JP2008225520A - Memory resource arrangement control method for arranging memory resource in virtual machine environment, virtual machine system, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a memory resource arrangement control method, a virtual machine system and a program for enlarging and reducing a memory which can be used by a virtual machine without restarting an operating system. <P>SOLUTION: In a virtual machine system 100 configured by constructing a virtual machine environment 130 and a plurality of virtual machines 110 and 120 or the like on a physical machine 140, a memory area which can be used by the virtual machines 110 and 120 or the like operating on the virtual machine environment 130 is associated with a physical memory 141 owned by the physical machine 140, and a predetermined area in the memory area is arranged as a reservation area whose assignment and release is possible for the plurality of virtual machines 110 and 120 or the like according to the quantity of the memory which can be used by the virtual machines 110 and 120 or the like. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a memory resource allocation control method, a virtual machine system, and a program for allocating memory resources in a virtual machine environment.

  An example of a conventional virtual machine system is described in Non-Patent Document 1. As shown in FIG. 9, this conventional virtual machine system includes a physical machine, a physical disk, a virtual machine environment, and a plurality of virtual machines having an OS.

The conventional virtual machine system having such a configuration operates as follows. That is, when the total amount of memory used by all virtual machines exceeds the amount of physical memory, a part of the memory area is paged out to the physical disk.
CarlA. Waldspurger, "Memory Resource Management in VMware ESX Server" VMware, Inc., December 8, 2002, 3.3 Demand Paging

  However, the conventional virtual machine system has the following problems.

  First, when an operating system (hereinafter referred to as OS) or a program on a virtual machine uses a memory area that is paged out to a physical disk, there is a problem that the execution performance of the OS or program decreases. . In other words, in some virtual machine environments, there is an implementation that has the function of allocating the excess memory to the physical disk if the total memory used by multiple virtual machines exceeds the physical memory capacity. The software that uses the memory allocated to the physical disk has a problem that the performance deteriorates.

  Secondly, in the virtual machine environment, there has been a problem that the physical memory of the virtual machine cannot be added while the virtual machine is operating.

  Third, many operating systems do not support dynamic memory addition, so even if other virtual machines in the virtual machine environment are stopped and physical memory is released, it is used by the operating virtual machine There was a problem that could not be done.

  An object of the present invention is to enable expansion and contraction of memory that can be used in a virtual machine without restarting an OS.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a memory resource allocation control method in a virtual machine system in which a virtual machine environment and a plurality of virtual machines are constructed on a physical machine, the virtual machine environment operating in the virtual machine environment A memory area usable by a machine is associated with physical memory of the physical machine, and a predetermined area of the memory area is allocated to the plurality of virtual machines according to the amount of memory used by the virtual machine. It is characterized by being arranged as a reserved area that can be released.

  That is, the present invention provides a reserved area in the memory on the virtual machine so that the memory in the reserved area can be used in other virtual machines, and then the reserved area is expanded / reduced to dynamically Increase and decrease memory and dynamic relocation of memory resources between virtual machines.

  According to the present invention, the following effects are achieved.

  First, it is possible to expand and contract the memory that can be used in the virtual machine without restarting the OS.

  The reason is that by providing a reserved area on the OS and enlarging / reducing the area, the area usable by the OS can be substantially enlarged / reduced.

  Second, the physical memory used in the virtual machine can be used in other virtual machines without restarting the OS.

  The reason is that the reserved area is released on the OS under the management of the virtual machine environment, and the reserved area can be used by another virtual machine.

(First embodiment)
Next, the virtual machine system according to the first embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

(Configuration of the first embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a virtual machine system according to the present embodiment.

  Referring to FIG. 1, a virtual machine system 100 according to the present embodiment includes two virtual machines 110 and 120, a virtual machine environment 130, and a physical machine 140 (including a physical memory 141) on which the virtual machine environment 130 operates. Is provided.

  The virtual machine 110 includes a memory management service 111 and an operating system (hereinafter referred to as OS) 112. The virtual machine 120 includes a memory management service 121 and an OS 122. The virtual machine 110 and the virtual machine 120 have the same configuration, and the memory management services 111 and 121 and the OSs 112 and 122 included therein also have the same configuration.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing in detail the configuration of the virtual machine 110, the OS 112, and the virtual machine environment 130 in the present embodiment.

