Administering virtual machines in a distributed computing environment

An apparatus for administering a plurality of virtual machines (‘VMs’) in a distributed computing environment, the distributed computing environment comprising a plurality of hosts, one or more of the hosts executing a virtual machine monitor (‘VMM’), each VMM supporting execution of one or more VMs, the apparatus comprising a computer processor, a computer memory operatively coupled to the computer processor, the computer memory having disposed within it computer program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, cause the apparatus to carry out the steps of:

• assigning, by a VMM manager, the VMMs of the distributed computing environment to a logical tree topology, including assigning one of the VMMs as a root VMM of the tree topology;
• and
• executing, by the VMMs of the tree topology, a reduce operation, including:
• sending, by the root VMM to each of other VMMs of the tree topology, a request for an instance of a particular VM;
• pausing, by each of the other VMMs, the requested instance of the particular VM;
• providing, by each of the other VMMs to the root VMM in response to the root VMM's request, the requested instance of the particular VM;
• and
• identifying, by the root VMM, differences among the requested instances of the particular VM including, performing a bitwise XOR operation amongst the instances of the particular VM.

A computer program product for administering a plurality of virtual machines (‘VMs’) in a distributed computing environment, the distributed computing environment comprising a plurality of hosts, one or more of the hosts executing a virtual machine monitor (‘VMM’), each VMM supporting execution of one or more VMs, the computer program product disposed upon a computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising computer program instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to carry out the steps of:

• assigning, by a VMM manager, the VMMs of the distributed computing environment to a logical tree topology, including assigning one of the VMMs as a root VMM of the tree topology;
• and
• executing, by the VMMs of the tree topology, a reduce operation, including:
• sending, by the root VMM to each of other VMMs of the tree topology, a request for an instance of a particular VM;
• pausing, by each of the other VMMs, the requested instance of the particular VM;
• providing, by each of the other VMMs to the root VMM in response to the root VMM's request, the requested instance of the particular VM;
• and
• identifying, by the root VMM, differences among the requested instances of the particular VM including, performing a bitwise XOR operation amongst the instances of the particular VM.