Vmware, Inc.

Zubraj Singha

Goresh Musalay

Kashish Bhatia

Tanay Ganguly

Sachin Shinde

Vikas Suryawanshi

Siddhant Gupta

Sanoj Ku

Large message passing between containers in a virtualized computing system is described. A method of communication between microservices executing in containers, which execute in at least one virtual machines (VM) of a host having a hypervisor supporting the at least one VM, includes: sending, by each of a first microservice in a first container and a second microservice in a second container, a request to create a communication channel to a broker daemon executing in the hypervisor; receiving, at each of the first and second microservices, an identifier of a virtual disk attached to the at least one VM by the broker daemon; writing, by the first microservice, a message to the virtual disk; and reading, by the second microservice, the message from the virtual disk.

Large message passing between containers in a virtualized computing system

A data structure tracks the usage of an eager-zeroed virtual disk on a per block basis and this data structure is referenced during migration or cloning of the eager-zeroed virtual disk so that copying of the zero blocks can be avoided. A method of migrating or cloning the eager-zeroed virtual disk stored in a first storage device comprises: determining for each of a plurality of unique sets of blocks using this data structure, whether or not any of the blocks in the unique set has been written to since the initialization of the virtual disk; and for each unique set determined to have at least one block that has been written to since the initialization of the virtual disk, issuing a copy command to make a copy of all blocks in the unique set in a second storage device.

Hypervisor-assisted migration or cloning of eager-zeroed virtual disks

The disclosure provides a method for securing, by a hypervisor of a host, a first persistent volume used to maintain data for one or more first containers on the host. The method generally includes receiving a request to retain the first persistent volume when the one or more first containers are removed from the host, receiving a first container image associated with one of the one or more first containers, generating a first key for reserving the first persistent volume, the key based, at least in part, on the first container image, and reserving the first persistent volume for exclusive access by the hypervisor using the first key.

Hypervisor assisted security of dangling volumes for containers

Virtual memory space may be saved in a clone environment by leveraging the similarity of the data signatures in swap files when a chain of virtual machines (VMs) includes clones spawned from a common parent and executing common applications. Deduplication is performed across the chain, rather than merely within each VM. Examples include generating a common deduplication identifier (ID) for the chain; generating a logical addressing table linked to the deduplication ID, for each of the VMs in the chain; and generating a hash table for the chain. Examples further include, based at least on a swap out request, generating a hash value for a block of memory to be written to a storage medium; and based at least on finding the hash value within the hash table, updating the logical addressing table to indicate a location of a prior-existing duplicate of the block on the storage medium.

Saving virtual memory space in a clone environment

Example methods are provided to identify unused memory regions in pages that are allocated for storing executable code. One or more of the unused memory regions are usable as a secure location to store confidential information shared between a hypervisor on the host and a guest (such as a guest virtual computing instance) that runs on the host. The one or more unused memory regions may also be used to store executable code (such as valid executable code of antivirus software or other security program) that has been prevented/delayed in its execution by malicious code that has occupied the pages, thereby providing the executable code with sufficient memory resources to enable the executable code to at least partially complete execution.

Hypervisor-assisted secured memory sharing among host and guest operating system

Supporting execution of a computer program by using a memory page of another computer program

The disclosure provides an approach for implementing a deduplicated (DD) assisted caching policy for a content based read cache (CBRC). Embodiments include receiving a first input/output (I/O) to write first data in storage as associated with a first logical block address (LBA); when the first data is located in a CBRC or in a DD cache located in memory, incrementing a first deduplication counter associated with the first data; when the first data is located in neither the CBRC nor the DD cache, creating the first deduplication counter; when the first deduplication counter meets a threshold after incrementing, and the first data is not located in the DD cache, adding the first data to the DD cache; and writing the first data to the storage as associated with the first LBA.

Deduplication assisted caching policy for content based read cache (CBRC)

Disclosed herein is a system and method for checking and maintaining consistency of blocks stored in a virtual disk with a content based read cache (CBRC). When blocks are written to the cache and virtual disk, a hash is computed for the block and stored in a digest file on the virtual disk. In the background, each block is obtained from the virtual disk, its hash is recomputed, and the hash is compared to the stored hash in the digest file. If the comparison indicates a mismatch, then an error is reported.

Virtual disk file resiliency for content based read cache (CBRC) enabled environment

Methods and systems are disclosed for populating a fail-over cache. When host computer systems in a system each have a content based read cache, the methods and system provide several functions applied in different orders for determining blocks that are to be included in the fail-over cache. Each function attempts a different strategy for combining the contents of the caches of each host computer system into the fail-over cache. If any strategy is successful, then the fail-over cache is placed into service. If all of the strategies fail, then an eviction strategy is employed in which blocks are evicted from each cache until the combination of caches meets a requirement of the fail-over cache, which, in one embodiment, is the size of the fail-over cache.

Content based cache failover

A system is described for enabling content-based read caching on a virtual machine without downtime for creating the digest file by launching the virtual machine before the digest file is produced and creating the digest file dynamically during runtime. After the virtual machine is executed, a background process creates the digest file in the background. The background process is paused during input/output operations and resumes when there are no pending input/output requests.

Growing community of inventors

Bengaluru, India

Zubraj Singha