Patents by Inventor Duncan Epping

Duncan Epping has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20240345747
    Abstract: The present disclosure is related to methods, systems, and machine-readable media for force provisioning virtual objects in degraded stretched clusters. A request to provision a virtual object by a stretched cluster according to a storage policy specified as part of the request can be received by a software defined data center (SDDC). The cluster can include a plurality of sites. An insufficiency of storage policy resources to satisfy the storage policy specified for the virtual object can be determined. The virtual object can be force provisioned responsive to determining storage policy resources sufficient to satisfy the storage policy at one of the plurality of sites.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 24, 2024
    Publication date: October 17, 2024
    Inventors: Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman, Cormac Hogan
  • Patent number: 12086634
    Abstract: An example method of placing a virtual machine (VM) in a cluster of hosts is described. Each of the hosts having a hypervisor managed by a virtualization management server for the cluster, the hosts separated into a plurality of nonuniform memory access (NUMA) domains. The method including: comparing a virtual central processing unit (vCPU) and memory configuration of the VM with physical NUMA topologies of the hosts; selecting a set of the hosts spanning at least one of the NUMA domains, each host in the set of hosts having a physical NUMA topology that maximizes locality for vCPU and memory resources of the VM as specified in the vCPU and memory configuration; and providing the set of hosts to a distributed resource scheduler (DRS) executing in the virtualization management server, the DRS configured to place the VM in a host selected from the set of hosts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2024
    Assignee: VMware LLC
    Inventors: Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping, Cormac Hogan
  • Patent number: 12032981
    Abstract: The present disclosure is related to methods, systems, and machine-readable media for force provisioning using available resources. A request can be received to provision a virtual computing instance by a software defined data center according to a storage policy specified as part of the request. An insufficiency of storage policy resources to satisfy the storage policy specified for the VCI can be determined. A best-match storage policy can be determined for the VCI based on available storage policy resources, and the VCI can be force provisioned according to the best-match storage policy using the available storage policy resources.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 11, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2024
    Assignee: VMware LLC
    Inventors: Cormac Hogan, Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping
  • Patent number: 12019882
    Abstract: The present disclosure is related to methods, systems, and machine-readable media for force provisioning virtual objects in degraded stretched clusters. A request to provision a virtual object by a stretched cluster according to a storage policy specified as part of the request can be received by a software defined data center (SDDC). The cluster can include a plurality of sites. An insufficiency of storage policy resources to satisfy the storage policy specified for the virtual object can be determined. The virtual object can be force provisioned responsive to determining storage policy resources sufficient to satisfy the storage policy at one of the plurality of sites.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2021
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2024
    Assignee: VMware LLC
    Inventors: Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman, Cormac Hogan
  • Publication number: 20240111559
    Abstract: A method for recovering a storage policy of a workload executing in a cluster of host servers that are managed by a first management appliance, wherein the host servers each include a local storage device, and the storage policy corresponds to storage objects of the workload, includes the steps of: in response to an instruction from the first management appliance, creating a first storage object of the workload according to the storage policy, wherein the instruction includes the storage policy; storing the first storage object and the storage policy in a shared storage device that is provisioned from the local storage devices of the host servers; and in response to a request from a second management appliance configured to manage the cluster of host servers, retrieving the storage policy from the shared storage device and transmitting the storage policy to the second management appliance.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 29, 2022
    Publication date: April 4, 2024
    Inventors: Cormac HOGAN, Duncan EPPING, Frank DENNEMAN
  • Patent number: 11782639
    Abstract: Techniques for automated datastore unavailability handling are provided. In one set of embodiments, a computer system can receive a request to bring a datastore offline and, in response to the request, identify one or more virtual machines (VMs) in a virtualized computing environment that have one or more virtual disks stored in the datastore. The computer system can then, for each of the one or more VMs, determine an action to be taken with respect to the VM in response to the datastore's unavailability and trigger execution of the action.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 4, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2023
    Assignee: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Cormac Hogan, Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman
  • Patent number: 11748142
    Abstract: The disclosure provides an approach for high-availability admission control. Embodiments include determining a number of slots present on the cluster of hosts. Embodiments include receiving an indication of a number of host failures to tolerate. Embodiments include determining a number of slots that are assigned to existing computing instances on the cluster of hosts. Embodiments include determining an available cluster capacity based on the number of slots present on the cluster of hosts, the number of host failures to tolerate, and the number of slots that are assigned to existing computing instances on the cluster of hosts. Embodiments include determining whether to admit a given computing instance to the cluster of hosts based on the available cluster capacity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2023
