Virtual Machine Instance Migration for Hardware Specification Matching
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern virtual computer systems lack the functionality to efficiently provide customers with requested hardware configurations for virtual machine instances, leading to suboptimal customer experiences and increased costs due to the need for repeated provisioning and termination of instances.
Innovation Solution
A virtual computer system service that allows customers to specify hardware preferences or requirements, enabling the allocation and migration of virtual machine instances to physical hosts that match the requested specifications, with the option to migrate instances to better-suited hosts when available.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If customers repeatedly provision and terminate virtual machine instances to find suitable hardware, then hardware requirements are eventually met, but customer experience deteriorates and operational costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by proactively monitoring hardware availability and preparing suitable physical hosts before customers need to provision instances. When hardware becomes available, the system pre-configures the environment and notifies customers, eliminating the need for repeated trial provisioning and termination cycles.
2Adaptability or versatility
If additional server systems with varying configurations are purchased to satisfy customer hardware needs, then hardware requirements are met, but acquisition costs and administrative burden increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal hardware abstraction layer that allows a single pool of physical servers to serve multiple virtual machine instances with different hardware requirements. The virtualization platform enables the same physical infrastructure to adapt to various customer needs through software configuration rather than requiring dedicated hardware for each configuration type.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically allocates and reconfigures hardware resources based on real-time customer requirements and availability. Physical hosts can be dynamically added or removed from the pool, and virtual machine instances can be migrated between hosts as hardware becomes available, providing adaptability without permanent hardware commitments.
3Productivity
If virtual computer systems use coarse dimension sizing, then capacity management efficiency improves, but functionality for providing specific hardware configurations is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments hardware specifications into distinct, searchable attributes (CPU type, memory amount, storage configuration, etc.) while maintaining overall capacity management. This segmentation allows the system to track and allocate specific hardware features individually, enabling precise matching of customer requirements without sacrificing the efficiency of pooled resource management.
Data Source
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AI summary
A customer submits a set of preferences including hardware specifications for instantiating a virtual machine instance. The virtual machine instance may be instantiated in a physical host computer system that does not conform to the set of preferences. The virtual computer system service may be configured to evaluate the specifications of the available physical host computer systems to determine whether any of the available physical host computer systems conform to the set of preferences. Accordingly, the virtual computer system service may further evaluate the available physical host computer systems to determine whether available physical host computer systems comprise available slots for instantiating the existing virtual machine instance. If the one or more available physical host computer systems have available slots, the virtual computer system service may migrate the existing virtual machine instance to an available physical host computer system in order to fulfill the customer request.