Vmware, Inc.

Mark Russell Johnson

Zachary James Shepherd

Adrian Drzewiecki

Derek William Beard

Jared Sean Rosoff

Benjamin J Corrie

Rajesh Venkatasubramanian

Konstantinos Roussos

Zhelong Pan

Sahan Bamunavita Gamage

Pranshu Jain

Kinshuk Govil

George Gregory Hicken

Yanping Cao

Brian Charles Forney

Steven Michael Kusalo

Kiran Kamath

Joseph Stephen Beda

Fanny Strudel

Pratik Kapadia

Michal Adam Jankowski

Xiaoyun An

Carl Scott Ballenger

Aparna Subramanian

Puneet Birender Katyal

An example virtualized computing system includes: a host cluster having hosts and a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of the hosts, the virtualization layer supporting execution of virtual machines (VMs); an orchestration control plane integrated with the virtualization layer, the orchestration control plane including a master server executing in a first VM of the VMs; guest cluster infrastructure software (GCIS) executing in the master server, the GCIS configured to create a set of objects defining a container orchestration cluster, and manage lifecycles of second VMs of the VMs based on state of the set of objects; and guest software executing in the second VMs to implement the container orchestration cluster as a guest cluster of the host cluster, the guest software having components that interface with the GCIS.

Guest cluster deployed as virtual extension of management cluster in a virtualized computing system

An example virtualized computing system includes a host cluster having a virtualization layer directly executing on hardware platforms of hosts, the virtualization layer supporting execution of virtual machines (VMs), the VMs including pod VMs, the pod VMs including container engines supporting execution of containers in the pod VMs; an orchestration control plane integrated with the virtualization layer, the orchestration control plane including a master server and pod VM controllers, the pod VM controllers executing in the virtualization layer external to the VMs, the pod VM controllers configured as agents of the master server to manage the pod VMs; pod VM agents, executing in the pod VMs, configured as agents of the pod VM controllers to manage the containers executing in the pod VMs.

Container orchestration in a clustered and virtualized computer system

An example virtualized computing system includes a host cluster having a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of hosts, the virtualization layer supporting execution of virtual machines (VMs), the VMs including pod VMs and native VMs, the pod VMs including container engines supporting execution of containers in the pod VMs, the native VMs including applications executing on guest operating systems; and an orchestration control plane integrated with the virtualization layer, the orchestration control plane including a master server having a pod VM controller to manage lifecycles of the pod VMs and a native VM controller to manage lifecycles of the native VMs.

Declarative VM management for a container orchestrator in a virtualized computing system

Container images are managed in a clustered container host system with a shared storage device. Hosts of the system include a virtualization software layer that supports execution of virtual machines (VMs) in the hosts, and one or more VMs have implemented therein a container engine that supports execution of containers within the respective VMs. Deploying a container in a first VM includes creating a virtual disk in the storage device, storing a container image in the virtual disk, mounting the virtual disk to the first VM, and updating a metadata cache to associate the container image to the virtual disk. Deploying the container in a second VM executed in a host different from a host in which the first VM is executed, includes checking the metadata cache to determine that the container image is stored in the virtual disk, and mounting the virtual disk to the second VM.

Global cache for container images in a clustered container host system

An example method of determining operational health of a virtualized computing system includes: monitoring, at a service executing in the virtualized computing system, a current configuration of a software-defined data center (SDDC) with respect to a desired state, the desired state including: a host cluster having hosts executing a virtualization layer thereon; a software-defined (SD) network deployed in the host cluster; shared storage accessible by the host cluster; a virtual infrastructure (VI) control plane managing the host cluster, the SD network, and the shared storage; and an orchestration control plane integrated with the virtualization layer and the VI control plane; determining a configuration status for the current configuration of the SDDC; monitoring, at the service, operational status of an application management system executing on the SDDC having the current configuration; and determining at least one measure of the operational health in response to the configuration status and the operational status.

Operational health of an integrated application orchestration and virtualized computing system

This disclosure describes a computer implemented method for receiving authentication credentials identifying a user; identifying computing systems for which the user is authorized access to; and transmitting tokens granting access to the identified computing systems. In some embodiments, no two tokens of the transmitted tokens grants access to the same one of the identified computing systems. The user typically has access to a management tool configured to manage the transmission of the received tokens to the corresponding computing systems, thereby granting the user the ability to have seamless access to any of the computing systems associated with the user's authenticated identity.

