Vmware, Inc.

Ashish Kaila

Mukund Gunti

Aravinda Haryadi

Rajesh Venkatasubramanian

Suresh Sundriyal

Tobias Stumpf

Adrian Drzewiecki

Patrick William Penzias Dirks

Abhishek Srivastava

Julien Freche

Naga Ullas Vankayala Harinathagupta

Vishnu Mohan Sekhar

Tobias Franz Rolf Stumpf

Stanley Zhang

Wenguang Wang

Kiran Tati

Ishan Banerjee

Preeti Agarwal

Halesh Sadashiv

Lingyuan He

Kshitij Vijay Padalkar

Lorenzo David

Nahim El Atmani

Syed Zahed Khurasani

Zhen Yu

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

Techniques that enable a hypervisor to (1) maintain shared memory pages and (2) handle memory accounting for VMs that are suspended to and resumed from the volatile memory of a host system are provided. Regarding (1), the hypervisor can maintain shared memory pages in volatile memory across the suspend-to-memory and resume-from-memory operations, without having to save their reference counts. Regarding (2), the hypervisor can keep track of the volatile memory reserved and consumed by VMs as they are suspended and resumed, without erroneously double counting that memory.

Handling memory accounting when suspending and resuming virtual machines to/from volatile memory

An example method of hypervisor lifecycle management in a virtualized computing system having a cluster of hosts is described. The method includes: obtaining, by remediation software executing in a host of the hosts, a host state document from a distributed key-value store, the host state document defining a desired state of software in the host, the software including a hypervisor; and performing, by the remediation software in coordination with other hosts of the hosts through the distributed key-value store, a lifecycle operation on the software of the host in response to determining that a current state of the software does not match the desired state.

Distributed autonomous lifecycle management of hypervisors in a virtualized computing system

Systems and methods are described for improved error logging during system boot and shutdown. A hardware initialization firmware on a computing device can include a logging module. When errors occur during early system booting or late system shutdown, the firmware can create error logs. The logging module can receive the error logs and prioritize them according to a set of rules. The logging module can select error logs of the highest priority up to a predetermined maximum amount. The logging module can modify the error logs using a shorthand form and write them to nonvolatile random-access memory. The firmware can initialize runtime services and launch an operating system. A system logger on the operating system can retrieve the error logs, save them to a file, and erase them from the memory.

Error logging during system boot and shutdown

The disclosure provides an approach for a non-disruptive system upgrade. Embodiments include installing an upgraded version of an operating system (OS) on a computing system while a current version of the OS continues to run. Embodiments include entering a maintenance mode on the computing system, including preventing the addition of new applications and modifying the handling of storage operations on the computing system for the duration of the maintenance mode. Embodiments include, during the maintenance mode, configuring the upgraded version of the OS. Embodiments include, after configuring the upgraded version of the OS, suspending a subset of applications running on the computing system, transferring control over resources of the computing system to the upgraded version of the OS, and resuming the subset of the applications running on the computing system. Embodiments include exiting the maintenance mode on the computing system.

Techniques for non-disruptive operating system upgrade

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

Examples described herein include systems and methods for retaining information about bad memory pages across an operating system reboot. An example method includes detecting, by a first instance of an operating system, an error in a memory page of a non-transitory storage medium of a computing device executing the operating system. The operating system can tag the memory page as a bad memory page, indicating that the memory page should not be used by the operating system. The operating system can also store tag information indicating memory pages of the storage medium that are tagged as bad memory pages. The example method can also include receiving an instruction to reboot the operating system, booting a second instance of the operating system, and providing the tag information to the second instance of the operating system. The operating system can use the tag information to avoid using the bad memory pages.

Saving page retire information persistently across operating system reboots

An example method of managing a lifecycle of virtualization software in a host is described. The method includes: obtaining, by an initiator in a current version of the virtualization software, a software installation bundle (SIB) from an image repository for a target version of the virtualization software, the SIB including a patcher; verifying, by the initiator, authenticity of the SIB; mounting at least one payload of the SIB in a root filesystem of the virtualization software, and initiating, by the initiator, the patcher in the at least one payload as mounted to perform at least one check operation.

Managing lifecycle of virtualization software in a virtualized computing system

A method of probing a computer system includes steps of compiling a script that includes a call to a first function with first parameters, to generate executable code that includes a call to a second function with second parameters, wherein the second function and the second parameters are specified as values of the first parameters of the first function in the call to the first function, injecting the executable code into an executing module of the computer system, and as the executing module is running, executing the executable code to call the second function.

Calling arbitrary functions in the kernel via a probe script

A desired image of a virtualization software is deployed in hosts that are located in a remote data center which is connected to a central data center over a first network having a lower bandwidth than that of a second network over which the hosts in the remote data center communicate with each other. The method of deploying the virtualization software in the hosts includes: upgrading the virtualization software in a first host of the plurality of hosts using portions of the desired image that are transmitted from the central data center to the remote data center over the first network; and upgrading the virtualization software in a second host of the plurality of hosts using portions of the desired image that are transmitted from the first host to the second host over the second network, without retransmitting the portions from the central data center to the remote data center.

Deploying virtualization software in a remote cluster

The disclosure provides a technique for reducing cache misses to a cache of a computer system. The technique includes deallocating memory pages of the cache from one process and allocating those memory pages to another process based on cache misses of each process during a given time period. Repeating the technique leads the total number of cache misses to the cache to gradually decrease to an optimum or near optimum level. The repetition of the technique leads to a dynamic and flexible apportionment of cache memory pages to processes running within the computer system.

System and methods of a self-tuning cache sizing system in a cache partitioning system

A first hypervisor uses a first version of a virtual-memory file system (VMemFS) suspends virtual machines. A second hypervisor uses a instance of the VMemFS, the version of which may be the same or different from the first version. The VMemFS is designed so that an instance of the same or a later version of the VMemFS can read and ingest information in memory written to memory by another instance of the VMemFS. Accordingly, the second hypervisor resumes the virtual machines, effecting an update or other swap of hypervisors with minimal interruption. In other examples, the swapped hypervisors support process containers or simply support virtual memory.

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Ashish Kaila