Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

VMStore: Distributed storage system for multiple virtual machines

  • Research Papers
  • Special Focus
  • Published:
Science China Information Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Desktop virtualization is a very hot concept in both industry and academic communities. Since virtualized desktop system is based on multiple virtual machines (VM), it is necessary to design a distributed storage system to manage the VM images. In this paper, we design a distributed storage system, VMStore, by taking into account three important characteristics: high performance VM snapshot, booting optimization from multiple images and redundancy removal of images data. We adopt a direct index structure of blocks for VM snapshots to speed up VM booting performance significantly; provide a distribute storage structure with good bandwidth scalability by dynamically changing the number of storage nodes; and propose a data preprocessing strategy with intelligent object partitioning techniques, which would eliminate duplication more effectively. Performance analysis for VMStore focuses on two metrics: the speedup of VM booting and the overhead of de-duplication. Experimental results show the efficiency and effectiveness of VMStore.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Wang X L, Sun Y F, Luo Y W, et al. Dynamic memory paravirtualization transparent to guest OS. Sci China Inf Sci, 2010, 53: 77–88

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Liao X F, Jin H, Hu L T, et al. Towards virtualized desktop environment. Concurr Comp-Pract E, 2010, 22: 419–440

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Xiao N, Chen T, Liu F. RSEDP: Reliable, scalable and efficient data placement algorithm. Int J Super Comput, 2011, 55: 103–122

    Google Scholar 

  4. Zhao Y J, Xiao N, Liu F. Red: An efficient replacement algorithm based on REsident distance for exclusive storage caches. In: Proceedings of the 26th IEEE Symposium on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies (MSST), Nevada, America, 2010

  5. Meyer D, Aggarwal G, Cully B, et al. Parallax: Virtual disks for virtual machines. In: Proceedings of the ACM SIGOPS/EuroSys European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys 2008), ACM, 2008

  6. Richardson T. Virtual network computing. IEEE Internet Comput, 1998, 2: 33–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Peterson Z, Burns R. Ext3cow: A time-shifting file system for regulatory compliance. ACM Trans Stor, 2005, 1: 190–212

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. VMware, Inc. VMware VMFS product datasheet. http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vmfs\_datasheet.pdf

  9. Warfield A. Virtual devices for virtual machines. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006

  10. Karger D, Lehman E, Leighton F, et al. Consistent hashing and random trees: Distributed caching protocols for relieving hot spots on the World Wide Web. In: Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, ACM, 2009. 654–663

  11. Anthony L, Eric V H. Experiences with content addressable storage and virtual disks. In: Proceedings of the First Workshop on I/O Virtualization, ACM, 2008

  12. Dubnicki C, Gryz L, Heldt L, et al. Hydrastor: A scalable secondary storage. In: Proceedings of the 7th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 2009), ACM, 2009

  13. Lillibridge M, Eshghi K, Bhagwat D, et al. Sparse indexing: Large scale, inline de-duplication using sampling and locality. In: Proceedings of the Eighth USENIX Conferenceon on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 2009), ACM, 2009

  14. Bobbarjung D, Dubnicki C, Jagannathan S. Fingerdiff: Improved duplicate elimination in storage systems. In: Proceedings of IEEE/NASA Goddard Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies (MSST 2006), IEEE, 2006

  15. Tang S, Chen Y, Zhang Z. Machine Bank: Own your virtual personal computer. In: The 2007 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS’07), IEEE, 2007

  16. Meyer D T, Wires J, Ivanova M, et al. Capo: Recapitulating storage for virtual desktops. In: Proceeding of FAST’11: 9th USENIX Conference on File and Storage. Technologies, ACM, 2011

  17. Pfaff B, Garfinkel T, Rosenblum M. Virtualization aware file systems: Getting beyond the limitations of virtual disks. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, ACM, 2006

  18. Factor M, Meth K, Naor D, et al. Object storage: The future building block for storage systems. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International IEEE Symposium on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies, Sardinia, Italy, IEEE, 2005

  19. Suzaki K, Yagi T, Iijima K, et al. Effect of disk prefetching of guest OS on storage deduplication. In: Proceeding of Runtime Environments/Systems, Layering, and Virtualized Environments(RESoLVE) Workshop, ACM, 2011

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Services Computing Technology and System Lab, Cluster and Grid Computing Lab, School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    XiaoFei Liao, He Li, Hai Jin, HaiXiang Hou, Yue Jiang & HaiKun Liu

Authors
  1. XiaoFei Liao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. He Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Hai Jin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. HaiXiang Hou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Yue Jiang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. HaiKun Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hai Jin.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Liao, X., Li, H., Jin, H. et al. VMStore: Distributed storage system for multiple virtual machines. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 54, 1104–1118 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-011-4273-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-011-4273-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation