Virtual Proxy for Heterogeneous System Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current virtual machine management tools lack support for managing physical machines and are limited in their ability to handle a variety of virtualization platforms, leading to increased cost and complexity in managing heterogeneous computer systems with both physical and virtual machines.
Innovation Solution
The introduction of virtual proxies that act as intermediaries between virtual machine management tools and target machines, enabling communication and management of both physical and virtual machines through packet-filtering and request transformation, allowing a single virtual machine to serve as a proxy for multiple target machines.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If virtualization is used to consolidate computing resources, then space, power, cooling, and hardware requirements are reduced, but the ability to manage physical machines and support heterogeneous systems is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a virtual proxy as an intermediary component that enables the virtual machine management tool to manage physical machines indirectly. The virtual proxy runs on the physical machine and translates management requests between the virtualization platform and the physical machine, allowing unified management while maintaining the physical machine's operational capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual proxy is designed to provide universal management capability across heterogeneous systems. It can handle both virtual machine management requests from the virtualization platform and physical machine management requests, making the management system versatile enough to handle multiple machine types through a single interface.
2Device complexity
If a single virtual machine management tool is used to manage all machines, then management complexity is reduced, but support for physical machines and legacy systems is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual proxy acts as a mediator between the virtual machine management tool and physical/legacy machines. It receives standardized management requests from the virtualization platform and translates them into appropriate commands for the target physical machine or legacy system, enabling unified management across diverse platforms.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual proxy transforms management requests by changing their parameters and format to match the specific requirements of different target systems. It adapts the standardized virtualization management interface to accommodate various physical machine and legacy system protocols, maintaining compatibility across heterogeneous environments.
3Ease of operation
If virtual machine management tools are used, then virtual machine management capability is improved, but support for physical machine management is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual proxy serves as an intermediary that extends the virtual machine management tool's capabilities to physical machines. It maintains the ease of operation provided by virtualization management tools while adding the ability to manage physical machines through the same unified interface.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer system apparatus includes a first virtual machine hosted by a first physical machine. A target machine is communicatively coupled to the first virtual machine. The target machine is one of another physical machine and another virtual machine. The first virtual machine serves as a virtual proxy for the target machine.