Shadow Mapping Policy for Virtual Machine Migration Packet Loss
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Solution Overview
Problem
During live migration of virtual machines, packet loss occurs due to stale address mappings, leading to connection disruptions and timeouts, as the provider address changes, causing issues in maintaining active connections between virtual machines.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a shadow mapping policy that is transmitted and maintained by hosts in an inactive state until triggered, allowing for seamless communication after live migration, using techniques like 'lazy push' and 'lazy pull' for reactive policy updating to ensure all hosts receive the updated mapping policy, minimizing packet loss.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If live migration of virtual machine is performed to balance load or maintain system reliability, then system reliability and load distribution are improved, but packet loss occurs due to stale address mappings causing connection disruptions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by proactively pushing updated mapping policies to all hosts in the virtual network before the live migration of the virtual machine is completed. This ensures that address mappings are updated in advance, preventing packet loss that would otherwise occur when other virtual machines attempt to communicate with the migrated virtual machine using stale mappings.
2Adaptability or versatility
If provider address of virtual machine is changed during live migration, then virtual machine can be transferred to different host system, but packets are dropped because other virtual machines have stale address mapping
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback by establishing a mechanism where hosts in the virtual network notify the virtual machine manager when they detect stale address mappings causing packet drops. This feedback triggers the virtual machine manager to push updated mapping policies to affected hosts, ensuring address mapping information remains current and preventing communication failures.
3Reliability
If mapping policy is updated immediately during live migration, then packet loss is minimized, but network traffic and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by updating mapping policies selectively at individual host levels rather than universally across the entire network. Each host receives updated mapping policies only when needed based on its specific communication patterns with the migrated virtual machine, minimizing unnecessary network traffic and processing overhead while maintaining connection stability where required.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and apparatus are provided for controlling live migration of a virtual machine from a first host to a second host in a data center. A virtual machine manager may distribute to at least one host in a virtual network an updated mapping policy that maps a customer address of the virtual machine to a provider address of the migrated virtual machine. The updated mapping policy enables hosts in the virtual network to communicate with the migrated virtual machine. The updated mapping policy can be a shadow policy. The shadow policy is transmitted to hosts in the virtual network by the virtual machine manager before live migration of the virtual machine completes and is maintained by recipient hosts in an inactive state until triggered. The virtual machine manager notifies hosts in the virtual network to activate the shadow policy when live migration completes.