Live Migration of Virtual Machine Data Subsets
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing live migration techniques in cloud computing, such as pre-copy and post-copy migration, face performance degradation due to high network bandwidth usage, increased latency, and concurrent access issues, which affect virtual machine performance during data migration.
Innovation Solution
The method involves storing data in exclusive data subsets on a first physical machine, blocking access to the subset being migrated while maintaining access to other subsets, and updating logical address mappings to redirect access to a third physical machine, allowing for granular migration without the need for tracking writes or resending changes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If pre-copy or post-copy migration techniques are used for live data migration, then data can be migrated between physical machines, but network bandwidth usage increases and latency increases, affecting virtual machine performance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the virtual machine's data space into multiple independent data subsets (e.g., data subsets 1-4), each of which can be migrated independently between physical machines. This segmentation allows the migration process to operate on smaller, manageable units rather than migrating the entire data space at once, thereby reducing the network bandwidth consumption per migration operation while maintaining live migration capability.
2Reliability
If pre-copy or post-copy migration techniques are used for live data migration, then data can be migrated between physical machines, but latency increases and virtual machine performance degrades
Solution Approach 1:
By dividing data into smaller subsets that can be migrated independently and in parallel, the overall migration time is reduced. The virtual machine continues to operate while individual data subsets are migrated, minimizing the impact on performance and reducing perceived latency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent establishes logical address mappings before migration begins, allowing the system to prepare the destination physical machine and data structures in advance. This preliminary setup reduces the actual migration execution time and minimizes disruption to the running virtual machine.
3Productivity
If data is migrated while virtual machine performs arbitrary reads and writes, then live migration is achieved, but concurrent access issues and performance degradation occur
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual machine's data space is divided into multiple independent data subsets, allowing the system to migrate one subset at a time while the virtual machine continues to access other subsets. This segmentation isolates the migration operation to specific data regions, preventing concurrent access conflicts and maintaining data access consistency without requiring the virtual machine to pause operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different access policies to different data subsets: subsets being migrated have access restricted to the destination physical machine, while subsets not being migrated maintain normal access from the virtual machine. This local differentiation of access rights ensures data consistency during migration while maintaining virtual machine productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for migrating data from a first storage system to a second storage system. That data is for a process (e.g., a virtual machine, application, or some other process) operating on a computer system that is separate from the first storage system and the second storage system. That data is stored according to data subsets that are each exclusive of each other. As each data set is migrated, access to the data set by the process is precluded, but access for the remaining data sets is not affected. Once the data migration is complete, access to the data set by the process is restored.