Intermediate Virtual Disk Format for VM Conversion
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional virtual machine conversion tools are costly, time-consuming, and require long downtimes, especially when migrating virtual machines across different hypervisor platforms, due to the complexity of supporting various virtual disk formats and the need for physical data copying.
Innovation Solution
A system and method utilizing an intermediate virtual disk format to convert virtual disks by generating an intermediate data structure that maps location ranges of the source disk data, allowing for conversion without physical data copying, thereby reducing conversion time and supporting multiple formats efficiently.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional virtual machine conversion tools are used to migrate virtual machines across hypervisor platforms, then virtual disk format conversion is achieved, but conversion time becomes excessively long and downtime increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediate universal virtual disk format that serves as a mediator between source and destination hypervisor-specific formats. The conversion process occurs in two stages: first converting the source virtual disk to the intermediate universal format, then converting from the intermediate format to the destination format. This intermediary approach simplifies the conversion architecture and enables parallel processing operations that significantly reduce overall conversion time compared to direct conversion methods.
2Reliability
If physical data copying is performed during virtual disk conversion, then complete data migration is achieved, but storage space is duplicated and conversion time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a intelligent copying strategy that identifies and copies only the actual data blocks that differ between source and destination virtual disks, rather than performing blind full copies. The system analyzes the intermediate universal format structure to determine which data blocks require migration, thereby reducing both the amount of data copied and the associated storage space consumption while maintaining complete data migration integrity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple virtual disk formats are supported for enterprise hypervisor environments, then vendor flexibility is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal intermediate virtual disk format that can represent and accommodate data structures from multiple different hypervisor-specific formats. This single intermediate format serves multiple functions: it acts as a common denominator for conversion operations, provides a standardized structure for data organization, and enables the conversion system to handle various vendor formats without requiring separate conversion logic for each format pair, thereby reducing overall system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A virtual disk conversion system determines location ranges for data on a storage device that are found in files representing a virtual disk in a source format. An intermediate virtual disk data structure containing the location ranges for the data is generated, and the intermediate virtual disk data structure is used to associate data at the location ranges with a new file on the storage device that represents a virtual disk in a destination format.