Virtual Machine Failover via Solid-State Drive State Mirroring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems for disaster recovery in virtualization environments face challenges in ensuring seamless failover and high availability during power outages or disk failures, particularly in using solid-state drives (SSDs) for persistent memory and state mirroring.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a process involving multiple memory devices, where a solid-state drive (SSD) is used to mirror filesystem and network states of a virtual machine, allowing for automatic failover to the SSD in case of power outages or disk failures, enabling continuous operation and minimizing power consumption by selectively terminating non-essential virtual machines.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional hard disk drives are used for backup storage, then system cost is reduced, but data access speed and system reliability during failover deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a copy of the virtual machine state in a solid-state drive (SSD) that serves as a backup storage device. When a failure is detected, the system can quickly access the copied state from the SSD and restore the virtual machine, achieving both high reliability and fast data access speed simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the storage medium parameter from traditional hard disk drives to solid-state drives for backup storage. This parameter change dramatically improves data access speed and system reliability during failover, as SSDs provide faster read/write operations compared to traditional HDDs.
2Reliability
If multiple virtual machines are continuously operated to ensure high availability, then service continuity is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by continuously mirroring the virtual machine state to a solid-state drive before any failure occurs. This pre-synchronized backup allows the system to quickly failover to the backup state when needed, ensuring service continuity without requiring multiple virtual machines to run simultaneously, thus reducing power consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the backup function from the active virtual machine operation by using a separate solid-state drive for state mirroring. This allows the system to maintain service continuity through fast failover while avoiding the need to continuously power and run multiple redundant virtual machines, thereby reducing overall power consumption.
3Reliability
If explicit virtual machine migration is implemented for failover, then failover control is improved, but system complexity and failover time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a self-service failover mechanism where the system automatically detects failures and restores virtual machines from the solid-state drive backup without requiring explicit migration commands or complex manual intervention. The failover process is triggered automatically by failure detection, simplifying the system while maintaining reliable failover control.
4Reliability
If traditional backup storage systems are used, then system cost is reduced, but failover time and service disruption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the backup storage parameter from traditional hard disk drives to solid-state drives. This parameter change reduces failover time significantly due to the faster access speeds of SSDs, while the cost increase is offset by the reduced need for expensive complex failover management systems and the value of minimized service disruption.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention is directed to a virtualization system using a solid-state drive for disaster recovery.