  Referring to FIG. 2, the memory management service 111 of the virtual machine 110 includes an OS memory acquisition unit 211, a memory address conversion unit 212, and a virtual machine environment communication unit 213.

  The OS 112 includes a memory management unit 221.

  The virtual machine environment 130 includes virtual machine memory management means 231, memory management service communication means 232, and physical memory management means 233.

  Each of these means generally has the following functions.

  The physical memory management unit 233 has a function of managing the physical memory 141 of the physical machine 140 by dividing the physical memory 141 into certain equal areas (hereinafter referred to as segments), and a table area 2331 for managing the physical memory 141. Possess.

  The virtual machine memory management unit 231 has a function of requesting a memory segment from the physical memory 141 of the physical machine 140 and providing and managing the acquired memory segment as a memory area of the virtual machine 110. A conversion table 2311 indicating the correspondence between the memory segment of the virtual machine 110 and the memory segment of the physical machine 140 used when converting the memory segment into the memory segment of the physical machine 140 is held.

  The memory management service communication unit 232 communicates with the memory management service 111 on the OS 112, issues a memory allocation or release request, and allocates the physical memory 141 of the physical machine 140 to the virtual machine memory management unit 231. Or, it has a function of requesting release.

  The memory management unit 221 is a unit that is provided as a standard in a normal OS, manages the memory for the virtual machine provided by the virtual machine environment 130, and for processes including the memory management service 111 on the OS 112. A function for performing management such as allocating memory space, and a function for receiving a memory segment request from the memory management service 111, allocating a memory segment that can be used in the memory for the virtual machine, and returning the memory segment to the memory management service 111. Have.

  The OS memory acquisition unit 211 has a function of requesting memory allocation to the OS 112 and a request for releasing the allocated memory, a function of managing the allocated memory area as a reserved area, and a memory allocation to the OS 112. When making a request, the reserved area is instructed not to be operated by the OS 112 or other processes, and must be mapped to the memory. That is, the reserved area is saved in a secondary storage device such as a hard disk device. And a function for instructing the OS 112 not to be executed.

  The memory address conversion unit 212 has a function of associating the reserved area address with the physical memory address.

  The virtual machine environment communication unit 213 has a function of communicating with the memory management service communication unit 232, and receives a memory allocation / release request notification from the memory management service communication unit 232.

  Here, the hardware configuration of the virtual machine system of this embodiment will be described.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration example of the virtual machine system according to the present embodiment.

  Referring to FIG. 3, the virtual machine system 100 according to the present embodiment can be realized by a hardware configuration similar to a general computer device, and includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 301, a RAM (Random Access Memory), and the like. Main memory 302 used for a data work area and a temporary data save area, a communication control unit 303 that transmits and receives data via the network 400, and a peripheral device that transmits and receives data Interface unit 304, ROM (Read Only Memory), auxiliary storage unit 305, which is a hard disk device composed of a nonvolatile memory such as a magnetic disk and a semiconductor memory, and a system bus for interconnecting the above components of the information processing device 3 It is equipped with a 6, and the like.

  The virtual machine system 100 according to the present invention is implemented by mounting a circuit component made of a hardware component such as an LSI (Large Scale Integration) in which a program for realizing such a function is incorporated in the virtual machine system 100. As a matter of course, it can be realized by software by executing a program for providing each function of each component described above by the CPU 301 on the computer processing apparatus.

  That is, the CPU 301 loads the program stored in the auxiliary storage unit 305 to the main storage unit 302 and executes the program, thereby controlling the operation of the virtual machine system 100, thereby realizing each function described above in software. .

(Operation of the first embodiment)
Next, the operation of the virtual machine system according to the present embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the memory state diagrams of FIGS. 2 and 4 and the sequence diagrams of FIGS. 5 to 8.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram describing, as an example, the allocation relationship between the physical memory 141 of the physical machine 140 and the memory of the virtual machine 110 and the virtual machine 120.

  The physical memory 141 is assumed to be divided into four memory segments PS0 to PS3 and managed. The memory 113 of the virtual machine 110 is composed of three memory segments VS10 to VS12, and is associated with the physical memory 141 as indicated by arrows. That is, the memory segment VS10 of the virtual machine 110 corresponds to the memory segment PS0 of the physical machine 140, the memory segment VS11 corresponds to the memory segment PS1, the memory segment VS12 corresponds to the memory segment PS2, and so on.

