JP2011186775A - Technology of facilitating operation on virtualized environment of application server - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To facilitate an instruction to a plurality of virtual servers in a virtualized environment. <P>SOLUTION: A virtual server management device 101 is connected to at least one computer 102a to 102c having a plurality of virtual servers 103a to 103c through a communication line 150, and transmits an instruction of processing with respect to the virtual servers 103a to 103c. In the virtual server management device 101, a virtual server control part 121 groups the plurality of virtual servers 103a to 103c with a predetermined condition which depends upon the plurality of virtual servers, and generates group information associated with the grouped virtual servers and a computer including the grouped virtual servers, and transmits, according to the instruction of processing with respect to the grouped virtual servers received by a virtual server control input receiving part 125a, transmits the received instruction of processing to the computers 102a to 102c through communication equipment 114 on the basis of the group information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a server virtualization technique for operating one physical server as one or more independent virtual servers, and a technique for a cluster system including a large number of application server groups performing the same business.

  In an application server or the like that supports an information processing infrastructure, a so-called cluster system is generally constructed in order to safely and reliably process a large number of requests that increase daily. In such a cluster system, a plurality of application servers that perform the same task are provided, and requests are distributedly processed to perform safe and reliable information processing.

  In order to operate such a cluster system easily and smoothly, it is necessary to centrally manage individual application servers constituting the system. In this regard, Patent Document 1 discloses a management server technology that centrally manages individual application servers that constitute a cluster in a cluster system that includes a plurality of physical servers.

  In recent years, companies and the like have introduced so-called server virtualization technology mainly for the purpose of reducing system power consumption and introduction cost, and reducing the number of operating physical servers. In the management of virtual servers, a unified management technology for these virtual servers is known. For example, Non-Patent Document 1 discloses a technique for realizing unified management of a virtual environment in a plurality of physical servers. That is, in Non-Patent Document 1, simply selecting a virtual server automatically selects a virtual environment on the physical server on which the virtual server is operating, and issues a user instruction to the selected virtual environment. A technique that enables transmission is disclosed.

JP2007-226400

Virtual Machine Monitors: Current Technology and Future Trends, M Rosenblum, T Garfinkel-Computer, 2005

  However, it is necessary to solve the following problems in order to realize unified management of virtual servers.

  In Patent Document 1, a plurality of physical application servers are managed by a central management server, but operations on virtual machines are actually performed through a hypervisor. In a system in which a virtual environment is introduced, the physical server on which the virtual server operates is transparent, and is usually not conscious. In other words, when operating a virtual server, it is necessary to operate the hypervisor, so it is necessary to operate the hypervisor that exists in all physical servers that have virtual servers that perform the same business. It becomes very troublesome.

  Non-Patent Document 1 refers to a technology that regards hardware in a data center as a general hardware resource pool using virtualization technology, not a machine that provides a specific service. Virtual servers generated from simple hardware resource pools are easy to generate and delete, and are very dynamic processes. If you configure a cluster in such an environment, the cluster configuration will always change, so if you need to make settings for individual virtual servers, you must re-set each time the cluster configuration changes. The amount of time and labor required for user management becomes enormous.

  In view of such a problem, an object of the present invention is to facilitate processing instructions for a plurality of virtual server groups.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the present invention is a virtual server management apparatus that is connected to at least one computer having a plurality of virtual servers via a communication line and transmits a processing instruction to the virtual server, The virtual server management apparatus groups the plurality of virtual servers under a predetermined condition depending on the plurality of virtual servers, and associates the grouped virtual servers with the computers on which the grouped virtual servers are constructed. A generation unit that generates the group information, an instruction input unit that receives a processing instruction for the grouped virtual servers, a transmission function unit that transmits the received processing instruction to the computer based on the group information, It is characterized by having.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to facilitate an operation on a group of virtual machines performing the same job.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the computer system of one Embodiment to which this invention is applied. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the physical server of the computer system shown in FIG. In the computer system shown in FIG. 1, it is a schematic diagram which shows the concept of a virtual server group. In the computer system shown in FIG. 1, it is a schematic diagram which shows the screen displayed on the display apparatus of a virtual server management apparatus. In the computer system shown in FIG. 1, it is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of a virtual environment management table. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a flow of batch start / stop processing in the computer system shown in FIG. 1. In the computer system shown in FIG. 1, it is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process which thinks about an instruction | indication with respect to the target virtual server.

