Future qemu is expected to support these features (some already implemented):

Live features

Live block copy

  Ability to copy 1+ virtual disk from the source backing file/block 
  device to a new target that is accessible by the host. The copy 
  supposed to be executed while the VM runs in a transparent way.

  Status: code exists (by Marcelo) today in qemu but needs refactoring 
  due to a race condition at the end of the copy operation. We agreed 
  that a re-implementation of the copy operation should take place 
  that makes sure the image is completely mirrored until management 
  decides what copy to keep.

Live snapshots and live snapshot merge

  Live snapshot is already incorporated (by Jes) in qemu (still need 
  qemu-agent work to freeze the guest FS).

  Live snapshot merge is required in order of reducing the overhead 
  caused by the additional snapshots (sometimes over raw device).
  Currently not implemented for a live running guest

  Possibility: enhance live copy or image streaming to be used for live
               snapshot merge. It is almost the same mechanism.

Copy on read (image streaming)

  Ability to start guest execution while the parent image reside 
  remotely and each block access is replicated to a local copy (image 
  format snapshot)

  It should be nice to have a general mechanism that will be used for 
  all image formats. What about the protocol to access these blocks 
  over the net? We can reuse existing ones (nbd/iscsi).

  Such functionality can be hooked together with live block migration  
  instead of the 'post copy' method.

Live block migration (pre/post)

  Beyond live block copy we'll sometimes need to move both the storage 
  and the guest. There are two main approached here:
  - pre copy
    First live copy the image and only then live migration the VM.
    It is simple but if the purpose of the whole live block migration 
    was to balance the cpu load, it won't be practical to use since 
    copying an image of 100GB will take too long.
  - post copy
    First live migrate the VM, then live copy it's blocks.
    It's better approach for HA/load balancing but it might make 
    management complex (need to keep the source VM alive, what happens 
    on failures?)
    Using copy on read might simplify it -
    post copy = live snapshot + copy on read.

  In addition there are two cases for the storage access:
  1. The source block device is shared and can be easily accessed by 
     the destination qemu-kvm process.
     That's the easy case, no special protocol needed for the block 
     devices copying.
  2. There is no shared storage at all.
     This means we should implement a block access protocol over the 
     live migration fd :(

     We need to chose whether to implement a new one, or re-use NBD or 
     iScsi (target&initiator)

Using external dirty block bitmap

  FVD has an option to use external dirty block bitmap file in 
  addition to the regular mapping/data files.

  We can consider using it for live block migration and live merge too.
  It can also allow additional usages of 3rd party tools to calculate  
  diffs between the snapshots.
  There is a big down side thought since it will make management 
  complicated and there is the risky of the image and its bitmap file 
  get out of sync. It's much better choice to have qemu-img tool to be 
  the single interface to the dirty block bitmap data.

Summary

 * We need Marcelo's new (to come) block copy implementation
   * should work in parallel to migration and hotplug
 * General copy on read is desirable
 * Live snapshot merge to be implemented using block copy
 * Need to utilize a remote block access protocol (iscsi/nbd/other)
   Which one is the best?
 * Keep qemu-img the single interface for dirty block mappings.
 * Live block migration pre copy == live copy + block access protocol 
   + live migration
 * Live block migration post copy == live migration + block access 
   protocol/copy on read.

Comments?

Links: http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/Snapshots http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/Snapshots2 http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/Block/Merge http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/Livebackup libvirt wiki for settling on needed libvirt snapshot APIs