Efficiency Of Virtual Machines That Use De-Duplication As Primary Data Storage

摘要

Example apparatus and methods provide two types of storage for a virtual machine running on a hypervisor. The first storage is de-duplication based and the second storage is not de-duplication based. Example apparatus and methods may acquire data from the first storage to instantiate the virtual machine, to instantiate an operating system on the virtual machine, or to instantiate an application on the virtual machine from the first storage. Example apparatus and methods may write a snapshot to the second storage and then support random input/output for the virtual machine, for the operating system, or for the application from the second storage. The snapshot may selectively be collapsed or the second storage may selectively be retired and thus example systems may selectively update the first storage from the second storage. Having dual devices facilitates using de-duplication storage for de-duplication-centric I/O while non-de-duplication storage is used for random I/O.

主权项

1. An apparatus, comprising:
a processor configured to detect an input/output operation associated with a virtual machine running on a hypervisor; a first interface to a de-duplication storage device that stores de-duplicated data associated with the virtual machine; a second interface to a first non-de-duplication storage device that stores a first snapshot associated with the virtual machine; an identification logic configured to select a target device from which the input/output operation should be satisfied, the target device being selected from the de-duplication storage device and the first non-de-duplication storage device, the target device being selected as a function of an efficiency condition; and an operation logic configured to satisfy the input/output operation from the target device.