Nutanix, Inc.

Novell, Inc.

Vmware, Inc.

Netapp, Inc.

Karthik Chandrasekaran

Parthasarathy Ramachandran

Binny Sher Gill

Bharat Kumar Beedu

Manosiz Bhattacharyya

Akshay Deodhar

Mayur Vijay Sadavarte

Vanita Prabhu

Monoreet Mutsuddi

Balaji Janakiram

Simon Martin Mijolovic

Supratim Deka

Naveen Kumar

Sudish Kumar Sah

Bipul Raj

Srinivas Bandi Ramesh Babu

Constantine Andrew Kousoulis

Arjun Gopalan

Praseem Banzal

Mandar D Kulkarni

Pranay Kumar Ega

A method for indexing virtual machine version snapshots in a virtualization environment commences upon receiving a request (e.g., from an administrator or agent) to initiate a virtual machine version snapshot operation on a subject virtual machine. Processes within or controlled by the subject virtual machine are requested to temporarily suspend transactions and file I/O. When the processes that have been requested to temporarily suspend transactions and file I/O acknowledge quiescence, the method continues by generating a virtual machine version snapshot data structure. An entry in an index is formed from the virtual machine version snapshot data structure. Multiple instances of virtual machine version snapshot data structures can be stored in the index, and the index can be queried to determine the state that a virtual machine had at any of the snapshotted moments in time.

Virtual machine object version control

The disclosed systems emulate high-frequency application-consistent snapshots by forming restore point data sets based on remote site replay of I/O commands. A method embodiment commences upon identifying a primary computing site and a secondary computing site, then identifying an application to be restored from the secondary computing site after a disaster. Prior to the disaster, a group of computing entities of the application to be restored from the secondary computing site are identified. Input/output operations that are performed over any of the computing entities at the primary site are streamed to the secondary site where they are stored. An I/O map that associates a time with an indication of a last received I/O command that had been performed over a changing set of computing entities is sent to the secondary site. An agent at the secondary site accesses the I/O map and the streamed-over I/Os to construct recovery data.

Emulating high-frequency application-consistent snapshots by forming restore point data sets based on remote site replay of I/O commands

Systems and methods for unified application-level backup and restore using heterogeneous cloud-based backup service providers. An application programming interface is configured to process both data level replication operations as well as application-level operations that are executed to carry out high-level commands between a virtualized computing environment and any one or more of the heterogeneous cloud-based backup service providers. The API receives commands from applications in the virtualized computing environment. The API processes commands from the applications so as to facilitate replication of data to selected one or more cloud-based backup service providers. The commands perform data level replication operations as well as application-level operations for storing content to the cloud-based service provider. After a failure event and/or upon receipt of a restore command, the API initiates application-level operations that restore the application and its constituent entities. The data state is restored by the API using data level restore operations.

Context-based disaster recovery

Systems for restarting a virtual machine in a disaster recovery scenario where a network configuration differs between the failed system and the recovery system. A method commences upon identifying a disaster recovery plan for restarting a virtual machine from a first system on a second system (e.g., a recovery system). A configuration for providing network access at the second system through an adapter present in the second system is stored at a location accessible to the second system. Restarting the virtual machine at the second system upon detection of a failure event at the first system.

Network reconfiguration in hypervisor-agnostic disaster recovery scenarios

Systems for storage system rollover and rollback. A data mover agent is installed on a source storage system to capture disaster recovery data and send to a target system. Upon receiving a rollover event signal, a virtualized controller creates one or more replica user virtual machines running on the target system that serve to replicate functions of the user virtual machines from the source storage system. The virtualized controller on the target system converts the target disaster recovery data from a first format to a second format to facilitate use of the target disaster recovery data by the replica user virtual machines. Rollback is initiated when the target system receives a rollback event signal. Differences in the data that have occurred between the rollover event and the rollback signal are calculated and sent to the rollback system. The calculated differences are applied to a registered snapshot on the rollback system.

