291 results about "Disk image" patented technology

A computer implemented method, a computer program product, and data processing system clone virtual machines in a virtual desktop environment. A request to clone a new virtual machine is intercepted, wherein the request was initially sent to a virtual management server. Responsive to intercepting the request, the new virtual machine is cloned from a snapshot of a master virtual machine. A delta file is created for the new virtual machine, wherein the delta file includes a base disk reference and a copied delta file. The new virtual machine is configured to read a base disk image from a snapshot of the master virtual machine. The new virtual machine is configured to write data to the copied delta file in the delta file.

A mechanism is provided for making information about the virtual disk image file and/or its associated virtual image configuration file more readily available to a user. The virtual disk image file format is expanded to include fields in which information about the data in the file can be stored. Extensible information on file content, compatible HW configurations, compatible host OSes, timeout status, DRM status, patch state, and network topology, tag data for indexing, configuration files, saved state files, operation history data, and the like is stored in a location within a virtual disk image file that can be read without executing the virtual machine. This information can then be used to search the contents of the virtual disk image, to enforce usage policies, to provide extensibility for vendors, and the like.

A computer system (a method) for providing storage management solution that enables server virtualization in data centers is disclosed. The system comprises a plurality of storage devices for storing data and a plurality of storage management drivers configured to provide an abstraction of the plurality of the storage devices to one or more virtual machines of the data center. A storage management driver is configured to represent a live disk or a snapshot of a live disk in a virtual disk image to the virtual machine associated with the driver. The driver is further configured to translate a logical address for a data block to one or more physical addresses of the data block through the virtual disk image. The system further comprises a master server configured to manage the abstraction of the plurality of the storage devices and to allocate storage space to one or more virtual disk images.

Disclosed is a method and system for selectively restoring file-level data from a disk image backup. In embodiments, a virtual machine backup may be performed by dividing a virtual machine virtual disk file into a plurality of discrete fixed-sized data blocks sharing a common index file that is stored on a backup medium, such as a hard drive, to form a backup set. Upon restoration of data from the backup set, individual blocks of the data set are compared to corresponding blocks of the target virtual machine file. Redundant data and unchanged blocks are skipped, and only those block which have changed are restored to the target file. In this manner network bandwidth and processor resources are conserved, and replication times decreased.

The invention provides a continuous on-line transferring data backup method of a virtual machine and a device thereof. The method comprises the steps of updating the virtual machine memory data in a primary host machine and the data block in a virtual disk image file in a network storage according to the running of an embodiment of a primary virtual machine, and sending the updated virtual machine memory data to a backup host machine; temporarily stopping running the embodiment of the primary virtual machine, locking the state of the data block in the virtual disk image file through a locking operation to obtain the light-weight snapshot of the virtual disk image file, and recovering the running of the embodiment of the primary virtual machine, wherein the virtual disk image file is used for the backup host machine to perform a rollback operation. Through the above processing, the light-weight snapshot of the embodiment of the invention only occupies a little memory space. In addition, a technical scheme of the embodiment of the invention does not need to transmit lots of data, and is capable of quickly establishing the light-weight snapshot and improving the performance of the virtual machine.

Method for transferring storage data of a virtual machine to be migrated from a first host device to a second host device via a communication network, including: running the virtual machine on the first host device; storing, on a local storage device of the first host device, a disk image used by the virtual machine; detecting, while the virtual machine is running on the first host device, any changes made to the disk image used by the virtual machine; establishing a connection over the communication network from the first host device to the second host device; transferring, to the second host device while the virtual machine is running on the first host device, the disk image used by the virtual machine and the detected any changes made; modifying the disk image transferred to the second host device in response to the detected any changes transferred to the second host device; and starting, using the modified disk image, a migrated virtual machine on the second host device at a current state of the virtual machine running on the first host device.

A system allowing a target machine to be booted up from a disk image stored in memory. Instead of reading the boot-up information from a disk drive or other physical device the data is read from memory. No modification is necessary to native operating system, input/output subsystem, bootstrap code, etc., since the invention modifies characteristics, such as vectors used by the operating system, to make the disk image in memory appear to be the same as a standard external device.

Disclosed is a method and system for selectively restoring file-level data from a disk image backup. In embodiments, a virtual machine backup may be performed by dividing a virtual machine virtual disk file into a plurality of discrete fixed-sized data blocks sharing a common index file that is stored on a backup medium, such as a hard drive, to form a backup set. The index file is referenced to determine which fixed-sized block contains volume information, such as a partition table, of the backed-up virtual machine file. The individual blocks are processed as a virtual filesystem which is presented to an access module, which traverses the filesystem and provide access to individual files in the image backup to a client process, the restore files may be delivered to the client in a container file, which may be compressed to increase transfer speed. The container file may include executable instructions for automatically restoring the files to a desired location.

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for installing software on a computer. In one aspect of the present invention, a method is provided that includes building a disk image from requested software components distributed over a network.

An application server disk image generating apparatus and method comprising a basic disk image generating component for generating basic disk images for basic programs used by the server; an incremental disk image generating component for generating incremental disk images including heritage relationship for other respective applications based on the basic programs used by the server; and an image profile generating means for generating an image profile for each of the basic disk images and the incremental disk images. By using the apparatus, the storage consumption can be decreased greatly and the storage efficiency can be improved. The invention also discloses an application server disk image management and distribution system to which the application server disk image generating apparatus is applied, and a system for provisioning the application server using disk images.

