Adaptive Tap for Selective Virtual Machine Data Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing data protection methods for virtual machines in distributed computing systems are resource-intensive and invasive, making them inefficient and complex.
Innovation Solution
An adaptive tap system that selectively generates secondary writes for specific virtual machines, using a VM indicator to determine which data to store in secondary storage, thereby reducing unnecessary data storage and complexity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a backup application performs continuous data protection or periodic backup of the entire shared storage device, then data protection reliability is improved, but system resource consumption (computing and network) increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and protects only the specific virtual machine data that needs protection, rather than backing up the entire shared storage device. The backup application identifies and separates VM data from other storage data, applying protection only to the extracted VM data portions, thereby reducing overall resource consumption while maintaining protection reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the shared storage device data into distinct virtual machine data portions and non-VM data portions. By dividing the storage space into VM-specific segments, the system can selectively apply backup operations only to the relevant VM data segments, reducing the total data volume requiring protection and lowering resource consumption.
2Reliability
If an agent is deployed on each node or virtual machine to perform backup operations, then data protection capability is improved, but device complexity and invasiveness increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a storage device intermediary that acts as a mediator between the virtual machines and the backup application. This intermediary component, located on the storage device rather than on each VM or node, handles the complexity of data identification and backup operations centrally, reducing the invasiveness and complexity on the computing nodes while maintaining protection capability.
3Reliability
If continuous data protection saves all data written to shared storage device, then data protection completeness is improved, but resource consumption and operational overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the specific virtual machine data portions from the total data written to the shared storage device. The backup application identifies VM data writes and extracts only those portions for protection, rather than saving all data. This selective extraction maintains protection completeness for VM data while improving operational efficiency by reducing the volume of data processed and stored.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, system, and computer-readable storage medium for providing an adaptive tap for a virtual machine protection are disclosed. In one embodiment, an Input/Output (I/O) write is received from one of virtual machines. The virtual machines are executed on a server, and each virtual machine is configured to generate I/O writes to a VMFS file system on a primary storage. The I/O write includes data and an offset at which the data is to be stored in the VMFS file system. The server, and primary and secondary storage are coupled to a network. A virtual machine indicator is determined using the offset. A secondary write to a secondary storage is generated based on the I/O write. The secondary write includes the data and the VM indicator associated with the I/O write. The secondary storage is then accessed to write/store the secondary write.