Virtual Machine Backup Image Rewriting for Anomaly-Tolerant Recovery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing virtual machine backup systems fail to capture essential information about applications and user data, leading to difficulties in ensuring backup integrity and performing recovery operations effectively.
Innovation Solution
Incorporating additional metadata about applications and user data during backup operations, including details such as which applications are included, associated users, and data locations, to enhance backup and recovery processes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If host or image based data protection is used to backup the entire virtual machine image, then the backup process is simple and fast, but the backup may contain content that corrupts or degrades recovery operations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the backup image into multiple portions and individually assesses each portion for anomalies. This allows the system to identify and isolate corrupted sections without compromising the entire backup, enabling selective restoration of healthy portions while maintaining backup speed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary assessment process that evaluates backup portions before restoration. This intermediary layer detects anomalies and determines which portions are safe for recovery, preventing direct restoration of potentially corrupted data while preserving the overall backup workflow.
2Reliability
If additional metadata is collected about applications and user data, then the quality and reliability of backup operations improve, but the complexity of the backup process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by collecting metadata about applications, data usage, and user associations during the backup process. This advance information gathering enables better assessment and restoration decisions later, improving backup quality without adding complexity during the critical restoration phase.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where metadata collection provides information that continuously improves the backup and restoration process. The system uses collected data about applications and user data to make intelligent decisions about which portions to restore, creating a self-improving system that manages complexity through automated decision-making.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for enhancing backup and recovery of a virtual machine, including receiving, in connection with a backup operation, a metadata database and a backup image of the virtual machine. The method also includes making a first determination, based on the metadata database, that a portion of the backup image includes an anomaly, rewriting, in response to the first determination, the portion of the backup image to obtain a modified backup image, storing rewrite details in the metadata database to obtain a modified metadata database, and, after the storing, receiving a request to initiate a recovery operation for a host, providing the modified backup image and the modified metadata database to the host, mounting, at the host, the modified backup image, and performing a recovery operation for the virtual machine on the host using the modified metadata database and the modified backup image.