The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 31, 2015
Filed:
Apr. 16, 2010
Jason Mattox, Spring Grove, IL (US);
Jason Mattox, Spring Grove, IL (US);
Dell Software Inc., Aliso Viejo, CA (US);
Abstract
Systems and methods programmatically determine the status of blocks in a virtual machine image. In certain embodiments, the system can determine which blocks are active, deleted, zero, or a combination of the same. In certain embodiments, the system advantageously determines block status without scanning all the blocks in a virtual machine image. Instead, the system can access metadata in a file system of a virtual machine image to determine the block status. When backing up the virtual machine image, the system can back up active blocks while skipping inactive blocks, including deleted and/or zero blocks. As a result, the system can take less time to back up a virtual machine image, and the resulting backup file or files can consume less storage space.