17966464. INTELLIGENT SNAPSHOT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL MACHINES WITH HETEROGENEOUS DISKS simplified abstract (Dell Products L.P.)

INTELLIGENT SNAPSHOT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL MACHINES WITH HETEROGENEOUS DISKS

Organization Name

Dell Products L.P.

Inventor(s)

Krishnendu Bagchi of Pune (IN)

Vipin Kaushal of Bangalore (IN)

Sudha Hebsur of Bangalore (IN)

Shelesh Chopra of Bangalore (IN)

Amarendra Behera of Bangalore (IN)

Pallavi Prakash of Bangalore (IN)

INTELLIGENT SNAPSHOT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL MACHINES WITH HETEROGENEOUS DISKS - A simplified explanation of the abstract

This abstract first appeared for US patent application 17966464 titled 'INTELLIGENT SNAPSHOT PROCESS FOR VIRTUAL MACHINES WITH HETEROGENEOUS DISKS

Simplified Explanation

The abstract describes a patent application for a system that conducts backups of virtual machines with copy services. The system identifies different types of disks attached to the virtual machine, issues requests for snapshots of these disks, and manages the responses to conduct the backup.

• The system conducts backups of virtual machines with copy services.
• It identifies different types of disks attached to the virtual machine.
• Requests for snapshots of the disks are issued and managed to conduct the backup.

Potential Applications

This technology could be applied in data centers, cloud computing environments, and virtualized infrastructure to efficiently backup virtual machines with copy services.

Problems Solved

This technology solves the problem of efficiently conducting backups of virtual machines with different types of disks attached, ensuring data integrity and reliability in the backup process.

Benefits

The benefits of this technology include improved backup efficiency, enhanced data protection, and streamlined backup processes for virtualized environments.

Potential Commercial Applications

A potential commercial application of this technology could be in offering backup solutions for enterprises with virtualized infrastructure, cloud service providers, and data centers.

Possible Prior Art

One possible prior art for this technology could be existing backup solutions for virtual machines, although the specific method of identifying disk types and managing snapshot requests may be novel.

How does the system ensure data consistency during the backup process?

The system may use techniques such as snapshotting or locking mechanisms to ensure data consistency across the different types of disks during the backup process.

What is the scalability of the system for large-scale virtualized environments?

The system's scalability for large-scale virtualized environments may depend on factors such as network bandwidth, storage capacity, and processing power to handle multiple backup operations simultaneously.

Original Abstract Submitted

An in-guest agent receives a command to conduct a backup of a virtual machine (VM) having a copy service. A discovery is initiated of disk types attached to the VM. Based on the discovery, at least first and second disks are identified. The first disk is identified as a virtual machine disk (VMDK) and the second disk is identified as a raw device mapping (RDM) disk. After the identification, a request is issued to the copy service to prepare the applications for a snapshot operation. A first request for a snapshot of the VMDK disk is issued over a socket communication channel. A second request for a snapshot of the RDM disk is issued over a TCP network to a controller of a storage array responsible for presenting the second disk to the VM. Responses to the first and second requests are managed to conduct the backup.