Nutanix, Inc.

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.

Kalpesh Ashok Bafna

Anil Kumar Gopalapura Venkatesh

Durga Mahesh Arikatla

Richard James Sharpe

Shyamsunder Prayagchand Rathi

Devyani Suryakant Kanada

Satyajit Sanjeev Deshmukh

Vishal Sinha

Mausumi Ranasingh

Rishabh Sharma

Manoj Premanand Naik

Yifeng Huang

Eric Wang

Aroosh Sohi

Alexander Michael Bunch

Vijaykumar Bellubbi

Saurabh Tyagi

Venkata Vamsi Krishna Kothuri

Rashmi Gupta

Kavitha Pasikanti

Sanath Kumar Kalligundi Shivaswamy

Lakshmana Reddy

Kwun-Nan Kevin Lin

Pankaj Kumar Sinha

Hemanth Kumar Thummala

Ketan Kotwal

Sagar Gupta

Pradeep Thomas

Uday Kiran Jonnala

Simon Martin Mijolovic

Gefan Zhang

Deepak Tripathi

Sanika Nitin Mokashi

Tao Guan

Andrey Khilko

Luong Ngo

Siddhesh Dindorkar

A replication policy management and scheduling technique of a Files service is configured for deployment in multi-site data replication environments. The technique involves policy management for data distribution and/or data consolidation (concentration) where multiple sources, e.g., file system (FS) clusters or sites, replicate the data to a central target FS site, e.g., in a spoke and hub arrangement typical of remote office/branch office environments. The technique also involves creation and configuration of a main replication policy by a customer at a central resource manager configured to interact and manage the FS sites, each of which includes one or more file server virtual machines.

Replication policy management and scheduling technique of a files service

In one embodiment, a system for managing a virtualization environment includes a set of host machines, each of which includes a hypervisor, virtual machines, and a virtual machine controller, and a first virtualized file server configured to receive a request to access a storage item located at a second virtualized file server, determine that the storage item is designated as being accessible by other virtualized file servers, identify an FSVM of the second virtualized file server at which the storage item is located, and forward the request to the FSVM of the second virtualized file server. The storage item may be designated as being accessible by other virtualized file servers when the storage item is associated with a predetermined tag value indicating that the storage item is shared among virtualized file servers. The predetermined tag value may be stored in a sharding map in association with the storage item.

Virtualized file server data sharing

Examples of a virtualized file server that persistently stores file system event data records are described. The virtualized file server may include an audit framework with a connector publisher that is configured to publish the event data records and other information for consumption by other services using a message system. The event data records may include data related to various operations on the file system executed by the VFS. The VFS may persistently store event data records according to a data retention policy and/or until an event data record is consumed by one or more particular services.

Virtualized file servers and methods to persistently store file system event data

Examples of systems described herein provide for share-level disaster recovery on, for example, virtualized file servers by enabling additional snapshots, including self-service recovery (SSR) snapshot migration in addition to replication snapshot migration to a disaster recovery location. In examples, a disaster recovery location may receive a replication of a share of a file system, the snapshot configured for recovery of the share at the disaster recovery location. The replication snapshot may include one or more additional snapshots, each taken since a time of a previous replication snapshot. At least one of the one or more additional snapshots may include an SSR snapshot, identifiable based at least on a tag associated with a process used to create the SSR snapshot at a primary location. The at least one additional snapshot may be extracted for use by another instance of the process at the disaster recovery location.

Self-service restore (SSR) snapshot replication with share-level file system disaster recovery on virtualized file servers

An example file server manager updates a selected share of a destination distributed file server based on a snapshot of at least a portion of a selected share of a source distributed file server. The selected share of the destination distributed file server is updated while the source distributed file server serves client requests for storage items of the selected share of the source distributed file server. The file server manager receives a request to failover from the source distributed file server to the destination distributed file server and configures the destination distributed file server to service read and write requests for storage items of the selected share of the destination distributed file server. The file server manager further redirects client requests for storage items of the selected share of the source distributed file server to the destination distributed file server by updating active directory information.

Failover and failback of distributed file servers

In one embodiment, a system for managing a virtualization environment includes a set of host machines, each of which includes a hypervisor, virtual machines, and a virtual machine controller, one or more virtual disks comprising a plurality of storage devices, the one or more virtual disks being accessible by the virtual machine controllers, where the virtual machine controllers conduct I/O transactions with the virtual disks, and a deployment system configured to receive a request to deploy a virtualized file server on a plurality of host machines, where the request is associated with deployment parameters, select a deployment image for the host machines based on the deployment parameters, and provide the deployment image to each host machine via the virtual disk. The virtual machine controller located on the host machine stores at least a portion of the deployment image on a storage device associated with the host machine.