Hereinafter, embodiments for carrying out this description will be described with reference to the drawings.
In the following description, an example will be described in which the virtual server management apparatus collectively outputs instructions in units of virtual server groups in the computer system 1 according to an embodiment to which the present invention is applied. Further, the instruction to be output is, for example, an instruction related to starting and stopping (including primary stop) of the virtual server.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of the computer system 1.
In the computer system 1, a virtual server management apparatus 101, one or more physical servers 102 a to 102 c to be managed, and one or more virtual servers 103 and a load distribution apparatus 104 constructed in the plurality of physical servers 102 are connected to a network 150. In addition, the load balancer 104 is connected to one or more clients 170 via the network 160, and various requests transmitted from the clients 170 are processed by the virtual server 120, and the results are processed. It is supposed to send.

  The virtual server management apparatus 101 is a computer that manages the physical server 102, the virtual server 103, and the load distribution apparatus 104, and can be realized using a general computer. The configuration includes a memory 112, a CPU 113, a communication device 114 for connecting to a network, a storage device 111 such as a hard disk, an input device 115 that receives an input from an administrator of a virtual environment, and information on virtual server groups and batch instructions. Is provided.

  The virtual servers 103 a to 103 c are constructed by a hypervisor 105 that is virtualization software that operates on the physical server 102. A cluster system that executes the same application process by using an arbitrary number of the virtual servers 103a to 103c can be constructed. Request allocation from the client 170 to the virtual servers a to c is performed by the load balancer 104.

  The CPU 113 expands a predetermined program group 131 in the memory 112, and in cooperation with them, the virtual server control unit 121, the physical server power control unit 126, the physical server information storage / reading unit 123, and the virtual server information storage / reading. The function part of the part 124, the virtual server control input reception part 125, and the virtual server group information storage / reading part 124 is comprised.

  The virtual server control unit 121 is a functional unit that issues a start / stop instruction to the management target virtual server 103 via the communication device 114. The virtual server control unit 121 reads physical server information related to the physical server 102 from a physical server information storage / reading unit 123 described later, and reads virtual server information related to the virtual server 103 from the virtual server information storage / reading unit 124, respectively. Is used to generate virtual server group information. The virtual server 103 is configured to perform batch startup / stop processing for virtual servers belonging to a predetermined virtual server group transmitted from a virtual server control input receiving unit 125 described later.

The physical server information storage / reading unit 123 is a functional unit that collects information on the physical server 102 to be managed via the communication device 114.
The virtual server information storing / reading unit 124 transmits information on which physical server the virtual server 103 constituting the cluster system to be managed belongs to and to which virtual server group, via each communication device 114. It is a functional unit that collects from the physical server 102.

  In the virtual server group information storage / reading unit 122, the virtual server control unit 121 extracts the physical server information from the physical server information storage / reading unit 123 and the virtual server information from the virtual server information storage / reading unit 124. This is a functional unit that executes storage and reading of server group information.

  The physical server power control unit 126 is a functional unit that issues a start / stop instruction to the management target physical server 102 via the communication device 114.

  The virtual server control input receiving unit 125 is a functional unit that transmits an instruction from the administrator to the virtual server control unit 121 through the input device 115. In the present embodiment, a collective start / stop instruction for a predetermined virtual server group input from an administrator via the input device 115 is received, and the instruction is transmitted to the virtual server control unit 121.

  The storage device 112 stores a program group 131 for constructing each functional unit described above, and various data groups 132 input by the administrator via the input device 115.

  FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the physical server 102 constituting the computer system 1 (using the physical server 102a as a representative). The physical server 102 a includes a CPU 130, a memory 131, a storage device 132 as an auxiliary storage device including a hard disk, a virtual server management via a communication device 135 that transmits and receives requests with the load balancer 104 and request processing results, and a LAN 150. A communication device 134 that performs communication with the device 101 is provided.

  The memory 131 is configured with a hypervisor 109 that constitutes a virtualization mechanism for realizing the virtual server 103, and one or more virtual servers 103a to 103c. In the present embodiment, an example in which three virtual servers are configured in the physical server 102a is shown, but the number of configured virtual servers can be arbitrarily set according to various conditions.

