Replicated virtual machine
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsJohn Douceur, Jonathan Howell
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A mechanism that enables a nondeterministic client-server application to be run as a replicated state machine without requiring the application to be modified. A replicated state machine substrate is utilized to coordinate the execution of multiple virtual machine monitors, each of which runs an identical copy of an operating system and server application. The virtual machine monitors each act as deterministic state machines, virtualizing state machine characteristics and behaviors.
Claims20
A computer system comprising:
- a host operating system;
- an application;
- a nondeterministic virtual machine hosting the application;
- and
- a virtual machine monitor for communicating between the virtual machine and the host operating system, the virtual machine monitor being configured to provide deterministic behavior characteristics for the virtual machine and the application.
A computer-readable medium having thereon computer-executable instructions for performing a method, the method comprising:
- providing a computer having a nondeterministic virtual machine hosted thereon;
- and
- responsive to a request for execution of the virtual machine, successively incrementing execution of the virtual machine a first deterministic length of execution.
A computer-readable medium having thereon computer-executable instructions for performing a method, the method comprising:
- providing a computer having a nondeterministic virtual machine hosted thereon;
- and
- in response to the virtual machine programming a local virtual device to perform an operation, operating the virtual machine a deterministic amount of time.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.