  Here, the memory segments VS11 and VS12 in the shaded portion of FIG. 4 are reserved areas secured by the memory management service 111, and are occupied by the virtual machine 110 immediately after the OS 112 is started, but are occupied by operations described later. Is released and can be assigned by another virtual machine. The memory 123 of the virtual machine 120 includes three memory segments PS1 to PS3, and VS21 and VS22 are reserved areas.

  FIG. 5 is a sequence diagram for explaining the operation at the time of starting the virtual machine 110. As a premise, it is assumed that the virtual machine 110 and the virtual machine 120 are in a stopped state, and all physical memories 141 on the physical machine 140 are in an unused state.

  First, a startup request is issued from the virtual machine environment 130 to the OS 112 (step 4A). At this time, the virtual machine environment 130 allocates the physical memory 141 to the memory segments VS10 to VS12 of the virtual machine 110. In this example, it is assumed that PS0 is assigned to VS10, PS1 is assigned to VS11, and PS2 is assigned to VS12.

  Next, the OS 112 is activated and makes a request for activation of the memory management service 111 with the extension (step 4B).

  When the startup is completed, the memory management service 111 notifies the virtual machine environment 130 of startup completion (step 4C).

  The virtual machine environment 130 makes a reservation area reservation request to the memory management service 111 (step 4D). Here, as an example, it is assumed that a reservation area for two segments is requested.

  Next, the memory management service 111 makes a memory request for two segments to the OS 112 (step 4E). When the memory management service 111 makes a memory request to the OS 112, the memory management service 111 instructs that the secured memory cannot be operated from the OS 112 or other processes, and is always mapped to the memory on the virtual machine 110. In other words, the OS 112 is instructed not to save the reserved area in a secondary storage device such as a hard disk device on the virtual machine 110.

  The memory for two segments is allocated to the memory management service 111 by the OS 112, and the allocated memory segment is returned (step 4F). Here, as an example, if VS11 and VS12 are assigned, VS11 and VS12 are returned to the memory management service 111.

  Next, the memory management service 111 notifies the virtual machine environment 130 of the memory segment secured as the reserved area (step 4G). Here, VS11 and VS12 are notified.

  The virtual machine environment 130 releases the physical memory corresponding to the notified memory segment so that it can be allocated by another virtual machine (step 4H). Here, PS1 and PS2 corresponding to VS11 and VS12 are released.

  FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram illustrating an operation when the virtual machine 110 is stopped. As a premise, it is assumed that the memory 113 of the virtual machine 110 is composed of VS10, VS11, and VS12, and PS0 of the memory segment of the physical machine 140 is allocated to VS10, and VS11 and VS12 are reserved areas. Further, it is assumed that PS2 and PS3 in the memory segment of the physical machine 130 are in an unused state (a state that can be assigned to a virtual machine).

  First, the virtual machine environment 130 makes a stop request to the OS 112 (step 5A).

  The OS 112 makes a stop request to the memory management service 111 as an extension of the stop process (step 5B).

  The memory management service 111 requests the virtual machine environment 130 to allocate the physical memory 141 to the memory segments VS11 and VS12 released as reserved areas (step 5C).

  The virtual machine environment 130 allocates the memory segment of the unused physical memory 141 to the requested memory segment, and notifies the memory management service 111 (step 5D). Here, PS2 and PS3 are assigned to VS11 and VS12.

  When the physical memory 141 is allocated to the reserved area, the memory management service 111 stops because it can be stopped, and notifies the OS 112 that the stop has been completed (step 5E).

  The OS 112 can be stopped by stopping the memory management service 111. Therefore, the OS 112 stops after performing other stop processing, and notifies the virtual machine environment 130 that the stop has been completed (step 5F).

  When the OS 112 is stopped, the virtual machine environment 130 performs a process of releasing resources secured in the virtual machine 110, and releases PS0, PS2, and PS3 of the physical memory 141 allocated to the OS 112 (Step 5G). Thus, the stop process of the virtual machine 110 is completed.

