Nutanix, Inc.

Panzura, Inc.

Hitachi-lg Data Storage, Inc.

Richard James Sharpe

Durga Mahesh Arikatla

Kalpesh Ashok Bafna

Shyamsunder Prayagchand Rathi

Anil Kumar Gopalapura Venkatesh

Satyajit Sanjeev Deshmukh

Vishal Sinha

Devyani Suryakant Kanada

Rishabh Sharma

Yifeng Huang

Rashmi Gupta

Randy Yen-pang Chou

Andrew P Davis

Allan Burrington

Yun Lin

John Richard Taylor

Ravender Goyal

Kyquang Son

Amir H Torkaman

Jamie Nam

Kimhoe Pang

In one embodiment, a system for managing a virtualization environment comprises a plurality of host machines, one or more virtual disks comprising a plurality of storage devices, a virtualized file server (VFS) comprising a plurality of file server virtual machines (FSVMs), wherein each of the FSVMs is running on one of the host machines and conducts I/O transactions with the one or more virtual disks, and a virtualized file server self-healing system configured to identify one or more corrupt units of stored data at one or more levels of a storage hierarchy associated with the storage devices, wherein the levels comprise one or more of file level, filesystem level, and storage level, and when data corruption is detected, cause each FSVM on which at least a portion of the unit of stored data is located to recover the unit of stored data.

Self-healing 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 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

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

In one embodiment, a system for managing a virtualization environment includes a plurality of host machines, wherein each of the host machines comprises a hypervisor and one or more user virtual machines (user VMs), and a virtual machine controller, one or more virtual disks comprising a plurality of storage devices, a virtualized file server (VFS) comprising a plurality of file server virtual machines (FSVMs), wherein each of the FSVMs is running on one of the host machines. The VFS may be configured to receive a request for storage system information from a user and generate and send a response to the request, wherein the response is customized according to configuration information of the VFS that is specific to the user. The storage system information requested may include a total size of storage available to the user, and the user may have an associated storage quota limit.

Virtualized file server user views

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

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.

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 respective 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.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Richard James Sharpe