Vmware, Inc.

Oracle International Corporation

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Brian M Oki

Alkesh Shah

Leonid Livshin

Ramses V Morales

Austin Kramer

Sunil Vajir

Nitin Nagaraja

James William Stamos

Konstantinos Roussos

Sohrab Modi

Mukesh Hira

Roger J Bamford

Adrian Drzewiecki

Sankar Ramamoorthi

Alan J Demers

Olivier Alain Cremel

Akash Kodenkiri

Mahalingam Mani

Kevin C Fox

Gary Hallmark

Ramsés V Morales

Ammar Rizvi

Sandeep Jain

Krishnendu Gorai

Hariprasad B Mankude

Vasantha K Tammana

Sandeep Sinha

Subhankar Biswas

Swapnil Dattatraya Tiwari

Venkata N V Mukkavilli

An example method of data protection in a virtualized computing system, the virtualized computing system including a host cluster, a virtualization management server connected, and a network manager coupled to a physical network, the host cluster having hosts and a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of the hosts, is described. The method includes: receiving a backup request; executing, in response to the backup request, a coupled backup of the virtualization management server and the network manager, including: creating a backup of a first database in the virtualization management server, the first database storing first configuration data for a virtual infrastructure (VI) control plane of the host cluster; creating a backup of a second database in the network manager, the second database storing second configuration data for a logical network deployed in the host cluster; and storing the coupled backup in remote storage.

Data protection for control planes in a virtualized computer system

An example method of deploying a virtual machine (VM) in a software-defined data center (SDDC) includes: receiving a VM specification for the VM at an elastic control plane executing in a cluster of hosts having a virtualization layer; composing, by the elastic control plane in response to the VM specification, logical resources of the cluster managed by the virtualization layer; composing, by the elastic control plane, physical resources of the SDDC to add new hardware to the cluster; expanding, by the elastic control plane, the logical resources with new logical resources managed by the virtualization layer and backed by the new hardware; and deploying, by the elastic control plane, the VM in a virtual environment composed from the logical resources as expanded.

Deploying virtual machines in a software-defined data center

An example method of deploying a logical network platform in a virtualized computing system, the virtualized computing system including a host cluster and a virtualization management server connected to a physical network, the host cluster having hosts and a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of the hosts is described. The method includes receiving, at the virtualization management server, a declarative specification describing a proposed state of the logical network platform; deploying, by the virtualization management server, a network manager of the logical network platform in response to the proposed state in the declarative specification; and deploying, by the virtualization management server in cooperation with the network manager, binaries to the hosts in the host cluster.

Logical network platform install and upgrade in a virtualized computer system

An example method of orchestrating a software-defined (SD) network layer of a virtualized computing system is described, the virtualized computing system including a host cluster, a virtualization management server, and a network management server each connected to a physical network, the host cluster having hosts and a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of the hosts. The method includes receiving, at the virtualization management server, a declarative specification describing a proposed state of an SD network for the host cluster, deploying, by the virtualization management server, virtualized infrastructure components in the host cluster in response to the proposed state in the declarative specification, and deploying, by the virtualization management server in cooperation with the network management server, logical network services supported by the virtualized infrastructure components in response to the proposed state in the declarative specification.

Software-defined network orchestration in a virtualized computer system

The present disclosure relates to using maintenance mode to upgrade a distributed system. One method includes determining that a first host of a cluster of a software-defined datacenter (SDDC) is to be upgraded as a part of a rolling upgrade of the hosts of the cluster, wherein the first host is executing a process instance of a cluster store, demoting the process instance to a proxy, creating a replica of the process instance using a different proxy on a second host of the cluster, instructing the first host to enter a maintenance mode, upgrading the first host, and instructing the first host to leave the maintenance mode.

Using maintenance mode to upgrade a distributed system

The present disclosure relates to health measurement and remediation of distributed systems upgrades. One method includes communicating a request for a health status to a cluster store provided by a cluster of hosts of a software-defined datacenter, wherein the cluster store includes a plurality of process instances undergoing a rolling upgrade, receiving a health status indication in response to the request, the health status indication determined based on a determination of whether the cluster store is available and a determination of whether the cluster store is operational, and taking a remediation action in response to the health status indication exceeding a threshold.

