Vmware, Inc.

Aravinda Haryadi

Mukund Gunti

Patrick William Penzias Dirks

Yuedong Mu

Naga Ullas Vankayala Harinathagupta

Anjaneya Prasad Gondi

Ashish Kaila

Lingyuan He

Olivier Alain Cremel

Jeffrey Hu

Suresh Sundriyal

Vishnu Mohan Sekhar

Karthik Ramachandra

Alok Kumar Sinha

Nikitha Kandru

Geoffrey Blair Fritz

Suman Boro

Andrei Warkentin

Raghavendra Subbarao Narahari Venkata

Renaud Benjamin Voltz

Kshitij Vijay Padalkar

Arun Rajan

Jonathan Prince Limhengco

Janakiram Vantipalli

Dipesh Kumar

Zhen Yu

Ritesh Ranjan

An example method of hypervisor lifecycle management in a virtualized computing system having a cluster of hosts includes: receiving, from a user at a lifecycle manager executing in the virtualized computing system, identification of a seed host; obtaining, by the lifecycle manager, a software specification from the seed host, the software specification describing a running image of the hypervisor executing on the seed host; generating, by the lifecycle manager, a software image from metadata and payloads stored on the seed host; setting, by the lifecycle manager, a host desired state for the cluster based on the software specification; and storing, by the lifecycle manager, the software image in a software depot in association with the host desired state.

Recreating a software image from a host in a virtualized computing system

Disclosed are various examples of provisioning a data processing unit (DPU) management operating system (OS). A management hypervisor installer executed on a host device launches or causes a server component to provide a management operating system (OS) installer image at a particular URI accessible over a network internal to the host device. A baseboard management controller (BMC) transfers the DPU management OS installer image to the DPU device. A volatile memory based virtual disk is created using the DPU management OS installer image. The DPU device is booted to a DPU management OS installer on the volatile memory based virtual disk. The DPU management OS installer installs a DPU management operating system to a nonvolatile memory of the DPU device on reboot of the DPU device.

Provisioning DPU management operating systems

An image of a virtualization software and firmware in a plurality of hosts are upgraded by: retrieving metadata of a base image based on a first input that specifies a version of the base image, metadata of an add-on image based on a second input that specifies a server of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in which the virtualization software is to be installed, and metadata of drivers and agents based on a third input that specifies a firmware package for the server of the OEM; validating a desired image of the virtualization software by extracting dependencies and conflicts defined in metadata of all payloads of the desired image of the virtualization software, and confirming there are no violations of the extracted dependencies and conflicts; and upgrading the current image of the virtualization software to the desired image and upgrading the current version of the firmware to the desired version.

Validation of combined software/firmware updates

An example method of upgrading a host in a cluster under management of a lifecycle manager in a virtualized computing system includes: receiving, from the lifecycle manager at a host in the cluster being upgraded, a desired software specification for a hypervisor of the host; determining, by the host, a list of required software installation bundles (SIBs) to satisfy the desired software specification; identifying a neighboring host in the cluster for the host; downloading, from the neighboring host to the host, at least a portion of the required SIBs; and executing an upgrade of the hypervisor in the host using the required SIBs.

Obtaining software updates from neighboring hosts in a virtualized computing system

Disclosed are various embodiments for a unified boot image that can be used to install an operating system onto a host machine and a respective operating system onto a data processing units (DPU) installed on a host machine. The unified boot image contains installation files for installing an operating system on the host machine and an installation depot that can be used to create a boot image for installing the same or different operating system on the DPU. During installation of an operating system on a host machine, the installation workflow can also require installation of an additional operating system or other configuration of a DPU installed in a host machine. In response to determining that an operating system is to be installed on the DPU, the installation depot can be obtained and reformatted into a downloadable format that is compatible with the DPU.

Unified boot image for multiple operating systems

An example method of creating a software image from software executing on a host in a virtualized computing system includes: obtaining, by an image generator executing in the virtualized computing system, an image metadata from the host, the image metadata describing a running image of a hypervisor executing on the host; identifying, from the image metadata, a plurality of software installation bundles (SIBs) used to install the running image on the host; obtaining, from the image metadata, SIB descriptors and SIB signatures for the plurality of SIBs; obtaining, from storage on the host, payloads referenced in the image metadata for the SIBs; and recreating the plurality of SIBs from the SIB descriptors, the SIB signatures, and the payloads.

Recreating software installation bundles from a host in a virtualized computing system

An image of a virtualization software and firmware in a plurality of hosts are upgraded by performing the steps of: in response to a user input, generating a software specification that specifies a desired state of the virtualization software and a desired state of the firmware; based on the software specification, preparing a desired image of the virtualization software that includes software components of a desired version of the firmware; and coordinating an upgrade to the desired image of the virtualization software and the desired version of the firmware in the hosts. The upgrade includes an upgrade in each of the hosts to the desired version of the firmware, and an upgrade in each of the hosts to the desired image of the virtualization software that includes the software components of the desired version of the base image and the software components of the desired version of the firmware.

