Abstract: A resource management system for a virtual machine computing environment includes a software component that optimizes capacity between server clusters or groups by monitoring the capacity of server clusters or groups and automatically adding and removing host systems to and from server clusters or groups. The software component may be implemented at a server cluster management level to monitor and execute host system moves between server clusters and/or at a higher level in the resource management hierarchy. At the higher level, the software component is configured to monitor and execute host system moves between sets of server clusters being managed by different server cluster management agents.

Abstract: Available buffers in the memory space of a guest operating system of a virtual machine are provided to a network interface controller (NIC) for use during direct memory access (DMA) and the guest operating system is notified accordingly when data is written into such available buffers. These capabilities obviate the requirement of using hypervisor memory as a staging area to determine which virtual machine to forward incoming data.

Abstract: Systems and techniques are described for virtual machine security. A described technique includes operating one or more virtual machines each in accordance with a respective security container, wherein the respective security container is associated with a respective rule that specifies transfer of the virtual machine from the respective security container to a quarantine container based on one or more criteria. One or more security services are operated on the one or more virtual machines to identify one or more security threats associated with one or more of the virtual machines. One or more tags generated by the endpoint security services are obtained, where each tag is for a virtual machine that is associated with one of the identified security threats. And one of the virtual machines is identified as requiring transfer to the quarantine container based on, at least, one or more of the obtained tags and the one or more criteria.

Abstract: A method includes determining a capacity model that configures computing resource capacity for a capacity container. The computing resource capacity includes a first storage attribute for an amount of storage in a storage component. A load model is determined that configures load for the capacity container. The load includes a second storage attribute for a storage requirement for a virtual machine. A profile of a virtual machine unit is determined for estimating available capacity in a capacity container. The profile is determined using virtual machine attributes for a set of virtual machines, wherein the virtual machine unit includes a storage requirement based on storage requirements for the set of virtual machines. The profile of the virtual machine unit is fit into available capacity. A number of virtual machine units is determined based on the fitting, the number of virtual machine units being a measure of available capacity.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for placing virtual machines in a collection is provided. A plurality of equivalence sets of hosts is determined prior to placing virtual machines in the collection. The hosts in an equivalence set of hosts are considered similar. An equivalence set of hosts in the plurality of equivalence sets is selected to place the virtual machines in the collection. The method then places at least a portion of the virtual machines in the collection on one or more hosts in the selected equivalence set of hosts.

Abstract: Embodiments perform automatic selection of hosts and/or datastores for deployment of a plurality of virtual machines (VMs) while monitoring and recovering from errors during deployment. Resource constraints associated with the VMs are compared against resources or characteristics of available hosts and datastores. A VM placement engine selects an optimal set of hosts/datastores and initiates VM creation automatically or in response to administrator authorization. During deployment, available resources are monitored enabling dynamic improvement of the set of recommended hosts/datastores and automatic recovery from errors occurring during deployment.

Abstract: A method for determining costs associated with at least one datacenter is described. A portal is accessed, the portal operable to provide a data collector. A data collector is received at the at least one data center. Data collected by the data collector sends the data to the portal. A report associated with the costs associated with the at least one datacenter is received.

Abstract: A method for performing I/O operations on a file stored in a file system utilizing a shared data storage system and accessible by a plurality of host computers is disclosed. A host computer receives from a process executing on it, a request to read data stored in the file. The host computer then requests the data stored in the file without acquiring a lock from the file system. The host computer also maintains a timeout value associated with the file while reading the data. The host computer receives at least a portion of the data prior to an expiration of time, and if all the data has not been received before the expiration of time, it then assesses whether another of the host computers has acquired a lock on the file, and, if so, invalidates the received data without providing it to the requesting process.

Abstract: A method for converting a disk of a physical computer into a virtual disk for use by a virtual machine is described. Contents of the disk of the physical computer are copied into an image file, wherein the image file has a different sector-by-sector organization of the contents than the disk but a logically equivalent file system organization. Hardware configuration information from the image file is then extracted, wherein the hardware configuration information relates to hardware of the physical computer and, based on a comparison of the extracted hardware configuration information and a virtual hardware configuration of the virtual machine, hardware-dependent files in the image file are replaced with substitute files that are compatible with the virtual hardware configuration of the virtual machine.

Abstract: A computing system includes virtualization software including a guest operating system (OS). A method maintains, by the virtualization software layer, a first shadow page table for use in a kernel mode and a second shadow page table for use in a user mode. The virtualization software switches between using the first shadow page table and the second shadow page table when the guest OS switches between operating in the kernel mode and the user mode.

