Storage Management Drivers for Virtual Machine Disk Abstraction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional server virtualization in data centers faces performance scalability issues due to dependence on hypervisors without optimized storage management, and lacks support for managing large volumes of data storage devices, failing to provide necessary functionality for complex operations like snapshotting and data backup.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for virtualization that includes a storage management system with drivers providing abstraction of storage devices to virtual machines, managing disk space through logical divisions like log space and history space, and a master service for allocating storage, enabling efficient data management and snapshot operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If traditional volume managers are used to manage data storage, then the system can handle relatively few volumes with simple block maps, but the system fails to support managing large volumes of data storage devices (millions of volumes)
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the storage management system into multiple components: volume managers are divided into hierarchical levels, with top-level managers handling metadata and lower-level managers handling actual data blocks. This segmentation allows the system to manage millions of volumes by distributing management responsibilities across multiple managers rather than using a single complex block map structure.
2Adaptability or versatility
If hypervisor-based server virtualization is implemented, then server resources can be masked and reused, but system performance is not scalable for server virtualization in data centers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces storage management drivers as intermediary components between the hypervisor and physical storage devices. These drivers provide optimized storage management functionality, acting as mediators that enable scalable server virtualization performance by handling storage operations efficiently without requiring the hypervisor to directly manage all storage details.
3Adaptability or versatility
If conventional storage management is used, then the system can perform basic operations, but complex server virtualization operations like snapshotting consume large quantities of data storage space
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple volume snapshots into a single consolidated snapshot structure. Instead of creating separate storage allocations for each snapshot, the system combines them into a unified structure that shares common data blocks, significantly reducing the total storage space required for snapshot operations while maintaining the ability to perform complex virtualization tasks.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer system (a method) for providing storage management solution that enables server virtualization in data centers is disclosed. The system comprises a plurality of storage devices for storing data and a plurality of storage management drivers configured to provide an abstraction of the plurality of the storage devices to one or more virtual machines of the data center. A storage management driver is configured to represent a live disk or a snapshot of a live disk in a virtual disk image to the virtual machine associated with the driver. The driver is further configured to translate a logical address for a data block to one or more physical addresses of the data block through the virtual disk image. The system further comprises a master server configured to manage the abstraction of the plurality of the storage devices and to allocate storage space to one or more virtual disk images.