VM Migration Acceleration via Free Page Exclusion
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional virtual machine migration techniques are slow due to the inclusion of unnecessary memory pages, which consumes excessive processing, network, and memory resources.
Innovation Solution
The method involves identifying free memory pages and excluding them from migration by notifying the guest hypervisor, suspending the virtual machine, modifying dirty memory page statuses, and then migrating only the dirty pages to another location or host machine.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If all memory pages are migrated during virtual machine migration, then completeness of migration is ensured, but migration speed decreases and resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and excludes free memory pages from the migration process. By identifying pages that are not currently in use (free pages) and removing them from the migration set, the system reduces the total volume of data to be transferred while ensuring that all necessary dirty pages are migrated, thus maintaining migration completeness while improving speed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the memory pages into two distinct categories: dirty pages (containing modified data) and free pages (not currently in use). This segmentation allows the migration process to selectively handle only the dirty pages, separating the migration task from unnecessary data transfer operations.
2Reliability
If all memory pages are migrated during virtual machine migration, then no data is lost, but processing resources and network bandwidth are excessively consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts free memory pages from the migration process, identifying and removing unnecessary data from the transfer set. This extraction maintains data integrity for all actually used pages while eliminating wasteful consumption of processing resources and network bandwidth on pages that contain no active data.
3Productivity
If the virtual machine remains active during migration, then service continuity is maintained, but tracking dirty pages becomes complex and migration accuracy decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by having the guest operating system identify and report free memory pages to the hypervisor before the migration process begins. This advance identification allows the hypervisor to accurately determine the set of dirty pages that need migration, ensuring migration accuracy while maintaining service continuity during the actual migration of only the necessary pages.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and computer program products are included for migrating a virtual machine. An example method of migrating a virtual machine includes transmitting, from a hypervisor, a migration indicator to a guest. The hypervisor receives a free memory page indicator from the guest that identifies one or one or more free memory pages corresponding to a virtual machine. The hypervisor then places the virtual machine in a suspended state. While the virtual machine is in the suspended state, the hypervisor modifies a dirty status and a migration status corresponding to one or more dirty memory pages. After resuming operation of the virtual machine from the suspended state, the hypervisor modifies a migration status corresponding to the one or more free memory pages to exclude the one or more free memory pages from a migration. The hypervisor migrates the one or more dirty memory pages.