Abstract: Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems parse data with a plurality of pattern matching rules. Pattern matching rules are applied in an ordered sequence and a first rule is applied to the data before a second rule is applied to the data. In response to determining the second rule matches the data the second rule is determined to match the data and the sequence is reordered to apply the second rule prior to the first rule.

Abstract: Techniques for enabling fault tolerant distributed query processing are provided. In one embodiment, a first processing node in a plurality of processing nodes can execute an instance of a query operator, where the query operator is part of a query plan for a database query that is processed in a distributed manner by the plurality of processing nodes. The first processing node can further generate a snapshot of the instance of the query operator, where the snapshot includes state information usable for moving execution of the query operator from the first processing node to another processing node after a failure of the first processing node. The first processing node can then save the snapshot to a distributed data store.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for de-duplication of data. In one embodiment, a system comprises de-duplication logic that is coupled to a de-duplication repository. The de-duplication logic is operable to receive, from a client device over a network, a request to store a file in the de-duplicated repository using a single storage encoding. The request includes a file identifier and a set of signatures that identify a set of chunks from the file. The de-duplication logic determines whether any chunks in the set are missing from the de-duplicated repository and requests the missing chunks from the client device. Then, for each missing chunk, the de-duplication logic stores in the de-duplicated repository that chunk and a signature representing that chunk. The de-duplication logic also stores, in the de-duplicated repository, a file entry that represents the file and that associates the set of signatures with the file identifier.

Abstract: According to one aspect of the invention, a request to generate a state checkpoint of a computer is initiated within a user-level software entity, such as a virtual machine. Upon sensing the request, a checkpointing mechanism generates and stores at least one checkpoint, each checkpoint comprising a representation of the total state of the computer system. Upon sensing a state restoration request corresponding to one of the checkpoints, the checkpointing mechanism restores the checkpointed state in the computer, which can then resume operation from the restored total state. According to another aspect of the invention, a total checkpointed state is exported to another computer, where the state can be modified, for example, debugged, and then loaded into either the originally checkpointed computer (which, again, may be a virtual machine), or some other computer.

Abstract: Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems for parsing unstructured data with a plurality of pattern matching rules are disclosed. An optimized pattern matching rule for one or more respective pattern matching rules is derived from an original pattern matching rule. The optimized pattern matching rule includes an extracted text string from the respective pattern matching rule or a less complex pattern match than the respective pattern matching rule. If the extracted text string or pattern is determined to match any of the data to be parsed, application of the original pattern matching rule is bypassed. The original pattern matching rule is applied when the one or more optimized pattern matching rules match the data.

Abstract: Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive data as input to be parsed. The data is parsed using a plurality of pattern matching rules, the plurality of pattern matching rules organized according to a hierarchy including a parent rule and one or more child rules of the parent rule. Parsing includes applying the parent rule to the unstructured data, determining the parent rule is unable to find a pattern match in the unstructured data, and bypassing the application of each child rule to the unstructured data in response to the determination that the parent rule is unable to find a pattern match.

Abstract: Techniques for performing dynamic load balancing during distributed query processing are provided. In one embodiment, a first processing node in a plurality of processing nodes can execute an instance of a query operator, where the query operator is part of a query plan for a database query that is processed in a distributed manner by the plurality of processing nodes. The first processing node can further monitor its load level while the executing occurs. If the load level exceeds a threshold, the first processing node can split an amount of remaining work that is associated with the executing into a first portion and a second portion, determine state information for moving execution of the second portion from the first processing node to a second processing node, and save the state information to a distributed data store.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method displays images from a remote desktop of a desktop GUI on a client device. The method receives a plurality of image blocks for a frame update of an image of the desktop GUI being displayed on the client device. The remote desktop is being run on a host. The client device determines that one or more missing image blocks have not been received for the frame update and determines if the frame update should be performed without the one or more missing image blocks. If the frame update of the desktop GUI should be performed without the one or more missing image blocks, the client device performs the frame update of the desktop GUI using the plurality of image blocks without using the one or more missing image blocks.

Abstract: An analytics engine receives real-time statistics from a set of virtual machines supporting a line of business (LOB) application. The statistics relate to computing resource utilization and are used by the analytics engine to generate a prediction of demand for the LOB application in order to dynamically control the provisioning of virtual machines to support the LOB application.

Abstract: Embodiments detect and group multiple failure events to enable batch processing of those failure events, such as in a virtual datacenter executing a plurality of virtual machines (VMs). A long timer, adaptive short timer, and adaptive polling frequency enable a computing device to efficiently detect and group the failure events that may be related (e.g., resulting from one failure). The grouped failure events are processed in parallel thereby reducing the time for recovery from the failure events.