Vmware, Inc.

Sanjay Vasudev Acharya

Chiao-Chuan Shih

Satyam B Vaghani

Samdeep Nayak

Rajesh Bhat

Vinay Gaonkar

Ilia Sokolinski

Komal Desai

Li Zhou

Sandeep Madhav Uttamchandani

Anjaneya Prasad Gondi

Shoby A Cherian

Tejasvi Aswathanarayana

Hemanth Kalluri

Sujay Shrikant Godbole

Marcus Armando Benedetto Campi

Rajest Bhat

Embodiments provide data in-flight (DIF) services to software applications such as virtual machines (VMs) at an application level without requiring modification to established storage protocols. In exemplary embodiments, a storage controller transmits an advertisement of one or more data in-flight (DIF) services supported by a storage container of the storage controller. One or more DIF services communication path is created with attributes corresponding to the DIF services supported by the storage container. The storage controller receives, over the DIF services communication path, tagged data that can include data transmitted by a virtual machine (VM) for storage in the storage container.

Receiving application-specific data in-flight (DIF) services along a communication path selected based on a DIF services policy associated with a VM

Some embodiments provide a method of providing distributed storage services to a host computer from a network interface card (NIC) of the host computer. At the NIC, the method accesses a set of one or more external storages operating outside of the host computer through a shared port of the NIC that is not only used to access the set of external storages but also for forwarding packets not related to an external storage. In some embodiments, the method accesses the external storage set by using a network fabric storage driver that employs a network fabric storage protocol to access the external storage set. The method presents the external storage as a local storage of the host computer to a set of programs executing on the host computer. In some embodiments, the method presents the local storage by using a storage emulation layer on the NIC to create a local storage construct that presents the set of external storages as a local storage of the host computer.

Using physical and virtual functions associated with a NIC to access an external storage through network fabric driver

A virtualization platform can discover capabilities of data devices connected in a virtual infrastructure. The virtualization platform allows a user (e.g., system administrator) to specify a policy profile for a virtual machine in terms of performance and data handling parameters. The virtualization platform can provision a virtual machine comprising data devices having a combined capability that matches the policy profile. Enforcement of a policy profile can be made when I/O is performed by a virtual machine.

Application aware storage resource management

Embodiments perform capability discovery, policy management, and policy enforcement to provide data in-flight (DIF) services to virtual machines (VMs) without requiring modification to established storage protocols. In exemplary embodiments, a management device receives advertisements of DIF services supported by network nodes. The management device groups the advertised DIF services into a DIF services policy. The management device associates a host and a communication path. The management device enforces the DIF services policy by storing a unique number that causes transmission of data along the communication path.

Capability discovery and enforcement to provide data in-flight (DIF) services along a communication path selected based on a DIF services policy associated with a virtual machine

Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems include a management server receiving, from each of a plurality of switches, physical topology data of network nodes. The physical topology data includes identifiers of hosts connected to each of the switches and identifiers of storage connected to each of the switches. The management server transmits a query to each of the network nodes and receives, in response to each query, the capabilities of each network node. In response to receiving a request to create a cluster of the hosts, the management server selects hosts and storage from the physical topology data to create the cluster. The hosts and storage are selected based upon the capabilities received from each network node. The management server determines transport protocol login service parameters based upon the received storage capabilities and transmits the parameters to one or more of the plurality of switches, hosts, and storage.

Storage provisioning and configuration of network protocol parameters

Application aware service policy enforcement and autonomous feedback-based remediation

Embodiments provide data in-flight (DIF) services to software applications such as virtual machines (VMs) at an application level without requiring modification to established storage protocols. In exemplary embodiments, a software application is associated with a DIF services policy indicating one or more DIF services to apply to the software application. Data transmitted by the software application to a destination is tagged based on the DIF services policy associated with the software application and transmitted to the destination.

Application-specific data in-flight (DIF) services along a communication path selected based on a DIF services policy associated with a VM

Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems a management server receiving, from a switch, an indication of network congestion at the switch. The indication includes one or more contributors to the network congestion. In response to the indication of network congestion, the management server identifies one or more hosts running the identified contributor(s) and transmits an instruction to the host(s) to restrict network traffic originated by the contributor(s). For example, the restriction may include a reduction in the contributor's I/O queue depth. If the reduction in traffic does not remedy the congestion, the management server may receive a further indication of congestion and further instruct the host(s) to restrict identified contributor network traffic. For example, the contributors may have their I/O queue depth reduced exponentially until congestion is relieved. Upon receiving an indication that the congestion is relieved, the management server instructs the host(s) to remove the restriction on network traffic.

Selective network traffic throttling

Application-specific data in-flight services along a communication path selected based on a DIF services policy associated with a VM

The instant disclosure describes embodiments of a system and method for migrating virtual machine (VM)-specific content cached in a solid state drive (SSD) attached to an original host. During operation, the original host receives event indicating an upcoming migration of a VM to a destination host. In response, the original host transmits a set of metadata associated with the SSD cache to the destination host. The metadata indicates a number of data blocks stored in the SSD cache, thereby allowing the destination host to pre-fetch data blocks specified in the metadata from a storage shared by the original host and the destination host. Subsequently, the original host receives a power-off event for the VM, and transmits a dirty block list to the destination. The dirty block list specifies one or more data blocks that have changed since the transmission of the metadata.

Method and system for VM-granular SSD/FLASH cache live migration

The storage system exports logical storage volumes that are provisioned as storage objects. These storage objects are accessed on demand by connected computer systems using standard protocols, such as SCSI and NFS, through logical endpoints for the protocol traffic that are configured in the storage system. Logical storage volumes are created from a logical storage container having an address space that maps to storage locations of the physical data storage units. Each of the logical storage volumes so created has an address space that maps to the address space of the logical storage container. A logical storage container may span more than one storage system and logical storage volumes of different customers can be provisioned from the same logical storage container with appropriate security settings.

Object storage system

A method processes input-output commands (IOs) in a storage system. The storage system receives an IO including first and second identifiers. The first identifier is used to direct the IO to the storage system. At the storage system, the method retrieves the second identifier from the IO and translates the second identifier to a logical storage volume identifier. Then, the method executes the IO on storage locations referenced by a logical storage volume corresponding to the logical storage volume identifier.

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Sanjay Vasudev Acharya