  The virtual servers 103a to 103c are realized by the OS 106 and the corresponding application program 108 (portions surrounded by dotted lines in the figure). The application program is a predetermined business application, performs a request process from the client 170 together with the OS, and outputs a processing result to the predetermined client 170. Requests are exchanged via the hypervisor 105.

  In addition, the virtual server 103 is provided with an agent (program) 107 that receives a start / stop instruction from the hypervisor 105. The agent 107 is a program that is always running on the virtual server, and receives a batch start / stop instruction to execute the start / stop processing of the virtual server.

  The hypervisor 105 is provided with a virtual switching hub 109 that virtually realizes a switching hub on the Ethernet (registered trademark). The virtual server management device 112 issues an instruction to batch start / stop the virtual server belonging to a predetermined virtual server group to the hypervisor 109 via the LAN 150. The hypervisor 109 determines which application has this instruction. It is identified whether it is sent to the server, and the instruction is transmitted to the corresponding virtual server 103 via the virtual switching hub 109.

  Next, a method for configuring virtual server group information generated by the virtual server management apparatus 101 will be described. FIG. 3 schematically shows the configuration of a virtual server group in which physical servers and virtual servers are associated. The virtual server management apparatus 101 uses the virtual server information storage / reading unit 124 to acquire the type of business application of each virtual server 103. Next, the virtual server management apparatus 101 configures a virtual server group according to the type of business application of the virtual server, and causes the virtual server group information storing / reading unit 122 to store the configuration information.

  For example, in FIG. 3, the virtual servers 103a, 103b, 103e, and 103f that execute the same business application are defined as a virtual server group A231, and the virtual servers 103a and 103b are configured in the physical server 102a. 103e and 103f indicate the relationship established in the physical server 102b. Similarly, the relationship of the virtual server group B232 is also shown. The virtual server group information saving / reading unit 122 is configured to save the information of the virtual server groups A and B including the correspondence relationship between the business application, the virtual server, and the physical server as virtual server group information.

  Next, an interface for the administrator to issue an instruction to the virtual server group will be described with reference to FIG. When the configuration of the virtual server group is the situation shown in FIG. 3, the administrator displays a screen 300 as shown in FIG. 4 on the display device 116 of the virtual server management apparatus 101.

  The screen 300 illustrated in FIG. 4 represents an example in which information of the virtual server group A 231 is displayed in the area 301 and information of the virtual server group B 232 is displayed in the area 341. The screen configuration will be described using the area 301 indicating the information of the virtual server group A 231 as an example. An area 301 includes an area 305 for displaying a virtual server group name (for example, ID), a physical server name item field 310, a virtual server name item field 320, and a status item field 330 indicating the current operating status of the virtual server. Etc. are provided.

  In the physical server name item column 310, a physical server name (for example, ID) in which a virtual server belonging to the virtual server group A 231 is constructed is displayed. In FIG. 4, the physical server 102a and the physical server 102b are displayed. In the virtual server group name item column 320, the names (for example, IDs) of the individual virtual servers belonging to the virtual server group A 231 are displayed classified by the name of the physical server in which the virtual server is constructed. It is like that. FIG. 4 shows an example in which the virtual servers 103a, 103b, 103e, and 103f are displayed corresponding to the physical servers to which they belong.

  In the status item column 330, the status of each virtual server constituting the virtual server group A 231 is displayed. FIG. 4 shows an example in which the states of the virtual servers 103a, 103b, 103e, and 103f are displayed corresponding to the virtual servers. Here, the status of the virtual server shows an example of the current status of the virtual server, such as whether it is running, a fault status, or a shutdown status. It is not limited to these.

  The area 301 also includes a batch start button 302 for instructing start of all the virtual servers constituting the virtual server group A 231, a batch stop button 303 for instructing stop collectively, and the entire virtual server group A A group status button 304 is displayed for displaying the status. The administrator operates the collective start button 302 or the collective stop button 303 once with a pointer device or the like, thereby instructing the collective start or stop of the 103a, 103b, 103e, and 103f belonging to the virtual server group A231. Can send.

  The group status display column 304 displays “start” when at least one virtual server belonging to the virtual server group A 231 is operating, and displays “stop” when none is operating. The operational status of each virtual server group can be visually confirmed.

  For these pieces of information, the virtual server group information storing / reading unit 122 acquires a list of virtual servers belonging to the virtual server group for all virtual server groups at a predetermined timing, and the virtual server information storing / reading unit 124. However, the correspondence between the virtual server and the physical server is acquired, and the physical server information storage / reading unit 123 is displayed by reading the physical server information.

