Method and apparatus for preparing a cache replacement catalog

摘要

Methods and systems to intelligently cache content in a virtualization environment using virtualization software such as VMWare ESX or Citrix XenServer or Microsoft HyperV or Redhat KVM or their variants are disclosed. Storage IO operations (reads from and writes to disk) are analyzed (or characterized) for their overall value and pinned to cache if their value exceeds a certain defined threshold based on criteria specific to the New Technology File System (NTFS) file-system. Analysis/characterization of NTFS file systems for intelligent dynamic caching include analyzing storage block data associated with a Virtual Machine of interest in accordance with a pre-determined data model to determine the value of the block under analysis for long term or short term caching. Integer values assigned to different types of NTFS objects in a white list data structure called a catalog that can be used to analyze the storage block data.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
creating a virtual machine (VM) image of an operating system (OS); loading the VM image into a caching application using a mount utility; enumerating file contents of the OS and program file directories on a root file system; storing the enumeration as a directory enumeration result; reading in sequence, from beginning to end, each file in the directory enumeration result in a predetermined segment size; hashing each segment read using a hashing function to generate a hash entry for each segment, the hash entry including an assigned value that is an integer associated with hash entry based on the file contents; and storing each hash entry and its associated assigned value in a hash table data structure.