[libvirt] [Qemu-devel] [RFC] live snapshot, live merge, live block migration

[Jagane Sundar]

On 5/27/2011 9:46 AM, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 2:02 PM, Stefan Hajnoczi<stefanha at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 10:52 AM, Dor Laor<dlaor at redhat.com>  wrote:
>>> On 05/20/2011 03:19 PM, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
>>>> I'm interested in what the API for snapshots would look like.
>>>> Specifically how does user software do the following:
>>>> 1. Create a snapshot
>>>> 2. Delete a snapshot
>>>> 3. List snapshots
>>>> 4. Access data from a snapshot
>>> There are plenty of options there:
>>>   - Run a (unrelated) VM and hotplug the snapshot as additional disk
>> This is the backup appliance VM model and makes it possible to move
>> the backup application to where the data is (or not, if you have a SAN
>> and decide to spin up the appliance VM on another host).  This should
>> be perfectly doable if snapshots are "volumes" at the libvirt level.
>>
>> A special-case of the backup appliance VM is using libguestfs to
>> access the snapshot from the host.  This includes both block-level and
>> file system-level access along with OS detection APIs that libguestfs
>> provides.
>>
>> If snapshots are "volumes" at the libvirt level, then it is also
>> possible to use virStorageVolDownload() to stream the entire snapshot
>> through libvirt:
>> http://libvirt.org/html/libvirt-libvirt.html#virStorageVolDownload
>>
>> Summarizing, here are three access methods that integrate with libvirt
>> and cover many use cases:
>>
>> 1. Backup appliance VM.  Add a readonly snapshot volume to a backup
>> appliance VM.  If shared storage (e.g. SAN) is available then the
>> appliance can be run on any host.  Otherwise the appliance must run on
>> the same host that the snapshot resides on.
>>
>> 2. Libguestfs client on host.  Launch libguestfs with the readonly
>> snapshot volume.  The backup application runs directly on the host, it
>> has both block and file system access to the snapshot.
>>
>> 3. Download the snapshot to a remote host for backup processing.  Use
>> the virStorageVolDownload() API to download the snapshot onto a
>> libvirt client machine.  Dirty block tracking is still useful here
>> since the virStorageVolDownload() API supports<offset, length>
>> arguments.
> Jagane,
> What do you think about these access methods?  What does your custom
> protocol integrate with today - do you have a custom non-libvirt KVM
> management stack?
>
> Stefan
Hello Stefan,

The current livebackup_client simply creates a backup of the VM on the
backup server. It can save the backup image as a complete image for
quick start of the VM on the backup server, or as 'full + n number of
incremental backup redo files'. The 'full + n incremental redo' is useful
if you want to store the backup on tape.

I don't have a full backup management stack yet. If livebackup_client
were available as part of kvm, then that would turn into the
command line utility that the backup management stack would use.
My own intertest is in using livebackup_client to integrate all
management functions into openstack. All management built
into openstack will be built with the intent of self service.
However, other Enterprise backup management stacks such as that
from Symantec, etc. can be enhanced to use livebackup_client to
extract the backup from the VM Host.

How does it apply to the above access mechanisms. Hmm. Let me see.

1. Backup appliance VM. : A backup appliance VM can be started
up and the livebackup images can be connected to it. The
limitation is that the backup appliance VM must be started up
on the backup server, where the livebackup image resides on
a local disk.

2. Libguestfs client on host. This too is possible. The
restriction is that libguestfs must be on the backup
server, and not on the VM Host.

3. Download the snapshot to a remote host for backup processing.
This is the native method for livebackup.


Thanks,
Jagane