Next, a specific management method for a virtual server group will be described using the virtualization environment management table 500 shown in FIG.
The virtual server management apparatus 101 represents a physical server, a virtual server, and a virtual server group as a virtual environment management table 500 in the memory 112 and manages them. The virtual environment management table 500 has the following characteristics. Each row is uniquely determined with respect to the virtual server name, and is associated with a physical machine name and a virtual server group name.

  When adding a virtual server to the virtualization environment management table 500, the virtual server management apparatus 101 performs the following operation. First, a row corresponding to the added virtual server is added, and the physical server on which the virtual server operates is recorded in the physical server name column. Further, the virtual server group including the virtual server is recorded in the virtual server group name column. Further, when deleting a virtual server, the line in which the virtual server to be deleted is recorded is deleted.

  When deleting a physical server from the virtual environment management table 500, the virtual server management apparatus 101 deletes rows corresponding to all virtual servers existing on the physical server to be deleted.

  When deleting a virtual server group from the virtualization environment management table, the virtual server management apparatus deletes all rows in which the corresponding virtual server exists for all virtual servers included in the virtual server group.

  Next, a process in which the virtual server management apparatus 101 instructs the virtual server group received from the administrator to the hypervisor 105 of the physical server 102 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In the following description, a case where a batch activation instruction is transmitted to the virtual servers 103a, 103b, 103e, and 103f belonging to the virtual server group A 231 will be described as an example.

  First, the virtual server control unit 121 receives an input instruction from the administrator via the operation screen 300 illustrated in FIG. 4 through the virtual server control input reception unit 125 (step S701).

  Next, the virtual server control unit 121 refers to the virtualization environment management table 500 and, based on the received input instruction from the administrator, lists all virtual server group names 503 “A” (for example, corresponding “ Line ".) Is acquired (step S702).

  Thereafter, the virtual server control unit 101 selects one virtual server name from the virtual server names 502 listed in the list (step S703), and selects a connected physical server name 501 corresponding to the virtual server. (Step S704).

  Next, the virtual server control unit 121 issues a batch activation instruction (command) to the respective hypervisors 105 on the physical servers 102a and 102b corresponding to the acquired physical server model via the LAN 150 (step 705). The above processing is repeated for all the lists acquired in step S702 (step S706).

  The instruction issued by the virtual server control unit 121 in step S705 is an instruction for the virtual servers 103a, 103b, 103e, and 103f belonging to the virtual server group A231 and configured in the physical servers 102a and 102b to the hypervisor 105. It is to transmit continuously.

  In the present embodiment, the case of continuously transmitting instructions to the hypervisor 105 is an example in which individual instructions (commands) for the virtual servers 103a to 103e are continuously transmitted in time. If it is transmitted “in a lump”, a single command may be generated and transmitted.

Moreover, in the aspect of transmitting continuously, it is not always necessary to transmit continuously in the order of 103a to e. Further, the mode of continuous transmission is not limited to the case of continuous transmission of commands, and other commands may be interrupted and transmitted between the commands without departing from the spirit of the present invention. At this time, the configuration may be such that an instruction for the virtual server to be instructed is transmitted to the hypervisor 105 within a predetermined time by user setting or initial setting.
Through the above processing, it is possible to collectively issue a start instruction to the virtual servers 103a, 103b, 103e, and 103f configuring the virtual server group A231.

  Next, the processing in the physical servers 102a and 102b that has received a batch activation instruction from the virtual server management apparatus 101 to the virtual servers belonging to the virtual server group A 231 will be described using the flowchart of FIG. Here, the physical server 102a will be described as a representative.

  The hypervisor 105 of the virtual server 102a that has received the batch startup instruction from the virtual server management apparatus 101 determines a virtual server that is the target of the startup instruction based on the batch startup instruction (for example, virtual servers 102a and 102b) (steps). S801).

  The hypervisor 105 transmits activation instructions to the agents 107 of the virtual servers 102a and 102b determined in S801 via the virtual switching hub 109 (step S802).

  Each agent 107 that has received the start instruction causes the virtual servers 102a and 103b to execute start processing in accordance with the received start instruction (step S803).

