configuration and a software image, the software image having a system provisioning file associated with an application; and

the real-time running instance of the virtual machine is generated by adding a system preparation file of the virtual machine to the read-only image of the application.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the application program comprises an operating system.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

copying the updated patch to a read-only image of the application to update the application; and

adding a system preparation file of the virtual machine to the read-only image of the updated application to generate a real-time running instance of the virtual machine running the updated application.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

shutting down one or more virtual machines running the application before copying the updated patch; and

after copying the updated patch, the shutdown virtual machine is restarted.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

storing one or more virtual machines running the application to a cache prior to copying the updated patch;

running the virtual machine from the buffer memory during copying of the updated patch; and

restarting the buffered virtual machine from the updated application.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

one or more virtual machines are cloned by copying system provisioning files.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

in a management configuration stored in a virtual machine, versions of applications associated with the virtual machine are tracked.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

generating information on the virtual machine for writing to a read-only image of the application; and

and writing the generated information into the user/service configuration of the virtual machine.

19. A virtual machine, comprising:

hardware configuration;

a software image having a system ready file associated with the application, the system ready file for adding to a read-only image of the application, the stored read-only image being separate from the virtual machine; and

the user/service is configured to receive writes generated by the application during a live running instance of the virtual machine.

20. The virtual machine of claim 19, further comprising a management configuration for storing version information relating to read-only image updates of the application.