Incremental Virtual Machine Package Creation for Cross-Platform Backup
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current data management and storage systems face challenges in efficiently backing up and recovering virtual machines across different platforms, as existing solutions are not machine-agnostic and require significant resources for creating and updating virtual machine packages, making it difficult to port applications and data between various virtualization platforms.
Innovation Solution
A system that captures snapshots of a target machine's state, creates virtual machine packages sufficient to instantiate VMs on different platforms by updating the initial package with differences between snapshots, allowing for efficient data backup and recovery across multiple VM platforms, including cloud and on-premise environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If full virtual machine packages are created for each backup state, then data backup reliability is improved, but resource consumption and storage requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The backup system segments the virtual machine package into multiple components: a base image containing common files and an incremental package containing only the changed files. This segmentation allows the system to store only the necessary differences between backup states rather than duplicating entire VM packages, significantly reducing storage requirements while maintaining backup reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The incremental backup package is nested within the structure of the base VM package, where the incremental package contains only the differences needed to reconstruct the updated state. This nesting approach allows efficient storage where smaller incremental packages are applied to the base package to recreate any previous state, reducing overall storage consumption.
2Adaptability or versatility
If virtual machine packages are created for multiple different platforms, then data portability is improved, but device complexity and conversion overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a universal base VM package that contains platform-agnostic virtual machine files and configuration. This base package can be instantiated on multiple different virtualization platforms (VMware, VirtualBox, Hyper-V, etc.), providing multi-functionality and broad data portability without requiring separate complete package creations for each platform.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses a copying approach where the base VM package structure is replicated across different platforms, and only the necessary incremental differences are applied. This allows the same base package to serve multiple platform destinations, reducing the complexity of creating entirely separate packages for each platform while maintaining portability.
3Productivity
If incremental updates are applied to VM packages, then resource efficiency is improved, but the complexity of package management increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary organization by separating the VM package into a base image and incremental components before the backup process begins. This preliminary structuring simplifies subsequent incremental updates, as the system only needs to apply differences to the pre-prepared base package rather than managing complete package replacements, thereby improving efficiency without excessive complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
An example method of managing and storing data includes pulling and saving a first snapshot of a first state of a target machine running on a cloud service and creating a first virtual machine (VM) package associated with the first snapshot. The first VM package sufficient to instantiate a VM emulating the target machine with the first state on an on-premise destination VM platform. The method includes pulling and saving a second snapshot of a second state of the target machine, wherein the second state occurs after the first state. A second VM package is created and associated with the second snapshot, the second VM package sufficient to instantiate the VM emulating the target machine with the second state on the destination VM platform. The second VM package is created by updating the first VM package according to differences between the first snapshot and the second snapshot.