Disjoint Node Groups for Virtual Machine Hardware Redundancy
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Solution Overview
Problem
In highly available services, hardware redundancy is needed to prevent service interruptions due to hardware failures, but existing solutions fail to ensure that service units across different service instances are not dependent on the same hardware, leading to potential failures when that hardware fails.
Innovation Solution
The method involves generating disjoint node groups within a node cluster, where each service group is configured with service units hosted on different hardware elements, ensuring no common hardware dependency between node groups, thereby providing hardware redundancy and preventing service interruptions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If service units are placed on the same hardware to simplify resource management, then device complexity is reduced, but reliability deteriorates because hardware failure causes all service units to fail
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the node cluster into multiple disjoint node groups based on hardware dependencies. Each service group is assigned to a specific node group, ensuring that service units within a service group are distributed across different hardware elements. This segmentation prevents a single hardware failure from affecting all service units, thus improving reliability while maintaining manageable resource allocation through structured grouping.
2Reliability
If service units are distributed across different hardware elements to improve reliability, then service availability is improved, but device complexity increases due to hardware dependency management
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary analysis of hardware dependencies among virtual machines before assigning service groups to node groups. By pre-identifying which virtual machines share common hardware elements and organizing them into disjoint node groups in advance, the system eliminates the need for complex real-time dependency management. This preliminary action ensures reliable service distribution while simplifying the overall management complexity.
3Productivity
If virtual machines are consolidated on fewer hardware elements to improve resource utilization, then productivity is improved, but reliability deteriorates due to increased hardware dependency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by allowing different node groups to have different levels of virtual machine consolidation based on their specific hardware dependency characteristics. Within each disjoint node group, virtual machines can be consolidated to improve resource utilization, while the disjoint structure ensures that each group remains isolated from hardware failures in other groups. This localized approach maintains high resource utilization while preserving service availability through structural isolation.
Data Source
AI summary
Disjoint node groups are generated for a node cluster to guarantee hardware redundancy for each service group to be configured on the node cluster. Each service group includes service units, and each service unit is a unit of redundancy for services provided and protected by the service group. Hardware dependency is identified between virtual machines in the node cluster and hardware elements to host the virtual machines. A first node group set (NG set) is formed using a first criterion to select the virtual machines into different node groups based on the hardware dependency, such that there is no common hardware element between any two node groups in the first NG set. The first NG set is mapped to a first set of service groups. Different node groups of the first NG set are mapped to different service units in each service group of the first set of service groups.