Zero memory buffer copying in a reliable distributed computing system
AssigneeScale Computing, Inc.
InventorsClint McVey, Scott Loughmiller
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Reducing buffer space that is reserved when a VM attempts to write to disk. A shared memory maintains stored information available to all VM's, allowing translation between accessible to RSD's, independent of how that VM's storage is divided into VSD's. When a guest OS writes to a VSD, an “extent”, designating a location in the shared memory and amount of data to be transferred, which can be passed directly from the guest OS, through each element involved in translating the operation into one or more operations on RSD's, keeping copying to a minimum. No substantial changes need be made to the guest OS.
Claims13
Apparatus including
- one or more guest operating systems;
- one or more hypervisors, each guest operating system associated with one of said hypervisors, and each guest operating system being subject to the control of its associated hypervisor;
- wherein each said hypervisor includes:
- a block driver element coupled to an associated guest operating system and disposed to receive one or more instructions directed to one or more virtual storage devices, said one or more virtual storage devices associated with said guest operating system, and said one or more virtual storage devices being implemented by said hypervisor, and
- an input/output (I/O) interface coupled to said block driver element and disposed to control one or more real storage devices in response to said one or more instructions;
- and
- wherein said one or more instructions each include metadata defining a read buffer into which said I/O interface can place a block of data read from said one or more real storage devices or a write buffer into which a user process operating under control of said guest operating system can place a block of data to be written to said one or more real storage devices, such that only said metadata need be exchanged between said associated guest operating system and said one or more real storage devices to enable a read or write operation between said one or more real storage devices and said guest operating system.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.