Method and apparatus for high availability (HA) protection of a running virtual machine (VM)
US8417885B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Feb 24, 2010 |
| Grant date | Apr 9, 2013 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 21, 2031 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F2201/84
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
High availability (HA) protection is provided for an executing virtual machine. A standby server provides a disk buffer that stores disk writes associated with a virtual machine executing on an active server. At a checkpoint in the HA process, the active server suspends the virtual machine; the standby server creates a checkpoint barrier at the last disk write received in the disk buffer; and the active server copies dirty memory pages to a buffer. After the completion of these steps, the active server resumes execution of the virtual machine; the buffered dirty memory pages are sent to and stored by the standby server. Then, the standby server flushes the disk writes up to the checkpoint barrier into disk storage and writes newly received disk writes into the disk buffer after the checkpoint barrier.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.