Efficient disaster rollback across heterogeneous storage systems

A data center communicates with a cloud-based backup system. Client-server roles are established such that a client role is assigned to the data center and a server role is assigned to the cloud-based backup system. On an ongoing basis, backup operations are performed. In the event of disaster or other cause of an outage of the data center, a failover protocol might be invoked such that the cloud-based backup system takes on additional processing operations beyond the aforementioned backup operations. After remediation, the data center issues a data restoration message to the cloud-based backup system. The remediated data center initiates a failback protocol that reverses the client-server roles of the data center and the cloud-based backup system such that the server role is assigned to the data center and the client role is assigned to the cloud-based backup system. After performing system restoration operations, the roles may be reversed again.

Efficient data restoration

Systems for disaster recovery techniques. A method for capturing snapshots in a clustered virtualization environment commences upon identifying user virtual machines to be grouped together to form an application group. A virtualized controller sends or broadcasts messages to the plurality of user virtual machines where the messages request the user virtual machines to quiesce their respective transactions and other application activities. The user virtual machines associated with the application group quiesce their processing, flush their caches, and flush their file data. The virtualized controller waits for confirmations that the application activities associated with the application group have been quiesced. A backup agent commences activities to capture a snapshot of the storage devices associated with quiesced application processes. The application processes can run in conjunction with a hypervisor, or they can run as process containers. The application-consistent snapshot can be used on a different cluster to bring up the same application.

Saving and restoring storage devices using application-consistent snapshots

Snapshot data (e.g., changed blocks) resulting from operation of applications is captured in two forms: (1) in a bitmap that indicates if one or more blocks in a range of blocks has changed, and (2) as the changed block data itself. The changed blocks are sent to a remote disaster recovery location only once per snapshot period. Even through a particular block might have been changed many times during a snapshot period, only the last version of the changed block is sent to the remote disaster recovery location. The fact that a block has been changed can be parsimoniously managed by determining an address space for the source data, dividing the address space into a plurality of ranges, and indicating which blocks if any in a particular range have been changed. Such modification indicators are sent to the disaster recovery location only once per snapshot period.

Efficient change block training

Particular embodiments comprise (1) a cluster of host machines, each comprising at least one virtual machine (VM), one or more virtual infrastructure elements, and one or more required drivers for implementing the virtualization environment, and (2) a target host machine capable of implementing the virtualization environment based on a second platform, wherein the target host machine comprises at least one VM and one or more virtual infrastructure elements. A management module for the system performs steps to move one of the VMs from the cluster of host machines to the target host machine by checking whether the target host machine comprises one or more required drivers for implementing the virtualization environment and, if the target host machine comprises the one or more required drivers, activating the one or more required drivers, and sending a confirmation signal back to a control plane in the cluster of host machines.

Virtual machine mobility

Described is an architecture for providing access to administrative functionality in a virtualization system using implied authentication. This approach avoids the problems associated with the requirements to use a user ID and password to access an admin console. The user ID and password can be rendered completely unnecessary, or where the user ID and password combination is only used as a supplement to the implied authentication.

Method and system for providing access to administrative functionality a virtualization environment

Systems for bring-up of virtual machines in disaster recovery scenarios where the network configuration differs between the failed system and the recovery system. A method commences upon identifying a disaster recovery plan for restarting a set of virtual machines on a second system (e.g., a recovery system). A disaster event is detected, which event causes initiation of aspects of the disaster recovery plan, including restarting the set of virtual machines that were running on the first system. Other aspects of the disaster recovery plan include determining a set of network configuration directives pertaining to the second system, and providing access to the network configuration directives by any of the restarted virtual machines. During disaster recovery bring-up, at least some of the virtual machines that are restarted on the second system use the network configuration of the recovery system.

Systems, methods, and computer readable medium for virtualized computing environments. A method for providing a connection between a guest virtual machine and a service virtual machine uses driver code functions to establish a listening port on the service virtual machine without providing a listening port on the guest virtual machine. The guest virtual machine initiates a remote procedure call socket between itself and the service virtual machine over a secure, hardened port. The service virtual machine presents an authority certificate by encoding into the authority certificate identifying information received from the guest virtual machine. The service virtual machine makes available (e.g., as an ISO image) the authority certificate, which is used to establish new secure connections. Communications continue, where some communications are initiated by the service virtual machine over the hardened port, and some communications are initiated on-demand by the guest virtual machine over newly-established and authenticated secure RPC connections.

Growing community of inventors

Bengaluru, India

Karthik Chandrasekaran