Virtualized file server deployment

In one embodiment, a system for managing a virtualization environment includes host machines implementing a virtualization environment, a plurality of clusters of the host machines, a virtualized file server (VFS) comprising a plurality of file server virtual machines (FSVMs), and a VFS cluster manager (CM) configured to distribute storage items among the clusters and receive cluster storage statistics for one or more shares of the VFS. The CM is further configured to, in response to a request from a first FSVM to identify a storage location for a storage item, identify a cluster at which the storage item is to be located based on the cluster storage statistics, identify a second FSVM at which the storage item is to be located based on compute usage statistics of one or more FSVMs in the identified cluster, and send an address of the second FSVM to the first FSVM.

Virtualized file server distribution across clusters

An example file server manager disclosed herein receives a registration for a distributed file server, where the distributed file server is hosted in a virtualization environment and includes a cluster of file server virtual machines configured to provide access to a file system. The file server manager further synchronizes metadata with the distributed file server, the metadata including identification of each of the file server virtual machines of the cluster of file server virtual machines, the metadata including information regarding the file system and receiving a management request for the distributed file server. The file server manager further formats the management request for the virtualization environment based on the metadata and utilizing information from the registration to access the distributed file server with the formatted management request.

File server managers and systems for managing virtualized file servers

A file server manager disclosed herein accesses information regarding a selected share of a source distributed file server for replication, where the selected share stores at least a portion of a namespace of storage items and is hosted by a first file server virtual machine of the source distributed file server. The file server manager accesses a mapping between virtual machines of the source distributed file server and virtual machines of the destination distributed file server and replicates the selected share to a second file server virtual machine of the destination distributed file server based on the mapping. The file server manager directs a request to read a first storage item to the destination distributed file server and directs a request to write to a second storage item to the source distributed file server while the destination distributed file server services the request to read the first storage item.

Share-based file server replication for disaster recovery

In one embodiment, a system for managing communication connections in a virtualization environment includes a plurality of host machines implementing a virtualization environment, wherein each of the host machines includes a hypervisor, at least one user virtual machine (user VM), and a distributed file server that includes file server virtual machines (FSVMs) and associated local storage devices. Each FSVM and associated local storage device are local to a corresponding one of the host machines, and the FSVMs conduct I/O transactions with their associated local storage devices based on I/O requests received from the user VMs. Each of the user VMs on each host machine sends each of its representative I/O requests to an FSVM that is selected by one or more of the FSVMs for each I/O request based on a lookup table that maps a storage item referenced by the I/O request to the selected one of the FSVMs.

Virtualized file server

In one embodiment, a system for managing a virtualization environment includes a set of host machines, each of which includes a hypervisor, virtual machines, and a virtual machine controller, and a data migration system configured to identify one or more existing storage items stored at one or more existing File Server Virtual Machines (FSVMs) of an existing virtualized file server (VFS). For each of the existing storage items, the data migration system is configured to identify a new FSVMs of a new VFS based on the existing FSVM, send a representation of the storage item from the existing FSVM to the new FSVM, such that representations of storage items are sent between different pairs of FSVMs in parallel, and store a new storage item at the new FSVM, such that the new storage item is based on the representation of the existing storage item received by the new FSVM.

Virtualized file server smart data ingestion

Examples described herein include virtualized file servers which may include cloned instances of the virtualized file server. Cloning a virtualized the server may allow for testing of new and/or revised features, disaster recovery plans, or other configurations while maintaining availability of the parent (e.g., source) virtualized file server.

Cloning virtualized file servers

In one embodiment, a system for managing a virtualization environment includes a set of host machines, each of which includes a hypervisor, virtual machines, and a virtual machine controller, and a virtualized file server backup system configured to identify backup data, wherein the backup data comprises data stored on the virtual disks and VFS configuration information, and the first data is identified in accordance with a backup policy, send the backup data to one or more remote sites for storage, and, in response to detection of changes in the backup data, send the changes to the remote sites in accordance with a replication policy. The backup data may be identified based on a protection domain associated with the backup policy. The data stored on the VFS may include one or more storage objects. The storage objects may include shares, groups of shares, files, or directories.

Virtualized file server disaster recovery

In one embodiment, a system for managing communication connections in a virtualization environment includes a plurality of host machines implementing a virtualization environment, wherein each of the host machines includes a hypervisor, at least one user virtual machine (user VM), and a distributed file server that includes file server virtual machines (FSVMs) and associated local storage devices. Each FSVM and associated local storage device are local to a corresponding one of the host machines, and the FSVMs conduct I/O transactions with their associated local storage devices based on I/O requests received from the user VMs. Each of the user VMs on each host machine sends each of its representative I/O requests to an FSVM that is selected by one or more of the FSVMs for each I/O request based on a lookup table that maps a storage item referenced by the I/O request to I/O the selected one of the FSVMs.

Examples described herein include virtualized environments including a virtualized file server. Examples of file server virtual machine managers are described which may setup and/or configure file server virtual machines in accordance with a target number of connections and/or a target throughput for the virtualized file server. The virtualized file server may be scaled up, scaled down, scaled in, and/or scaled out.

Growing community of inventors

Milpitas, CA, United States of America

Kalpesh Ashok Bafna