    Assignee: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping, Cormac Hogan
  • Publication number: 20230152992
    Abstract: The present disclosure is related to methods, systems, and machine-readable media for force provisioning virtual objects in degraded stretched clusters. A request to provision a virtual object by a stretched cluster according to a storage policy specified as part of the request can be received by a software defined data center (SDDC). The cluster can include a plurality of sites. An insufficiency of storage policy resources to satisfy the storage policy specified for the virtual object can be determined. The virtual object can be force provisioned responsive to determining storage policy resources sufficient to satisfy the storage policy at one of the plurality of sites.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 15, 2021
    Publication date: May 18, 2023
    Applicant: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman, Cormac Hogan
  • Patent number: 11635920
    Abstract: In certain embodiments, a computer system can create first and second pluralities of disk groups in a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) cluster, where each disk group in the first plurality has capacity storage devices of a first type and each disk group in the second plurality has capacity storage devices of a second type. The computer system can further tag each disk group in the first plurality with a first disk group tag, tag each disk group in the second plurality with a second disk group tag, and create a storage policy that includes a placement rule identifying the first disk group tag. Then, at a time of provisioning a virtual machine (VM) in the HCI cluster that is associated with the storage policy, the computer system can place the VM on one or more of the first plurality of disk groups in accordance with the placement rule identifying the first disk group tag.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2023
    Assignee: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Cormac Hogan, Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping
  • Patent number: 11614864
    Abstract: A method for storage management of an object among a plurality of storage devices of a datacenter is provided. The method, in response to receiving an input on a selection item presented through a UI, determines that a manual storage management of an object is selected. The method then receives a storage policy for storing the object. Based on the storage policy, the method defines a plurality of components for the object and determines whether a set of one or more storage resources is available for storing the plurality of components. When the method determines that the set is available, for each component, the method presents the set of storage resources, receives a selection of a storage resource in the set to store the component, and updates the set based on the policy and the selection before presenting the updated set to select from for storing a next component.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2023
    Assignee: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Cormac Hogan, Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman
  • Publication number: 20230038612
    Abstract: An example method of placing a virtual machine (VM) in a cluster of hosts is described. Each of the hosts having a hypervisor managed by a virtualization management server for the cluster, the hosts separated into a plurality of nonuniform memory access (NUMA) domains. The method including: comparing a virtual central processing unit (vCPU) and memory configuration of the VM with physical NUMA topologies of the hosts; selecting a set of the hosts spanning at least one of the NUMA domains, each host in the set of hosts having a physical NUMA topology that maximizes locality for vCPU and memory resources of the VM as specified in the vCPU and memory configuration; and providing the set of hosts to a distributed resource scheduler (DRS) executing in the virtualization management server, the DRS configured to place the VM in a host selected from the set of hosts.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 23, 2021
    Publication date: February 9, 2023
    Inventors: Frank DENNEMAN, Duncan EPPING, Cormac HOGAN
  • Publication number: 20230035310
    Abstract: The current document is directed to methods and systems that automatically deploy and manage applications that are associated with hardware dependencies. As one example, many machine-learning-based applications use specialized hardware accelerators during training phases since, in many cases, training of machine-learning-based applications and systems would be computationally intractable without the increased computational bandwidth provided by hardware accelerators. However, such hardware dependencies may prevent machine-learning-based applications from being deployed and managed effectively by widely used automated orchestration systems, and manual deployment of applications with hardware dependencies may suffer significant inefficiencies and problems related to maintenance downtime within distributed computer systems.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 23, 2021
    Publication date: February 2, 2023
    Applicant: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Frank Denneman, Cormac Hogan, Duncan Epping
  • Patent number: 11556368
    Abstract: In one set of embodiments, a computer system can analyze a layout of one or more storage objects of a VM to be placed within a cluster of host systems of a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) deployment. The computer system can further determine, based on the analyzing, that the one or more storage objects are stored on a single host system or within a single fault domain of the cluster. The computer system can then cause the VM to be placed on that single host system or within that single fault domain.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 17, 2023
    Assignee: VMWARE, INC.