Software and firmware updates in a combined single pane of glass interface

An example method of upgrading a host in a cluster under management of a lifecycle manager in a virtualized computing system includes: receiving, from the lifecycle manager at a host in the cluster being upgraded, a desired software specification for a hypervisor of the host; determining, by the host, a list of required software installation bundles (SIBs) to satisfy the desired software specification; identifying a neighboring host in the cluster for the host; downloading, from the neighboring host to the host, at least at portion of the required SIBs; and executing an upgrade of the hypervisor in the host using the required SIBs.

An image of a virtualization software and firmware in a plurality of hosts are upgraded by performing the steps of: validating a desired image of the virtualization software by extracting dependencies and conflicts defined in metadata of all payloads of the desired image of the virtualization software, and confirming there are no violations of the extracted dependencies and conflicts; performing a pre-check of the desired image of the virtualization software against a current image of the virtualization software and a pre-check of the desired version of the firmware against a current version of the firmware; and upon determining from results of the pre-check that the virtualization software can be upgraded to the desired image and the firmware can be upgraded to the desired version, upgrading the current image of the virtualization software to the desired image and upgrading the current version of the firmware to the desired version.

Validation and pre-check of combined software/firmware updates

An image of a virtualization software in a plurality of hosts is installed or upgraded by performing the steps of: in response to a user input, generating a software specification that specifies a desired state of the virtualization software; based on the software specification, preparing a desired image of the virtualization software by retrieving metadata of the desired state of the virtualization software and determining components that make up the desired state of the virtualization software; and instructing each of the hosts to install the desired image of the virtualization software or upgrade a current image of the virtualization software to the desired image of the virtualization software. One of the components defines a set of payloads for a core kernel of the virtualization software.

Desired state model for managing lifecycle of virtualization software

A method of validating a desired image of a virtualization software and a firmware package to be installed in a host against a hardware compatibility list (HCL) includes: acquiring a bill of materials for the host that lists hardware devices of the host; for each of the hardware devices, searching for firmware and a driver thereof in the HCL; for each driver included in the desired image that corresponds to one of the hardware devices, determining whether or not the driver is compatible according to the HCL; for each firmware included in the firmware package that corresponds to one of the hardware devices, determining whether or not the firmware is compatible according to the HCL; and validating the desired image of the virtualization software and the firmware package to be installed in the host if each of the hardware devices has a compatible driver and a compatible firmware.

Validation of desired software state image for hardware incompatibilities

A method of creating a software image of a solution to be deployed in a virtualized computing environment includes: retrieving a schema of the solution and determining from the schema software products that are required by the solution and software features that are required by the solution; for each software product, selecting a version of the software product to include in the solution and identifying software features provided by the selected version of the software product; and upon confirming that the selected versions of the software products provide all of the software features that are required, creating the software image of the solution that includes the selected version of each of the software products, and saving the software image in a storage device for deployment in the virtualized computing environment.

Creating and upgrading of solutions for deployment in a virtualized computing environment

Virtualization software installed in a standalone host is remediated according to a desired state model using a desired image of a virtualization software that is used to remediate virtualization software running in hosts which are logically grouped as a cluster of hosts not including the standalone host. The method of remediating the virtualization software installed in the standalone host includes the steps of generating a desired image of the virtualization software of the standalone host from a desired image of the virtualization software of the hosts in the cluster, and upon detecting a difference between an image of the virtualization software currently running in the standalone host and the desired image of the virtualization software of the standalone host, instructing the standalone host to remediate the image of the virtualization software currently running therein to match the desired image of the virtualization software of the standalone host.

Managing lifecycle of virtualization software running in a standalone host

A method of installing an image of a virtualization software installing an image of a virtualization software in a heterogeneous duster of hosts that include first hosts having server hardware of a first type and at least one second host having server hardware of a second type, includes: in response to a user input, generating a software specification that specifies a base image of the virtualization software and an add-on image of the virtualization software; retrieving metadata of the base image and metadata of add-on image; generating first and second desired images of the virtualization software, which are to be applied respectively to the first hosts and the at least one second host, based on the metadata of the base image and metadata of the add-on image; and instructing each of the first and second hosts to install a desired image of the virtualization software therein.

Desired state model for managing lifecycle of virtualization software installed in heterogeneous cluster of hosts

A method of installing an image of a virtualization software in a cluster of hosts includes: in response to a user input, generating a software specification that specifies a base image of the virtualization software and a solution to be enabled; retrieving metadata of the base image, metadata of the solution, and a constraint of the solution; generating a desired image of the virtualization software based on the metadata of the base image and the metadata of the solution in accordance with the constraint; and instructing each host in the duster to install the desired image of the virtualization software.

Growing community of inventors

Bengaluru, India

Aravinda Haryadi