Vmware, Inc.

Maxta, Inc.

Wmware, Inc.

Christian Czezatke

Bich Cau Le

Shaw Chuang

Satyam B Vaghani

Mallik Mahalingam

Krishna Yadappanavar

Robert Frederick Deuel

Greg Hutchins

Asit Desai

Maxime Austruy

Andrew G Tucker

Jad Chamcham

Christian Matthew Leroy

Raghu Shastry

Gregory Hutchins

A file and a sequence of snapshots of the file are stored in a storage device. The sequence of snapshots includes sequentially captured copies of earlier states of the file. A dependency tree indicating data blocks that are different between a given snapshot and a previous snapshot in the sequence of snapshots is stored in the storage device. The sequence of snapshots is sequentially scrubbed, beginning with an earliest snapshot in the sequence of snapshots. When scrubbing a snapshot, each of the data blocks identified in the dependency tree as being different than the data blocks of a previous snapshot in the sequence of snapshots are scrubbed. If a corrupted data block is detected, a determination of which later snapshots include the corrupt data block is made based on the dependency tree and the corrupted data blocks are corrected.

Detecting and correcting silent data corruption in a distributed storage system

A master node receives an instruction to create a checkpoint. The master node then tags new storage operations received by the master node after receiving the instruction and sends a request to a plurality of replica nodes of the data storage system to create the checkpoint. New operations that arrive to the data storage system are tagged. The new operations are tagged until acknowledgement messages are received from every replica node in response to the request. The acknowledgement message indicates successful creation of a checkpoint by a replica that sent the acknowledgment message. The master node determines whether all tagged operations have been completed and sends a commit checkpoint request once all tagged storage operations have been completed. After receiving a validation message from a replica node in response to the commit checkpoint request, the master node validates the checkpoint created by the replica node that sent the validation message.

Replica checkpointing without quiescing

A method and system for acquiring a quiesceing set of information associated with a virtual machine. A virtual machine is cloned. The cloned virtual machine has an associated persistent storage device. The state of the persistent storage device is transformed into a quiesced state of the cloned virtual machine by utilizing a shut-down process. The shut-down process is executed on the cloned virtual machine to quiesce the cloned virtual machine and the quiesceing set of information of the cloned virtual machine is automatically reduced to information stored on the persistent storage device.

Method and system for acquiring a quiesceing set of information associated with a virtual machine

Systems and methods for tracking changes and performing backups to a storage device are provided. For virtual disks of a virtual machine, changes are tracked from outside the virtual machine in the kernel of a virtualization layer. The changes can be tracked in a lightweight fashion with a bitmap, with a finer granularity stored and tracked at intermittent intervals in persistent storage. Multiple backup applications can be allowed to accurately and efficiently backup a storage device. Each backup application can determine which block of the storage device has been updated since the last backup of a respective application. This change log is efficiently stored as a counter value for each block, where the counter is incremented when a backup is performed. The change log can be maintained with little impact on I/O by using a coarse bitmap to update the finer grained change log.

Method for tracking changes in virtual disks

A method for detecting malicious code within a first virtual machine comprising creating a snapshot of the first virtual machine and transferring the snapshot to a second machine. A scan operation is run on the snapshot using resources of the second machine. In response to detecting malicious code during the scan operation, action is taken at the first virtual machine to address the detection of the malicious code. Thus, the action in response to detecting the malicious code may include placing the first virtual machine in quarantine.

Offloading operations to a replicate virtual machine

In order to synchronize copies of a virtual disk, a virtualization layer maintains a first record of file system blocks of a first copy of the virtual disk that are modified during an access session by a virtual machine using the first copy of the virtual disk. The file system blocks correspond to a file system of the virtual disk. During an attempt to synchronize the first copy with a second copy of the virtual disk, (i) a second record of file system blocks that are currently used by the file system is obtained from the guest operating system, and (ii) file system blocks in the first copy of the virtual disk that are present in both the first record and the second record are copied into the second copy of the virtual disk.

Loose synchronization of virtual disks

A method and system for offloading a software application intended to be run on a first virtual machine onto a second virtual machine. An original virtual machine is created. A periodic and/or computing resource-intensive application is supposed to be run on the original virtual machine. However, doing so may detrimentally impact the operation of the original virtual machine by consuming valuable computing resources. A replicated virtual machine which is basically a copy of the original virtual machine is created and ported over to a different host computer system. The periodic and/or computing-intensive application is now run on the replicated virtual machine instead of the original virtual machine. This leaves the original virtual machine free to continue its normal operations unaffected.

Computer implemented methods, computer program products and computer systems synchronize copies of a virtual disk. A record of blocks that are modified during an access session of a copy of the virtual disk is maintained. For each partition of the virtual disk, a file system level indication of currently relevant blocks is obtained. Only those blocks that were modified during the access session and are currently relevant are copied to at least one additional copy of the virtual disk.

An architecture and system are described that provide a unified file access service within in a managed computing environment composed of diverse networks, computing devices, and storage devices. The service provides mechanisms for remotely accessing the file systems of any managed computer or disk snapshot, independently of the computer's current state (powered on, suspended or powered off), its location within the environment, its hardware type (virtual vs. physical), its operating system type, and its file system formats. The system isolates centralized FPAs from the details of clients, proxies and storage elements by providing a service that decomposes offloaded file system access into two steps. A FPA or a requester acting on behalf of the FPA first expresses the disk set or the computer containing the file systems it wishes to access, along with requirements and preferences about the access method. The service figures out an efficient data path satisfying the FPA's needs, and then automatically configures a set of storage and computing resources to provide the data path. The service then replies with information about the resources and instructions for using them. The FPA then accesses the requested file systems using the returned information.

Method of universal file access for a heterogeneous computing environment

An architecture and system are described that provide a unified file access service within in a managed computing environment composed of diverse networks, computing devices, and storage devices. The service provides mechanisms for remotely accessing the file systems of any managed computer or disk snapshot, independently of the computer's current state (powered on, suspended or powered off), its location within the environment, its hardware type (virtual vs. physical), its operating system type, and its file system formats. The system isolates centralized FPAs from the details of clients, proxies and storage elements by providing a service that decomposes offloaded file system access into two steps. A FPA or a requester acting on behalf of the FPA first expresses the disk set or the computer containing the file systems it wishes to access, along with requirements and preferences about the access method. The service figures out an efficient data path satisfying the FPA's needs; and then automatically configures a set of storage and computing resources to provide the data path. The service then replies with information about the resources and instructions for using them. The FPA then accesses the requested file systems using the returned information.

A process of providing access to data associated with a virtual machine running on a host computer system to an offload server is implemented to improve the performance of the host computer system. Once the offload computer system knows how and where to access the data associated with that of the virtual machine, operations can be offloaded from the host computer system and performed by the offload server. Backup operations can be offloaded onto the server. The server can run backup software and directly access the data associated with the virtual machine, thereby freeing the hardware resources of the host computer to handle normal applications running on the virtual machine.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Christian Czezatke