  FIG. 7 is a sequence diagram for explaining the operation of the virtual machine 110 when the memory is expanded. Although the memory that can be used from the OS 112 is limited by the reserved area, the memory that can be substantially used by the OS 112 is expanded by reducing the reserved area. As a premise, among the memory segments of the virtual machine 110, VS11 and VS12 are reserved areas. In addition, it is assumed that the memory segment PS3 of the physical memory 141 of the physical machine 140 is in an unused state, and there has been a request for expansion of one segment of the memory of the virtual machine 110 from the outside to the virtual machine environment 130.

  First, the unused physical memory 141 is secured by the virtual machine environment 130 and allocated to the memory segment of the reserved area of the virtual machine 110 (step 6A). Here, it is assumed that the memory segment PS3 of the physical memory 141 for one segment is secured and allocated to the memory segment VS12 in the reserved area of the virtual machine 110.

  Then, the virtual machine environment 130 issues a request to release the memory segment in the reserved area corresponding to the secured physical 141 memory segment to the memory management service 111 (step 6B). Here, a request for releasing the reserved area corresponding to the memory segment VS12 of the virtual machine 110 to which the memory segment PS3 of the physical memory 141 is allocated is made.

  The memory management service 111 releases the reserved area corresponding to the requested memory segment and returns it to the OS 112 (step 6C). Here, the VS 12 is released from the reserved area, placed under the management of the OS 112, and can be used by other processes and services on the OS 112.

  FIG. 8 is a sequence diagram for explaining the operation of the virtual machine 110 when the memory is reduced. By expanding the reserved area, the memory that the OS 112 can substantially use is further limited. As a premise, the memory 113 of the virtual machine 110 is composed of VS10, VS11, and VS12, VS11 is a reserved area, and memory segments PS0 and PS3 of the physical memory 141 of the physical machine 140 are allocated to VS10 and VS12. It shall be. Further, it is assumed that there is a request for one segment of memory from the outside to the virtual machine environment 130, and the memory requested from the outside is secured by expanding the reserved area of the virtual machine 110 by one segment.

  First, the virtual machine environment 130 issues a reservation area expansion request to the memory management service 111 (step 7A). Here, an enlargement request for one segment is made.

  The memory management service 111 requests the memory for the amount requested from the virtual machine environment 130 to the OS 112 (step 7B). The memory management service 111 instructs the OS 112 so that it cannot be operated from the OS 112 or other processes when making a memory request to the OS 112, and ensures that the memory management service 111 is mapped to the memory on the virtual machine 110. The OS 112 is instructed not to be saved in a secondary storage device such as a hard disk device on the virtual machine 110.

  The OS 112 allocates a memory segment for one segment to the memory management service 111, and the allocated memory segment is returned (step 7C). Here, assuming that VS 12 is assigned as an example, VS 12 is returned from the OS 112 to the memory management service 111.

  Next, the memory management service 111 notifies the virtual machine environment 130 of the memory segment secured as the reserved area (step 7D). Here, VS12 is notified.

  The virtual machine environment 130 releases the physical memory 141 corresponding to the notified memory segment so that it can be allocated by another virtual machine (step 7E). Here, PS3 corresponding to VS12 is released.

(Effects of the first embodiment)
According to the present embodiment, the following effects are achieved.

First, the memory that can be used in the virtual machine 110 can be enlarged or reduced without restarting the OS 112. That is, dynamic memory expansion / reduction can be realized without restarting the OS 112.

  The reason is that by providing a reserved area on the OS 112 and enlarging / reducing the area, the memory area usable by the OS 112 can be substantially enlarged / reduced.

  Second, the physical memory used in the virtual machine 110 without restarting the OS 112 can be used in other virtual machines.

  The reason is that the physical memory reserved as a reserved area on the OS 112 is released under the management of the OS 112 and under the management of the virtual machine environment 130, and the reserved area can be used by other virtual machines. It is.

  Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments, the present invention is not necessarily limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the technical idea. .

