Method and system for moving active virtual partitions between computers
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsBlaine D. Gaither, John A. Morrison
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to enhancing VPAR monitors to allow an active VPAR to be moved from one machine to another, as well as to enhancing virtual-machine monitors to move active VPARs from one machine to another. Because traditional VPAR monitors lack access to many computational resources and to executing-operating-system state, VPAR movement is carried out primarily by specialized routines executing within active VPARs, unlike the movement of guest operating systems between machines carried out by virtual-machine-monitor routines.
Claims12
A method that transfers an active virtual partition from a first computer to a second, remote computer, the method executed on the first computer and the second computer, the method comprising:
- quiescing an operating system and application programs executing within the active virtual partition;
- creating a target virtual partition on the second computer;
- preparing an operating-system-execution-state image for the quiescent active virtual partition;
- transferring the operating-system-execution-state image from the first computer to the second computer;
- and
- reinstantiating execution state of the operating system encapsulated in the operating-system-execution-state image within the target virtual partition.
A computer that provides transfer of an active virtual partition from the computer to a second, remote computer, the computer comprising:
- a virtual-partition monitor that creates and initializes a virtual partition through a virtual-console interface;
- routines that quiesce the operating system running within an active virtual partition;
- operating-system-execution-state image capture routines that prepare an operating-system-execution-state image within for the operating system executing within the active virtual partition;
- operating-system-execution-state image transfer routines that transfer the operating-system-execution-state image from the computer to the second computer;
- and
- operating-system re-launching routines that re-launch an operating system in a virtual partition and routines that recover an operating-system state using an operating-system-execution-state image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.