METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING HYPERVISOR LEVEL DATA SERVICES FOR SERVER VIRTUALIZATION
A hypervisor virtual server system, including a plurality of virtual servers, a plurality of virtual disks that are read from and written to by the plurality of virtual servers, a physical disk, an I/O backend coupled with the physical disk and in communication with the plurality of virtual disks, which reads from and writes to the physical disk, a tapping driver in communication with the plurality of virtual servers, which intercepts I/O requests made by any one of said plurality of virtual servers to any one of said plurality of virtual disks, and a virtual data services appliance, in communication with the tapping driver, which receives the intercepted I/O write requests from the tapping driver, and that provides data services based thereon.
1 . A hypervisor virtual server system, comprising:
a plurality of virtual servers;
a plurality of virtual disks that are read from and written to by said plurality of virtual servers;
a physical disk;
an I/O backend coupled with said physical disk and in communication with said plurality of virtual disks, which reads from and writes to said physical disk;
a tapping driver in communication with said plurality of virtual servers, which intercepts I/O requests made by any one of said plurality of virtual servers to any one of said plurality of virtual disks; and
a virtual data services appliance, in communication with said tapping driver, which receives the intercepted I/O requests from said tapping driver, and which provides data services based thereon.
2 . The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 1 , further comprising a journal manager in communication with said virtual data services appliance, which stores intercepted I/O write requests as journal entries in a virtual disk.
3 . The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 2 , further comprising a hash generator in communication with said virtual data services appliance and with said journal manager, for generating hash values of the intercepted I/O write requests, and wherein said journal manager stores the generated hash values.
4 . The hypervisor virtual server system of claim 1 , further comprising a TCP transmitter in communication with said virtual data services appliance, which transmits the intercepted I/O requests to a remote virtual data services appliance.
5 . The hypervisor virtual system of claim 1 , further comprising a data analyzer in communication with said virtual data services appliance, which analyzes an intercepted I/O request and infers therefrom the data state of the virtual server that made the I/O request.
6 . A method for providing data services within a hypervisor virtual server system, comprising:
intercepting I/O requests from any one of a plurality of virtual servers to one of a plurality of virtual disks; and
sending intercepted I/O write requests to a virtual data services appliance that provides hypervisor data services.
7 . The method of claim 6 further comprising journaling the intercepted I/O requests.
8 . The method of claim 7 further comprising generating a hash value for the intercepted I/O requests, and wherein said journaling comprises journaling the generated hash values.
9 . The method of claim 6 further comprising analyzing an intercepted I/O request inferring therefrom the data state of the virtual server that made the I/O request.
10 . The method of claim 6 further comprising sending the intercepted I/O requests to a remote computer, thereby providing replication for said plurality of virtual servers.