    Inventors: Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman, Cormac Hogan
  • Patent number: 11461191
    Abstract: Techniques for orchestrating and prioritizing the rebuild of storage object components in a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) deployment comprising a cluster of host systems are provided. In one set of embodiments, a computer system can identify a list of storage object components impacted by a maintenance event or failure of a host system in the cluster. The computer system can further determine a priority class for each storage object component in the list, where the determined priority class is based on a virtual machine (VM)-level priority class assigned to a VM to which the storage object component belongs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2022
    Assignee: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping, Cormac Hogan
  • Publication number: 20220283748
    Abstract: In certain embodiments, a computer system can create first and second pluralities of disk groups in a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) cluster, where each disk group in the first plurality has capacity storage devices of a first type and each disk group in the second plurality has capacity storage devices of a second type. The computer system can further tag each disk group in the first plurality with a first disk group tag, tag each disk group in the second plurality with a second disk group tag, and create a storage policy that includes a placement rule identifying the first disk group tag. Then, at a time of provisioning a virtual machine (VM) in the HCI cluster that is associated with the storage policy, the computer system can place the VM on one or more of the first plurality of disk groups in accordance with the placement rule identifying the first disk group tag.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 3, 2021
    Publication date: September 8, 2022
    Inventors: Cormac Hogan, Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping
  • Patent number: 11435939
    Abstract: In an example, a method of allocating storage objects of a virtual machine across storage devices in a computing system includes: collecting capabilities of the storage devices in the computing system; assigning a tier of a plurality of tiers to each of the storage devices in the computing system; collecting performance data for the storage devices across a period of time; analyzing the performance data and the capabilities to determine a placement of storage objects of the virtual machine across the plurality of tiers; and moving the storage objects to respective ones of the storage devices based on the assigned tiers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 6, 2022
    Assignee: VMWARE, INC.
    Inventors: Ronald Gerard Singler, Jr., Cormac Hogan, Duncan Epping
  • Publication number: 20220244887
    Abstract: Techniques for automated datastore unavailability handling are provided. In one set of embodiments, a computer system can receive a request to bring a datastore offline and, in response to the request, identify one or more virtual machines (VMs) in a virtualized computing environment that have one or more virtual disks stored in the datastore. The computer system can then, for each of the one or more VMs, determine an action to be taken with respect to the VM in response to the datastore's unavailability and trigger execution of the action.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 4, 2021
    Publication date: August 4, 2022
    Inventors: Cormac Hogan, Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman
  • Publication number: 20220188137
    Abstract: The present disclosure is related to methods, systems, and machine-readable media for force provisioning using available resources. A request can be received to provision a virtual computing instance by a software defined data center according to a storage policy specified as part of the request. An insufficiency of storage policy resources to satisfy the storage policy specified for the VCI can be determined.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 11, 2020
    Publication date: June 16, 2022
    Applicant: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Cormac Hogan, Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping
  • Publication number: 20220179555
    Abstract: A method for storage management of an object among a plurality of storage devices of a datacenter is provided. The method, in response to receiving an input on a selection item presented through a UI, determines that a manual storage management of an object is selected. The method then receives a storage policy for storing the object. Based on the storage policy, the method defines a plurality of components for the object and determines whether a set of one or more storage resources is available for storing the plurality of components. When the method determines that the set is available, for each component, the method presents the set of storage resources, receives a selection of a storage resource in the set to store the component, and updates the set based on the policy and the selection before presenting the updated set to select from for storing a next component.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 4, 2020
    Publication date: June 9, 2022
    Inventors: Cormac HOGAN, Duncan EPPING, Frank DENNEMAN
  • Publication number: 20220156099
    Abstract: The disclosure provides an approach for high-availability admission control. Embodiments include determining a number of slots present on the cluster of hosts. Embodiments include receiving an indication of a number of host failures to tolerate. Embodiments include determining a number of slots that are assigned to existing computing instances on the cluster of hosts. Embodiments include determining an available cluster capacity based on the number of slots present on the cluster of hosts, the number of host failures to tolerate, and the number of slots that are assigned to existing computing instances on the cluster of hosts. Embodiments include determining whether to admit a given computing instance to the cluster of hosts based on the available cluster capacity.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 13, 2020
    Publication date: May 19, 2022
    Applicant: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Frank DENNEMAN, Duncan EPPING, Cormac HOGAN