A data processing network has a virtual hard drive emulator and client terminals that share a virtual disk image. Client-specific read-write versions of selected files or directories are supported. All clients access the client-specific versions using the same name and address identifiers (for example, the same file name for a given configuration file), but each client has an exclusive version. A file ID distinguishes respective clients. These files are maintained alongside other files of other types and attributes. The selection of files to be client-specific can be predetermined, or a client-specific version of a file can be generated if the client executes a write operation to a client-specific file or area, the written data containing data read by the client in any of memory area available to the clients (RAM, Virtual Disk Drive, Hard Disk drive etc.). The technique supports customization while maximizing administrative control of operating system versions and minimizing redundant storage. File access for client terminals can be made close to systems having local hard drives.

A method and device for upgrading a guest operating system (OS) of an active Virtual Machine (VM). The method includes: replicating the active VM to generate a backup VM; upgrading a guest OS of the backup VM; merging changes to be made to a virtual disk image file during running of the active VM and changes to be made to the virtual disk image file during the upgrading; pausing the backup VM; migrating an active process of a Java application program running in the active VM into the backup VM to generate a backup process; migrating resources occupied by the active process of the Java application program into the backup VM such that the backup process occupies the same resources; and resuming running of the backup VM. The device includes: a replicating unit; an upgrading unit; a merging unit; a migrating unit; and a control unit.

A method and computer system including a bootable storage media, preferably a CD-ROM, having a single bootable disk image that allows multiple emulations. A hard disk boot image including an MBR is provided at the beginning of the bootable disk image. A floppy DBR is provided at a predetermined sector boundary in the hard disk image so that the computer system can use either the hard disk or the floppy disk emulation at boot time. A computer article of manufacture embodying a single bootable disk image that allows both a hard disk or a floppy disk emulation is also provided.

A system and method for caching data received over a network connection comprising: a target device for receiving requests for routing data packetized for transport according to an Internet SCSI (iSCSI) transport protocol, the target device including an iSCSI drive for processing received SCSI commands; an initiator device for generating SCSI commands for reading data and writing data from/to storage devices associated with the iSCSI drive; a local disk at the initiator device for storing a copy of data read from or written to the storage devices associated with the iSCSI drive; and, a mapping device for mapping addresses associated with data stored at storage devices associated with the iSCSI drive with local data storage units in the local disk device, wherein seamless local caching of data at the initiator from data at remote data storage devices associated with the iSCSI drive is provided.

Disclosed is an apparatus and method of mirroring firmware and data of an embedded system. The embedded system mirrors a boot loader image, a kernel image, a RAM disk image and data that are stored on a main flash memory to be operated onto a secondary flash memory. Therefore, when a main flash memory does not normally work, the firmware and data that are stored on the main flash memory to be operated is mirrored onto the secondary flash memory, which prevents the loss of data and maintains the operation of the embedded system. As a result, it is possible to secure the reliability and operability of the system.

A system is provided for reading and writing sectors which may be realized as either a disk device to the local operating system, or as a virtual disk device to a virtual machine. A user's computing environment is stored in the network in the form of a disk image, which may be a virtual disk image, for example. The virtual disk is realized on host computers through host-resident virtual machine monitors such as MICROSOFT VIRTUAL PC®. Portable memory devices, such as flash devices, buffer virtual disk writes and cache reads, greatly reducing the performance degradation associated with remote disk access. The cache is mobile so that it can be travel with the user. The flash device remembers commonly used virtual disk content fingerprints so that the host machine's local disk can be used to satisfy many common disk reads when ubiquitous static content is involved. Standard, frequently used software images might be distributed in advance to host machines. Flash disk contents are trickled back into the networked parent disk image in order to provide an automatic backup facility, adding the benefit of ensuring that the flash drive doesn't overflow.

A conversion system for converting a source disk image supporting a first hardware configuration into a target disk image supporting a second and different hardware configuration. The conversion system includes a first server that mounts the source disk image as a target disk drive, a repository that stores information and files useful for supporting the second hardware configuration, a rules library that facilitates conversion of hardware specific attributes in accordance with an external introspection process (EIP), and a conversion engine executed on the first server and interfaced with the repository and the rules library. The conversion engine performs the EIP by examining the source disk image on the target disk drive to determine modifications to convert to the target disk image.

Embodiments pertain to live storage migration for virtual machines. Specific embodiments can implement the migration of VM disk images without service interruption to the running workload. Specific embodiments relate to storage migration between different disk arrays. Embodiments of the subject invention relate to a method and apparatus that can enhance the efficiency of virtual machine (VM) live storage migration in heterogeneous storage environments from a multi-dimensional perspective, e.g., user experience, device wearing, and/or manageability. Specific embodiments utilize one or more of the following: adaptive storage migration strategies, or techniques, such as 1) Low Redundancy (LR), which generates a reduced, and preferably the least, amount of redundant writes; 2) Source-based Low Redundancy (SLR), which can help keep a desirable balance between IO performance and write redundancy; and 3) Asynchronous IO Mirroring (AIO), which seeks high, and preferably the highest, IO performance. Specific embodiments adaptively mix one or more of these adaptive storage migration techniques during massive VM live storage migration.