  The present invention can be applied to the use of expanding and reducing the memory used by the OS without restarting the OS when using an OS that cannot dynamically scale the memory in a virtual machine environment. The present invention can also be applied to applications such as dynamically reallocating memory resources according to the memory load of each virtual machine when operating a large number of virtual machines in a virtual machine environment.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the virtual machine system by the 1st Embodiment of this invention. 2 is a block diagram showing in detail the configuration of a virtual machine 110, an OS 112, and a virtual machine environment 130 according to the first embodiment. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration example of the virtual machine system according to the first embodiment. FIG. FIG. 3 is a diagram describing, as an example, an allocation relationship between a physical memory 141 of a physical machine 140 and a memory of a virtual machine 110 and a virtual machine 120 according to the first embodiment. It is a sequence diagram explaining operation | movement at the time of starting of the virtual machine 110 by 1st Embodiment. It is a sequence diagram explaining the operation | movement at the time of the stop of the virtual machine 110 by 1st Embodiment. It is a sequence diagram explaining operation | movement at the time of memory expansion of the virtual machine 110 by 1st Embodiment. FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram for explaining an operation when the memory of the virtual machine 110 is reduced according to the first embodiment. It is a block diagram explaining the conventional virtual machine system.

Explanation of symbols

100: Virtual machine system 110, 120: Virtual machine 111, 121: Memory management service 211: OS memory acquisition means 212: Memory address conversion means 213: Virtual machine environment communication means 112: 122: Operating system 221: Memory management means 113, 123: Virtual machine memory VS10 to VS12, VS20 to VS22: Virtual machine memory segment 130: Virtual machine environment 231: Virtual machine memory management means 2311: Conversion table 232: Memory management service communication means 233: Physical memory management means 2331: Table area 140: Physical machine 141: Physical memory PS0 to PS3: Memory segment of physical memory 301: CPU
302: Main storage unit 303: Communication control unit 304: Interface unit 305: Auxiliary storage unit 306: System bus 400: Network

Claims (9)

A memory resource allocation control method in a virtual machine system configured by building a virtual machine environment and a plurality of virtual machines on a physical machine,
Associating a memory area that can be used by a virtual machine operating on the virtual machine environment with physical memory of the physical machine,
In accordance with the amount of memory used by the virtual machine, a predetermined area of the memory area is arranged as a reserved area that can be allocated to and released from the plurality of virtual machines. Memory resource allocation control method. The reserved area is divided into a plurality of memory units corresponding to the memory units of the physical memory,
2. The memory resource allocation control method according to claim 1, wherein the reserved area is allocated or released for each of the plurality of virtual machines in one or a plurality of the memory units. Based on the amount of memory requested from the virtual machine, by allocating or releasing the reserved area in one or a plurality of the memory units, the memory area that can be used by the virtual machine is dynamically released. 3. The memory resource allocation control method according to claim 2, wherein the memory resource allocation control method increases or decreases. In a virtual machine system configured by building a virtual machine environment and multiple virtual machines on a physical machine,
Associating a memory area that can be used by a virtual machine operating on the virtual machine environment with physical memory of the physical machine,
In accordance with the amount of memory used by the virtual machine, a predetermined area of the memory area is arranged as a reserved area that can be allocated to and released from the plurality of virtual machines. Virtual machine system. The reserved area is divided into a plurality of memory units corresponding to the memory units of the physical memory,
5. The virtual machine system according to claim 4, wherein the reserved area is allocated or released in units of one or a plurality of the memory units for each of the plurality of virtual machines. Based on the amount of memory requested from the virtual machine, by allocating or releasing the reserved area in one or a plurality of the memory units, the memory area that can be used by the virtual machine is dynamically released. The virtual machine system according to claim 5, wherein the number is increased or decreased. A program executed on a virtual machine system configured by building a virtual machine environment and a plurality of virtual machines on a physical machine,
Associating a memory area that can be used by a virtual machine operating on the virtual machine environment with physical memory of the physical machine,
In accordance with the amount of memory used by the virtual machine, a predetermined area of the memory area is arranged as a reserved area that can be allocated to and released from the plurality of virtual machines. program. The reserved area is divided into a plurality of memory units corresponding to the memory units of the physical memory,
8. The program according to claim 7, wherein the reserved area is allocated or released for each of the plurality of virtual machines in one or a plurality of the memory units. Based on the amount of memory requested from the virtual machine, by allocating or releasing the reserved area in one or a plurality of the memory units, the memory area that can be used by the virtual machine is dynamically released. The program according to claim 8, wherein the program increases or decreases.

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