Mechanism of common authentication for both supervisor and guest clusters

An example method of managing an application in a virtualized computing system that includes a cluster of hosts managed by a virtualization management server, the hosts including a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms is described. The method includes: receiving a specification for a namespace at the virtualization management server, the specification defining resource constraints and authorization constraints for the namespace; preparing an environment within the virtualized computing system for the namespace in response to the specification, the environment including: a resource pool implementing at least a portion of the resource constraints as reservations and limits of resources in the virtualized computing system; and a user access policy implementing the authorization constraints within the virtualized computing system for the namespace; and managing, by the virtualization management server as a single unit, workloads of the application, the workloads deployed on the virtualization layer within the resource pool consistent with the user access policy.

Namespaces as units of management in a clustered and virtualized computer system

An example method of checking compatibility of a guest cluster executing as a virtual extension of a host cluster having an orchestration control plane managing the guest cluster, the host cluster being part of a software defined data center (SDDC), is described. The method includes: receiving, at the orchestration control plane, a guest cluster infrastructure software (GCIS) compatibility document that specifies what a GCIS of the orchestration control plane requires and offers; receiving a request for a compatibility check on the guest cluster with respect to the GCIS; obtaining, at the orchestration control plane in response to the request, an SDDC compatibility documents for the SDDC and a guest cluster compatibility document for the guest cluster; computing, at the orchestration control plane, the compatibility check in response to the GCIS compatibility document, the SDDC compatibility document, and the guest cluster compatibility document; and transmitting a result of the compatibility check from the orchestration control plane to a virtual infrastructure (VI) control plane of the SDDC.

Software compatibility checking for managed clusters in a virtualized computing system

Various aspects are disclosed for unified resource management of containers and virtual machines. A podVM resource configuration for a pod virtual machine (podVM) is determined using container configurations. The podVM comprising a virtual machine (VM) that provides resource isolation for a pod based on the podVM resource configuration. A host selection for the podVM is received from a VM scheduler. The host selection identifies hardware resources for the podVM. A container scheduler is limited to bind the podVM to a node corresponding to the hardware resources of the host selection from the VM scheduler. The podVM is created in a host corresponding to the host selection. Containers are started within the podVM. The containers correspond to the container configurations.

Unified resource management for containers and virtual machines

An example virtualized computing system includes a host cluster having hosts and a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of the hosts, the virtualization layer supporting execution of virtual machines (VMs), the VMs including pod VMs, the pod VMs including container engines supporting execution of containers in the pod VMs; and an orchestration control plane integrated with the virtualization layer, the orchestration control plane including a master server configured to manage the pod VMs and first VMs of the VMs. The virtualized computing system further includes a guest cluster executing in the first VMs and managed by the orchestration control plane, the guest cluster including a guest master server configured to, in cooperation with the master server, deploy first pods in the pod VMs.

Pod deployment in a guest cluster executing as a virtual extension of management cluster in a virtualized computing system

A virtualized computing system according to an example includes: a host cluster having hosts and a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of the hosts, the virtualization layer supporting execution of virtual machines (VMs); a container image registry configured to manage container images for deploying containers in the host cluster; an orchestration control plane integrated with the virtualization layer, the orchestration control plane including a master server executing in a first VM of the VMs, the master server configured to manage image secrets based on accounts in the container image registry; and a guest cluster, managed by the orchestration control plane and executing in second VMs of the VMs, the guest cluster configured to receive the image secrets from the master server and access the container image registry using the image secrets.

Image registry resource sharing among container orchestrators in a virtualized computing system

A hybrid cloud storage solution provides a private cloud storage system that is backed by a public cloud storage system. The private cloud storage system caches data files that are accessed from the public cloud storage system by virtual machines or containers in a virtualized computing environment. Subsequent accesses are directed towards the cached data files in the private cloud storage system, rather than being directed towards the public cloud storage system, thereby reducing costs and performance overhead associated with accessing the public cloud storage systems. The cached data files are contained in virtual machine disks (VMDKs) that are portable between virtualized computing instances that run in the virtualized computing environment.

Disks in a virtualized computing environment that are backed by remote storage

A container image registry is managed in a virtualized computing system. The container image registry manages container images for deploying containers in a host cluster, the host cluster includes hosts and a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of the hosts, and the virtualization layer supports execution of virtual machines (VMs). The method includes: creating a namespace for an orchestration control plane integrated with the virtualization layer, the namespace including constraints for deploying workloads in the VMs; invoking, by a registry service in response to creation of the namespace, a management application programming interface (API) of the container image registry to create a project for the container images; and invoking, by the registry service, the management API of the container image registry to both add members to the project, and assign image registry roles to the members, in response to bindings of users and namespace roles derived from the constraints.

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Mark Russell Johnson