Memory Pool Management for Virtual Machine Startup
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Solution Overview
Problem
Hypervisors face a significant reduction in memory access speed when they need to trap each access from virtual machines to physical memory, leading to increased virtual machine generation times, especially when using methods that do not initialize memory regions efficiently.
Innovation Solution
A machine system with a memory pool management mechanism that categorizes memory regions into allocated, cleared, and uncleared areas, allowing hypervisors to allocate cleared memory efficiently and manage uncleared regions for rapid virtual machine generation by performing clearance processing sequentially.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the hypervisor traps each access from the virtual machine to the physical memory, then the memory access security is improved, but the memory access speed is considerably reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a memory pool management machine as an intermediary between the hypervisor and the physical memory. This manager handles memory allocation, tracking which regions are cleared and which are uncleared, allowing the hypervisor to allocate memory without trapping each access while still ensuring security through proper clearance management
2Reliability
If the hypervisor clears all the physical memory before allocating to the virtual machine, then the memory security is improved, but the virtual machine generation time is increased
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by clearing memory regions in advance and marking them as cleared in the memory pool management structure. When a virtual machine needs memory, the hypervisor can allocate from pre-cleared regions without performing clearance operations at allocation time, thus maintaining security while reducing generation time
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces dynamic memory management where the memory pool management machine dynamically tracks which memory regions are cleared and available for allocation. This dynamic tracking allows the system to efficiently allocate cleared memory without re-clearing, balancing security and speed based on actual memory state
3Productivity
If the memory region is not initialized when allocated to the virtual machine, then the allocation speed is improved, but the information security is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback through the memory pool management machine that maintains information about which memory regions are cleared and which are uncleared. This feedback mechanism allows the hypervisor to make informed allocation decisions, allocating only from cleared regions to maintain security while achieving fast allocation
Data Source
AI summary
A machine system includes a physical machine, a memory pool, and a memory pool management machine. The memory pool management machine manages, with respect to a memory region of the memory pool, an allocated region, a cleared region, and an uncleared region. When generating a virtual machine, a hypervisor in the physical machine sends a memory allocation request to the memory pool management machine. When a response, to the request, received from the memory pool management machine includes an address range belonging to the uncleared region, the hypervisor clears the memory region of the address range belonging to the uncleared region and then generates the virtual machine.