US 8,819,190 B2Granted

Management of file images in a virtual environment

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsJames A. Pafumi, George James Romano, Jacob Jason Rosales, Morgan Jeffrey Rosas, Vasu Vallabhaneni

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Abstract

A method, system, and computer program product provides effective management and deployment of image files within a Virtual Input/Output (I/O) Server (VIOS) cluster. An Image Management (IM) utility utilizes a discovery process to establish connections with objects in order to manage these objects. Following discovery of an ICP client, the IM utility enables creation of a virtual server partition and initiates the importing of a captured image to a VIOS cluster Storage Pool (SP). The IM utility creates logical units (LUs) within the Image Management Fileset (IMF) for each file within the captured image. The IM utility maps the LUs to the VIOS Cluster SP using unique image file handles. The IM utility configures the new storage that comprises the created LUs. The IM utility copies image files to the appropriate storage device/LU. When import/copy of the image is completed, the IM utility activates the virtual server partition.

Claims19

Dependent claims

In a data processing system having a processor, a memory coupled to the processor, at least one input/output (I/O) adapter that enables connection to an external network with a shared distributed storage repository, and a virtualization management component executing within the data processing system that generates a plurality of operating system (OS) partitions including a first virtual I/O server (VIOS) partition that operates within a VIOS cluster having a shared VIOS database, a method comprising:

a director server within the VIOS cluster deploying an image capture program (ICP) agent to a first VIOS to trigger discovery of one or more objects that are manageable by the director server;
discovering, within the VIOS cluster via the ICP agent, a virtual storage device;
creating a virtual server partition associated with the first VIOS;
capturing, from an image repository comprising a plurality of images within a storage pool, an image comprising one or more files to be subsequently imported by the first VIOS to the virtual storage device, wherein the storage pool is located within the shared distributed storage repository comprising a plurality of physical storage units distributed across a storage network;
importing the captured image to the virtual storage device;
deploying the imported image to the virtual server partition;
and
activating the virtual server partition with the imported image.

5 more elements

A data processing system comprising:

a processor;
at least one input/output adapter for communicatively connecting to a virtual input/output server (VIOS) cluster via a first VIOS on a computing electronic complex (CEC), wherein the VIOS cluster comprises a shared VIOS database and a plurality of cluster aware VIOSes, and wherein the VIOS cluster supports access by one or more virtual server clients to one or more devices within a storage pool of a shared distributed storage repository;
and
a memory coupled to said processor, wherein said memory includes an image management (IM) utility that executes on the processor to:
deploy, via a director server within the VIOS cluster, an image capture program (ICP) agent to the first VIOS to trigger discovery of one or more objects that are manageable by the director server;
discover, within the VIOS cluster via the ICP agent, one or more of:
a virtual storage device;
create a virtual server partition on the CEC, wherein the virtual server partition is associated with the first VIOS;
capture, from an image repository comprising a plurality of images within the storage pool, an image comprising one or more files to be subsequently imported by the first VIOS to the virtual storage device, wherein the shared distributed storage repository comprises a plurality of physical storage units distributed across a storage network;
importing the captured image to the virtual storage device;
deploying the imported image to the virtual server partition;
and
activating the virtual server partition with the imported image on the CEC.

10 more elements

A computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer storage medium;
and
program code on said non-transitory computer storage medium that when executed by a processor within a data processing system provides the functions of:
deploying, via a director server within the VIOS cluster, an image capture program (ICP) agent to a first virtual input/output server (VIOS) of a VIOS cluster to trigger discovery of one or more objects that are manageable by the director server, wherein the VIOS cluster comprises a shared VIOS database and a plurality of cluster aware VIOSes, and wherein the VIOS cluster supports access by one or more virtual server clients to one or more devices within a storage pool of a shared distributed storage repository, and wherein the first VIOS exists on a computing electronic complex (CEC);
discovering, within the VIOS cluster via the ICP agent, a virtual storage device;
creating a virtual server partition on the CEC, wherein the virtual server partition is associated with the first VIOS;
capturing, from an image repository comprising a plurality of images within the storage pool, an image comprising one or more files that to subsequently imported by the first VIOS to the virtual storage device, wherein the shared distributed storage repository comprises a plurality of physical storage units distributed across a storage network;
importing the captured image to the virtual storage device;
deploying the imported image to the virtual server partition;
and
activating the virtual server partition with the imported image on the CEC.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.