Prioritized Virtual Machine Backup Block Selection
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional backup methods in virtual computing environments face challenges due to the complexity and distribution of virtual machine files across multiple physical disks, leading to high computational and storage demands, and inefficiencies in data redundancy management.
Innovation Solution
A method that calculates and prioritizes backup blocks using a multi-tiered approach, leveraging storage arrays with snapshot capabilities, and employing the QCOW2 format to efficiently store and restore virtual machine images, ensuring consistent restoration by capturing changes through a sequence of operations from fastest to most comprehensive.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional backup methods are used to backup virtual machine files, then complete backup coverage is achieved, but computational load and storage demands increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the changed blocks from virtual machine files since the last backup, rather than backing up entire files. This is achieved through file system assistance that identifies modified blocks, significantly reducing the data volume requiring backup operations while ensuring complete coverage of changed content
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments files into smaller blocks and performs backup at the block level rather than file level. This allows granular identification of changed blocks across multiple files, enabling selective backup of only necessary data portions and reducing overall computational requirements
2Quantity of substance
If file timestamps and source de duplication are used to reduce backup data, then data redundancy is reduced, but computational complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces file system assistance as an intermediary component that performs change detection at the block level. This mediator provides detailed information about which blocks have changed, enabling efficient backup without requiring complex de duplication algorithms or extensive timestamp comparisons across entire files
3Reliability
If conventional backup approaches are used, then all files are backed up, but storage space requirements increase due to redundancy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and backs up only the changed blocks from virtual machine files rather than complete files. This extraction approach, assisted by file system information about modified blocks, reduces storage requirements while maintaining backup completeness for all changed data
Solution Approach 2:
The patent discards unchanged blocks from backup operations by identifying them through file system assistance and block-level change detection. Only changed blocks are captured and stored, allowing recovery of complete file states through combination of base images and incremental changes
4Quantity of substance
If file systems with de duplication technologies are used, then redundant data is discarded, but backup data organization complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments backup data into blocks and organizes them by change status rather than using complex de duplication structures. File system assistance provides block-level change information that simplifies organization to just changed versus unchanged blocks, avoiding complex de duplication data structures
Data Source
AI summary
A VM (Virtual Machine) backup calculates, for each of the VMs, a set of blocks corresponding to the VM for inclusion in a backup, such that the set of blocks is calculated according to a prioritized sequence of operations based on a storage array connected to the computing node. The method traverses each of the calculated set of blocks, in which the set of blocks is taken at a common point in time for each VM, and stores the traversed blocks in a backup format configured for restoring the VM corresponding to the set of blocks by restoring the blocks and corresponding blocks at the common point in time. The prioritized sequence of operations allows the most efficient approach to be attempted first, but ensuring robust coverage by attempting successive “fallback” approaches so that effective coverage of all VMs occurs.