Techniques for reducing read i/o latency in virtual machines
AssigneeVMware, Inc.
InventorsYury Baskakov, Kapil Arya, Alexander Thomas Garthwaite
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A computer implemented method for reducing the latency of an anticipated read of disk blocks from a swap file in a virtualized environment. The environment includes a host swap file maintained by a host operating system and a guest swap file maintained but a guest operating system. First, the method identifies a sequence of disk blocks that was written in the guest swap file. The method then detects within the sequence of blocks a first disk block that contains a reference to a second disk block that is stored in the host swap file. The method then replaces the first disk block in the guest swap file with the second disk block.
Claims20
A computer-implemented method for reducing the latency of an anticipated read of disk blocks from a swap file in a virtualized environment, the environment including:
- a host swap file maintained by a host operating system and a virtual machine (VM) that includes a guest swap file maintained by a guest operating system, the method comprising:
- identifying, in the guest swap file, a sequence of disk blocks that was written by the guest operating system;
- detecting, within the sequence of disk blocks, a first disk block that contains a reference to a second disk block that is stored in the host swap file;
- and
- replacing the first disk block in the guest swap file with the second disk block.
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium containing instructions for reducing the latency of an anticipated read of disk blocks from a swap file in a virtualized environment, the environment including:
- a host swap file maintained by a host operating system and a virtual machine (VM) that includes a guest swap file maintained by a guest operating system, the instructions when executed, control a computer system to be configured for:
- identifying, in the guest swap file, a sequence of disk blocks that was written by the guest operating system;
- detecting, within the sequence of disk blocks, a first disk block that contains a reference to a second disk block that is stored in the host swap file;
- and
- replacing the first disk block in the guest swap file with the second disk block.
An apparatus for reducing the latency of an anticipated read of disk blocks from a swap file in a virtualized environment, the environment including:
- a host swap file maintained by a host operating system and a virtual machine (VM) that includes a guest swap file maintained by a guest operating system, the apparatus comprising:
- one or more computer processors;
- and
- a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, that when executed, control the one or more computer processors to be configured for:
- identifying, in the guest swap file, a sequence of disk blocks that was written by the guest operating system;
- detecting, within the sequence of disk blocks, a first disk block that contains a reference to a second disk block that is stored in the host swap file;
- and
- replacing the first disk block in the guest swap file with the second disk block.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.