Live migration of partitions

One or more computer storage media storing computer-useable instructions that, when used by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:

• receiving, at a destination server, a communication from a partition master indicating that the destination server will be receiving communication from a source server associated with a live migration of the partition from the source server to the destination server;
• receiving, by the destination server from the source server, a representation of a persistent state of the partition, and storing the representation of the persistent state in a cache of the destination server;
• pre-loading the partition, by the destination server while the source server continues to serve the partition, by performing at least one preparatory disk operation using the representation of the persistent state;
• receiving, by the destination server, a communication from the source server handing over serving of the partition to the destination server;
• loading the partition on the destination server using the at least one preparatory disk operation;
• and
• serving, by the destination server, at least one request for the partition.

A computer system comprising:

• a partition master configured to (a) inform a destination server that the destination server will be receiving communication from a source server to facilitate a live migration of a partition from the source server to the destination server;
• and (b) inform the source server to initiate the live migration;
• the source server configured to (a) store, in a first in-memory cache of the source server, a persistent state of the partition;
• (b) upon being informed to initiate the live migration (i) stop one or more destructive operations that would invalidate the persistent state of the partition in the first in-memory cache or an existing connection to persistent storage for the partition;
• and (ii) send the persistent state of the partition to the destination server while continuing to serve the partition;
• and (c) offload the partition to the destination server based on a determination by the source server that the live migration is complete;
• and
• the destination server configured to (a) receive the persistent state of the partition from the source server;
• (b) store the persistent state in a second in-memory cache of the destination server;
• (c) open at least one connection to the persistent storage for the partition, using the persistent state stored in the second in-memory cache, to prepare to load the partition while the source server continues to serve the partition;
• and (d) based on the source server offloading the partition to the destination server, loading the partition on the destination server using the at least one connection opened by the destination server to prepare to load the partition.