Storage management system for virtual machines

A computer system for providing storage management to a system of a plurality of virtual machines running on a set of physical machines in a data center, the system comprising:

• a plurality of physical storage devices configured to store data in the data center, a storage device of the plurality of the physical storage devices representing a physical address space and the physical address space being logically divided into a plurality of storage spaces;
• a plurality of storage management system drivers communicatively coupled with the plurality of the storage devices, a storage management system driver of the plurality of the storage management system drivers associated with one of the plurality of virtual machines and configured to provide an abstraction of the plurality of the physical storage devices to the virtual machine the storage management system driver being associated with, wherein the abstraction of the plurality of the physical storage devices is represented by a plurality of corresponding virtual disk images, and a virtual disk image of a physical storage device of the plurality of the physical storage devices represents a virtual address space of the physical address space of the physical storage device;
• and
• a master service running on one of the plurality of virtual machines coupled with the plurality of the storage management system drivers and configured to manage the abstraction of the plurality of the physical storage space and storage space allocation to the plurality of virtual machines by maintaining a system-wide mapping to translate identifications for virtual disk images to a corresponding position in the plurality of physical storage devices for the plurality of virtual machines running on the set of physical machines.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer programs instructions executed by a computer processors for providing storage management to a system of a plurality of virtual machines running on a set of physical machines in a data center, the computer program instructions comprising instructions for:

• storing data in a plurality of physical storage devices of the data center, a physical storage device of the plurality of the physical storage devices representing a physical address space and the physical address space being logically divided into a plurality of physical storage spaces;
• providing an abstraction of the plurality of the physical storage devices to the plurality of virtual machines, wherein the abstraction of the plurality of the physical storage devices is represented by a plurality of corresponding virtual disk images, a virtual disk image of a physical storage device of the plurality of the physical storage devices represents a virtual address space of the physical address space of the physical storage device, and the plurality of virtual machines are associated with one or more of storage management system drivers;
• and
• configuring a master service in one of the set of physical machines to manage the abstraction of the plurality of the physical storage devices and storage space allocation to the plurality of virtual machines by maintaining a system-wide mapping to translate identifications for virtual disk images to a corresponding position in the plurality of physical storage devices for the plurality of virtual machines running on the set of physical machines.