  Similar processing is also executed on the physical server 102b in which the virtual servers 103e and 103f belonging to the virtual server group A231 are constructed.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, a plurality of virtual servers can be grouped and managed under a predetermined condition of operating as the same application server.

  In the present embodiment, the configuration is such that the same processing instructions can be collectively transmitted to a plurality of virtual servers that are grouped and managed. Can be reduced.

  In this regard, in a large-scale system used in a cloud environment, the number of virtual servers to be built is enormous, so processing instructions can be sent to multiple virtual servers managed in the same group in a batch. Making it possible can greatly reduce the burden on the administrator.

  In particular, sending processing instructions such as batch activation / stopping in a batch can greatly reduce the operation time compared to the sequential instructions, and the power saving effect can be improved accordingly.

  Furthermore, in this embodiment, when grouping virtual servers, the correspondence between physical servers and virtual servers is managed using a virtualization model, and the hypervisor accepts instructions in a batch. Even if the virtual servers making up the virtual server group are not built on the same physical server, it is possible to easily send instructions in a batch and execute the processing in a batch. .

  Although one embodiment to which the present invention is applied has been described above, the present invention is not limited to these examples, and can be applied to various configurations.

1 Computer system 101 Virtual server management apparatus 102a, 102b, 102c Physical server 103a, 103b, 103c, 103d, 103e, 103f, 103g, 103h Virtual server 105 Hypervisor 106 OS
107 Agent 108 Application 109 Virtual Switching Hub 121 Virtual Server Control Unit 122 Virtual Server Group Information Saving / Reading Unit 123 Physical Server Information Saving / Reading Unit 124 Virtual Server Information Saving / Reading Unit 125 Virtual Server Control Input Accepting Unit 126 Physical Server Power Supply Control Part 231 Virtual Server Group A
232 Virtual server group B
300 Operation screen

Claims (10)

A virtual server management apparatus that is connected to at least one computer having a plurality of virtual servers via a communication line and that transmits a processing instruction to the virtual server,
The virtual server management device
Generation of grouping the plurality of virtual servers under a predetermined condition depending on the plurality of virtual servers, and generating group information in which the grouped virtual servers and the computers on which the grouped virtual servers are constructed are associated And
An instruction input unit that receives an instruction of processing for the grouped virtual servers;
Based on the group information, a transmission function unit that transmits the received processing instruction to the computer;
A virtual server management device comprising: The virtual server management device according to claim 1,
The virtual server management apparatus, wherein the predetermined condition depending on the plurality of virtual servers is a business of the virtual server. The virtual server management device according to claim 1 or 2,
The virtual server management apparatus characterized in that the predetermined condition depending on the plurality of virtual servers is that the business of the virtual server is the same. The virtual server management device according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
The virtual server management device, wherein the transmission function unit transmits the received processing instructions to the computer in a lump. The virtual server management device according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
The transmission function unit transmits the received processing instruction as an instruction to a virtualization mechanism of the computer. The virtual server management device according to any one of claims 1 to 5,
The virtual server management apparatus further comprising: a conversion unit that converts the processing instruction received by the instruction input unit into an instruction to start the virtual server. The virtual server management device according to any one of claims 1 to 6,
The virtual server management apparatus further comprising a conversion unit that converts the processing instruction received by the support input unit into a virtual server stop instruction. The virtual server management device according to any one of claims 1 to 7,
A display device;
The virtual server management device further comprising a display unit for displaying the grouping information on the display device. A method for controlling a virtual server management apparatus that is connected to at least one computer having a plurality of virtual servers via a communication line and transmits a processing instruction to the virtual server,
The control method is:
Grouping the plurality of virtual servers under a predetermined condition depending on the plurality of virtual servers, and generating group information in which the grouped virtual servers and the computers on which the grouped virtual servers are constructed are associated with each other When,
Receiving a processing instruction for the grouped virtual servers;
Transmitting the received processing instruction to the computer based on the group information;
The control method characterized by including. To a virtual server management apparatus that is connected to at least one computer having a plurality of virtual servers via a communication line and transmits a processing instruction to the virtual server,
A function of grouping the plurality of virtual servers under a predetermined condition depending on the plurality of virtual servers, and generating group information in which the grouped virtual servers and the computers on which the grouped virtual servers are constructed are associated When,
A function of accepting processing instructions for the grouped virtual servers;
A function of transmitting the received processing instruction to the computer based on the group information;
A program characterized by realizing.

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