Patent ID: 8370837
Filing Date: 2013-02-05
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for performing on-the-fly migration to a new platform of a container connected to a shared storage drive by employing a blocking file system, the method comprising: launching a virtual execution environment inside the container; simultaneously suspending all active processes in the virtual execution environment; storing a state of all active processes executing in the container into a dump file; migrating the dump file to the new platform; on the new platform, mounting a blocking file system having a blocking state and a restarting state, such that when the blocking file system is in the blocking state, any request directed to the blocking file system results in blocking the requesting task, and where the blocking file system, upon command, transitions from the blocking state to the restarting state; restoring the state of all the active processes in the container on the new platform from the dump file; starting restored processes on the new platform; reconnecting to shared storage drive; and transitioning the blocking file system to the restarting state where blocking file system unblocks previously blocked tasks while restoring connection to files on the networked storage drive; and dismounting the blocking file system, wherein on-the-fly migration is performed transparently to the users of the virtual execution environment, wherein requests by the active processes to access a file system during the migration of the are redirected to the blocking file system, and wherein the container comprises a standard Application Programming Interface (API).