Health measurement and remediation of distributed systems upgrades

A method for maintaining fault tolerance in a storage cluster is provided. Embodiments include receiving, by a management component associated with a distributed data store on a cluster of host machines, a request to place a first host machine of the cluster of host machines in a maintenance mode, wherein the first host machine stores given data of the distributed data store. Embodiments include determining whether a second host machine that does not currently store any data of the distributed data store exists in the cluster of host machines. Embodiments include determining, based on whether the second host machine exists in the cluster of host machines, whether to transfer the given data of the distributed data store from the first host machine to the second host machine. Embodiments include initiating the maintenance mode on the first host machine.

Maintaining a fault-tolerance threshold of a clusterstore during maintenance activities

A method for reconciling host membership information in a data center. The method generally includes querying, by a remote management device configured to manage one or more host clusters in the data center, one or more cluster stores to retrieve first host membership information for each of the one or more host clusters, each cluster store being associated with a host cluster of the one or more host clusters, comparing second host membership information stored at the remote management device for the one or more host clusters to the first host membership information to identify one or more discrepancies between the second host membership information and the first host membership information, and updating the second host membership information such that the second host membership information is consistent with the first host membership information.

Reconciling host cluster membership during recovery

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that uses a destination address of a packet to perform a fast lookup to determine a service that is specified by the destination address. The system initially receives a packet at an interface node in the cluster of nodes. This packet includes a source address specifying a location of a client that the packet originated from, and the destination address specifying a service provided by the cluster of nodes. The system uses the destination address to perform a first lookup into a first lookup structure containing identifiers for scalable services. Note that a scalable service is a service that provides more server node capacity for the scalable service as demand for the scalable service increases. If no identifier for a scalable service is returned during the first lookup, the system sends the packet to a server node in the cluster of nodes that provides a non-scalable service.

Method and apparatus for performing a fast service lookup in cluster networking

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that uses a packet distribution table to distribute packets to server nodes in a cluster of nodes that operate in concert to provide at least one service. The system operates by receiving a packet at an interface node in the cluster of nodes. This packet includes a source address specifying a location of a client that the packet originated from, and a destination address specifying a service provided by the cluster of nodes (and possibly a protocol). The system uses the destination address to lookup a packet distribution table. The system then performs a function that maps the source address to an entry in the packet distribution table, and retrieves an identifier specifying a server node from the entry in the packet distribution table. Next, the system forwards the packet to the server node specified by the identifier so that the server node can perform a service for the client. In this way, packets directed to a service specified by a single destination address are distributed across multiple server nodes in a manner specified by the packet distribution table. In one embodiment of the present invention, the system allows the server node to send return communications directly back to the client without forwarding the communications through the interface node. In one embodiment of the present invention, the function includes a hash function that maps different source addresses to different entries in the packet distribution table in a substantially random manner. Note that this hash function always maps a given source address to the same entry in the packet distribution table.

Method and apparatus for providing scalable services using a packet distribution table

A method and system are provided for duplicating at a destination site changes made to data at a source site. According to the method a plurality of streams are established between the source site and the destination site. The plurality of streams are used in parallel to propagate changes made at the source site to the destination site. A record of transactions that made changes that need to be propagated from the source site to the destination site is maintained at the source site. Before propagating changes made by a transaction to the destination site on a stream of the plurality of streams, the record of transactions is inspected to identify a set of transactions whose changes are not known to have been made permanent at the destination site. It is then determined whether the transaction could possibly depend on any transaction in the set of transactions. If the transaction could not possibly depend on any transaction in the set of transactions, then the changes made by the transaction are propagated to the destination site using one of the plurality of streams.

Parallel queue propagation

A method and apparatus for comparing a first set of data and a second set of data are disclosed. A subset of base data is compared to a subset of replicated data to determine discrepancies. These discrepancies are then used to modify the replicated set of data, and the replicated set of data thus becomes identical to the base set of data. Alternately, the base data is compared directly to the replicated data and differences between the base data and the replicated data are obtained. These differences are then used to modify the replicated data to become identical to the base data.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Brian M Oki