Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a form of cloud computing, is gaining attention for its ability to enable efficient server administration in dynamic workload environments. In such environments, however, updating the software stack or content files of virtual machines (VMs) is a time-consuming task, discouraging administrators from frequently enhancing their services and fixing security holes. This is because the administrator has to upload the whole new disk image to the cloud platform via the Internet, which is not yet fast enough that large amounts of data can be transferred smoothly. Although the administrator can apply incremental updates directly to the running VMs, he or she has to carefully consider the type of update and perform operations on all running VMs, such as application restarts. This is a tedious and error-prone task. This paper presents a technique for synchronizing VMs with less time and lower administrative burden. We introduce the Virtual Disk Image Repository, which runs on the cloud platform and automatically updates the virtual disk image and the running VMs with only the incremental update information. We also show a mechanism that performs necessary operations on the running VM such as restarting server processes, based on the types of files that are updated. We implement a prototype on Linux 2.6.31.14 and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. An experiment shows that our technique can synchronize VMs in an order-of-magnitude shorter time than the conventional disk-image-based VM method. Also, we discuss limitations of our technique and some directions for more efficient VM updates.
Hiroshi YAMADA
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Shuntaro TONOSAKI
Keio University
Kenji KONO
Keio University
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Hiroshi YAMADA, Shuntaro TONOSAKI, Kenji KONO, "Efficient Update Activation for Virtual Machines in IaaS Cloud Computing Environments" in IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information,
vol. E97-D, no. 3, pp. 469-479, March 2014, doi: 10.1587/transinf.E97.D.469.
Abstract: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a form of cloud computing, is gaining attention for its ability to enable efficient server administration in dynamic workload environments. In such environments, however, updating the software stack or content files of virtual machines (VMs) is a time-consuming task, discouraging administrators from frequently enhancing their services and fixing security holes. This is because the administrator has to upload the whole new disk image to the cloud platform via the Internet, which is not yet fast enough that large amounts of data can be transferred smoothly. Although the administrator can apply incremental updates directly to the running VMs, he or she has to carefully consider the type of update and perform operations on all running VMs, such as application restarts. This is a tedious and error-prone task. This paper presents a technique for synchronizing VMs with less time and lower administrative burden. We introduce the Virtual Disk Image Repository, which runs on the cloud platform and automatically updates the virtual disk image and the running VMs with only the incremental update information. We also show a mechanism that performs necessary operations on the running VM such as restarting server processes, based on the types of files that are updated. We implement a prototype on Linux 2.6.31.14 and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. An experiment shows that our technique can synchronize VMs in an order-of-magnitude shorter time than the conventional disk-image-based VM method. Also, we discuss limitations of our technique and some directions for more efficient VM updates.
URL: https://global.ieice.org/en_transactions/information/10.1587/transinf.E97.D.469/_p
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@ARTICLE{e97-d_3_469,
author={Hiroshi YAMADA, Shuntaro TONOSAKI, Kenji KONO, },
journal={IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information},
title={Efficient Update Activation for Virtual Machines in IaaS Cloud Computing Environments},
year={2014},
volume={E97-D},
number={3},
pages={469-479},
abstract={Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a form of cloud computing, is gaining attention for its ability to enable efficient server administration in dynamic workload environments. In such environments, however, updating the software stack or content files of virtual machines (VMs) is a time-consuming task, discouraging administrators from frequently enhancing their services and fixing security holes. This is because the administrator has to upload the whole new disk image to the cloud platform via the Internet, which is not yet fast enough that large amounts of data can be transferred smoothly. Although the administrator can apply incremental updates directly to the running VMs, he or she has to carefully consider the type of update and perform operations on all running VMs, such as application restarts. This is a tedious and error-prone task. This paper presents a technique for synchronizing VMs with less time and lower administrative burden. We introduce the Virtual Disk Image Repository, which runs on the cloud platform and automatically updates the virtual disk image and the running VMs with only the incremental update information. We also show a mechanism that performs necessary operations on the running VM such as restarting server processes, based on the types of files that are updated. We implement a prototype on Linux 2.6.31.14 and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. An experiment shows that our technique can synchronize VMs in an order-of-magnitude shorter time than the conventional disk-image-based VM method. Also, we discuss limitations of our technique and some directions for more efficient VM updates.},
keywords={},
doi={10.1587/transinf.E97.D.469},
ISSN={1745-1361},
month={March},}
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TY - JOUR
TI - Efficient Update Activation for Virtual Machines in IaaS Cloud Computing Environments
T2 - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SP - 469
EP - 479
AU - Hiroshi YAMADA
AU - Shuntaro TONOSAKI
AU - Kenji KONO
PY - 2014
DO - 10.1587/transinf.E97.D.469
JO - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SN - 1745-1361
VL - E97-D
IS - 3
JA - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
Y1 - March 2014
AB - Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a form of cloud computing, is gaining attention for its ability to enable efficient server administration in dynamic workload environments. In such environments, however, updating the software stack or content files of virtual machines (VMs) is a time-consuming task, discouraging administrators from frequently enhancing their services and fixing security holes. This is because the administrator has to upload the whole new disk image to the cloud platform via the Internet, which is not yet fast enough that large amounts of data can be transferred smoothly. Although the administrator can apply incremental updates directly to the running VMs, he or she has to carefully consider the type of update and perform operations on all running VMs, such as application restarts. This is a tedious and error-prone task. This paper presents a technique for synchronizing VMs with less time and lower administrative burden. We introduce the Virtual Disk Image Repository, which runs on the cloud platform and automatically updates the virtual disk image and the running VMs with only the incremental update information. We also show a mechanism that performs necessary operations on the running VM such as restarting server processes, based on the types of files that are updated. We implement a prototype on Linux 2.6.31.14 and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. An experiment shows that our technique can synchronize VMs in an order-of-magnitude shorter time than the conventional disk-image-based VM method. Also, we discuss limitations of our technique and some directions for more efficient VM updates.
ER -