Abstract: Disclosed is an improved approach to implement I/O and storage device management in a virtualization environment. According to some approaches, a Service VM is employed to control and manage any type of storage device, including directly attached storage in addition to networked and cloud storage. The Service VM implements the Storage Controller logic in the user space, and can be migrated as needed from one node to another. IP-based requests are used to send I/O request to the Service VMs. The Service VM can directly implement storage and I/O optimizations within the direct data access path, without the need for add-on products.

Abstract: Techniques for entity engagement are disclosed. An onboarding request is received from an interested entity and a first profile is generated for the interested entity. The onboarding of interested entity is verified and upon successful verification, the first profile is stored in an immutable form on a decentralized authentication framework. Further, an engagement request is received, from at least one of the interested entity and the entity of interest, to initiate a profile engagement between the interested entity and the entity of interest. The engagement request is authenticated to determine the credibility of the engagement request. Upon successful authentication of the engagement request, the first profile and the second profile is retrieved from the decentralized authentication framework. Based on an approval received from at least one of the interested entity and the entity of interest, engagement is initiated between the interested entity and the entity of interest.

Abstract: Disclosed is an improved approach to process data and events from disparate ecosystems pertaining to products. An approach is provided to automatically cluster events from various ecosystems into noteworthy incidents and to correlate them with entities extracted from each system. Incidents are correlated between ecosystems to classify the type of incidents and to give a coherent converged picture of the event streams coming from the various ecosystems. Noteworthy incidents are automatically converted into tickets and their severity is ascertained from the associated incidents. Tickets that reference underlying defects with the product or service are converted into issues.

Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products for hibernating a computing cluster. An information lifecycle manager facility (ILM) is invoked to carry out movement of data from the hypervisor of a node of a computing cluster to a different storage location. Multiple nodes of the computing cluster can be hibernated until the entire computing cluster has been hibernated. The ILM observes a replication factor of the computing cluster to suppress saving multiple copies of data. A hibernation object comprising state information of a node is stored in a network-accessible storage location. The hibernation object is accessed in response to an instruction to initiate restoration of all or parts of the computing cluster. The hibernation object can be stored using first cloud computing storage infrastructure and later, can be restored to a different cloud computing infrastructure. Upon restoration, the hibernated cluster has the same state as of the time of hibernation.

Abstract: Disclosed is an improved approach to implement I/O and storage device management in a virtualization environment. According to some approaches, a Service VM is employed to control and manage any type of storage device, including directly attached storage in addition to networked and cloud storage. The Service VM implements the Storage Controller logic in the user space, and can be migrated as needed from one node to another. IP-based requests are used to send I/O request to the Service VMs. The Service VM can directly implement storage and I/O optimizations within the direct data access path, without the need for add-on products.

Abstract: An improved architecture is provided which enables significant convergence of the components of a system to implement virtualization. The infrastructure is VM-aware, and permits scaled out converged storage provisioning to allow storage on a per-VM basis, while identifying I/O coming from each VM. The current approach can scale out from a few nodes to a large number of nodes. In addition, the inventive approach has ground-up integration with all types of storage, including solid-state drives. The architecture of the invention provides high availability against any type of failure, including disk or node failures. In addition, the invention provides high performance by making I/O access local, leveraging solid-state drives and employing a series of patent-pending performance optimizations.

Abstract: Disclosed is an improved approach to implement I/O and storage device management in a virtualization environment. According to some approaches, a Service VM is employed to control and manage any type of storage device, including directly attached storage in addition to networked and cloud storage. The Service VM implements the Storage Controller logic in the user space, and can be migrated as needed from one node to another. IP-based requests are used to send I/O request to the Service VMs. The Service VM can directly implement storage and I/O optimizations within the direct data access path, without the need for add-on products.

Abstract: An improved architecture is provided which enables significant convergence of the components of a system to implement virtualization. The infrastructure is VM-aware, and permits scaled out converged storage provisioning to allow storage on a per-VM basis, while identifying I/O coming from each VM. The current approach can scale out from a few nodes to a large number of nodes. In addition, the inventive approach has ground-up integration with all types of storage, including solid-state drives. The architecture of the invention provides high availability against any type of failure, including disk or node failures. In addition, the invention provides high performance by making I/O access local, leveraging solid-state drives and employing a series of patent-pending performance optimizations.

Abstract: An improved architecture is provided which enables significant convergence of the components of a system to implement virtualization. The infrastructure is VM-aware, and permits scaled out converged storage provisioning to allow storage on a per-VM basis, while identifying I/O coming from each VM. The current approach can scale out from a few nodes to a large number of nodes. In addition, the inventive approach has ground-up integration with all types of storage, including solid-state drives. The architecture of the invention provides high availability against any type of failure, including disk or node failures. In addition, the invention provides high performance by making I/O access local, leveraging solid-state drives and employing a series of patent-pending performance optimizations.

