Introduction

What is Memory Machine™ Cloud?

Memory Machine Cloud (MMCloud) is a software platform that streamlines the way containerized applications are deployed in the cloud.

Based on a customizable policy, MMCloud selects and instantiates cloud resources on behalf of the user. MMCloud has a built-in job scheduler so users can deploy Docker containers (and other containers that comply with the Open Container Initiative image-spec) across a group of virtual machines.

MMCloud includes AppCapsule, MemVerge's checkpoint/restore (C/R) capability. The AppCapsule is a moment-in-time snapshot of the application instance, including in-memory state and relevant files. AppCapsule is used to support workload mobility and workload continuity. Workload mobility means that a job can move from one virtual machine to another, for example, to a more powerful virtual machine that is a better fit for the next stage of execution. Workload mobility also provides high availability — if the underlying virtual machine is reclaimed, the workload automatically moves to a new virtual machine and resumes running.

Most of the time, hyperscale Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) have excess virtual machine capacity, which they offer as Spot Instances at varying discounts — the average discount is around 80%. The trade-off is that any Spot Instance can be reclaimed with only nominal warning (typically, two minutes or less). MMCloud’s AppCapsule feature is triggered automatically when the CSP signals that it is reclaiming the Spot Instance. Job execution pauses and then resumes on a new Spot Instance, allowing users to take advantage of the reduced cost of Spot Instances without the risk of losing intermediate results before the job has run to completion.