Abstract: An improved architecture is provided which enables significant convergence of the components of a system to implement virtualization. The infrastructure is VM-aware, and permits scaled out converged storage provisioning to allow storage on a per-VM basis, while identifying I/O coming from each VM. The current approach can scale out from a few nodes to a large number of nodes. In addition, the inventive approach has ground-up integration with all types of storage, including solid-state drives. The architecture of the invention provides high availability against any type of failure, including disk or node failures. In addition, the invention provides high performance by making I/O access local, leveraging solid-state drives and employing a series of patent-pending performance optimizations.

Abstract: A system for managing storage devices, includes a plurality of nodes that implement a virtualization environment, each node of the plurality of nodes comprising a hypervisor, a service virtual machine that sits above the hypervisor, and one or more user virtual machines that sit above the hypervisor; a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by the user virtual machines via the service virtual machines, wherein a first node of the plurality of nodes comprises a first hypervisor, a first service virtual machine and a first set of one or more user virtual machines, wherein a second node of the plurality of nodes comprises a second hypervisor, a second service virtual machine and a second set of one or more user virtual machines, wherein the first hypervisor and the second hypervisor are of different types, and wherein the first virtual machine and the second service virtual machine are of the same type.

Abstract: A system for implementing storage for a virtualization environment, including a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes implements a virtualization environment, a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by virtual machines in the virtualization environment, and wherein the plurality of storage devices comprises a local storage device that is locally attached to one of the plurality of nodes, and in which the local storage device can be managed as part of a global storage space for the virtualization environment.

Abstract: A method for handling storage in response to migration of a virtual machine in a virtualization environment, including receiving an I/O request for a virtual disk, determining that a service virtual machine which implements a storage controller is not registered as owner of the virtual disk, obtaining ownership of the virtual disk by the service virtual machine, the service virtual machine handling the I/O request after obtaining ownership of the virtual disk.

Abstract: A method for handling storage in response to migration of a virtual machine in a virtualization environment, including receiving an I/O request for a virtual disk, determining that a service virtual machine which implements a storage controller is not registered as owner of the virtual disk, obtaining ownership of the virtual disk by the service virtual machine, the service virtual machine handling the I/O request after obtaining ownership of the virtual disk.

Abstract: A system for managing de-duplication of data in a virtualization environment, that includes a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes implements a virtualization environment, a plurality of primary storage devices that are accessed by virtual machines in the virtualization environment, and wherein data undergoes de-duplication in the virtualization environment such that an instruction to store a data item that is issued by a virtual machine is not duplicatively stored if the data item is already stored in the plurality of the primary storage devices.

Abstract: A method for handling storage in a virtualization environment including identifying a situation in which a storage controller ownership change is to occur for a virtual disk, identifying a candidate replacement owner for the virtual disk and transferring ownership of the virtual disk to the candidate replacement owner.

Abstract: A system for communicating to a storage controller in a virtualization environment, including a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes implements a virtualization environment, and a node comprises a hypervisor and multiple user virtual machines; a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by the virtual machine; and a storage controller implemented as a service virtual machine on the node to manage access by the multiple user virtual machines to the plurality of storage devices, wherein a networking protocol is used to communicate between the multiple user virtual machines and the storage controller.

Abstract: A system for implementing a virtual disk in a virtualization environment, including a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes implements a virtualization environment, and a node comprises a hypervisor, user virtual machines, and a storage controller implemented as a service virtual machine; a plurality of storage devices that are accessed by user virtual machines and are managed by storage controllers, in which a first and a second virtual disk (vDisk) are formed from the plurality of storage devices and the first virtual disk is accessible by just a first user virtual machine and the second virtual disk is accessible by just a second user virtual machine.

Abstract: A computer is programmed to compress data of a database in response to database modification language (DML) statements generated by on-line transaction processing (OLTP) systems. In several embodiments, data that is initially added to a database block is left uncompressed until a predetermined condition is satisfied, which happens infrequently (relative to OLTP transactions on the block). When satisfied, the computer automatically compresses all uncompressed data in the block, which increases the amount of unused space in the block. New data is thereafter added uncompressed to the partially compressed block, until satisfaction of a predetermined condition whereby the partially compressed block is again compressed, i.e. re-compressed. Adding of new data to a partially compressed block and its compression are repeated unless another predetermined condition is met, in response to which the block is not further re-compressed, thereby to recognize a limit on the benefit from compression.

Abstract: A method, system and computer program product are described for state maintenance of a large object. In one approach, the method, system and computer program product perform by associating one or more buffers with a transaction involving a large object, the large object data may be accessed using the one or more buffers during the transaction, and storing data for the large object from the one or more buffers in one or more sets of contiguous blocks. In one approach, a system performs state maintenance of a large object with a cache that associates one or more buffers with a transaction involving a large object, the large object data may be accessed using the one or more buffers during the transaction, and the cache stores large object data from the one or more buffers in one or more sets of contiguous blocks in storage.