Virtual Machine Cloud Disaster Recovery via On-Demand Restore
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing virtual machine backup solutions cannot restore virtual machines to different hosting environments, limiting disaster recovery, performance optimization, and cost reduction opportunities.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of on-demand restore technology and cloud volumes allows users to back up primary virtual machines to cloud storage, enabling restoration to destination virtual machines in various hosting environments, including cloud-based setups, for disaster recovery, load balancing, and development testing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If virtual machines are backed up to cloud storage for disaster recovery, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases due to multi-environment restoration requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The backup system is designed to restore virtual machines to multiple different hosting environments (original environment, cloud environments, different hypervisors) using a universal restoration mechanism. This multi-functionality allows the same backup infrastructure to handle various disaster recovery scenarios without requiring environment-specific restoration tools, thereby improving reliability while managing complexity through consolidation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary conversion layer that translates backup data into formats compatible with different hosting environments. This mediator component handles the complexity of environment-specific requirements internally, allowing the restoration system to maintain simplicity at the user interface while supporting multiple target environments, thus resolving the contradiction between reliability and complexity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If virtual machines are restored to different hosting environments, then adaptability is improved, but loss of time increases due to environment conversion requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-converting backup data into universal formats and pre-establishing compatibility layers during the backup phase. This preliminary preparation eliminates the need for time-consuming environment-specific conversions during restoration, allowing rapid deployment to different hosting environments while maintaining high adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses copying mechanisms to replicate virtual machine states to multiple hosting environments simultaneously from a single backup source. This copying approach eliminates sequential conversion delays and enables parallel restoration operations, thereby reducing overall restoration time while maintaining the ability to adapt to different environment requirements.
3Productivity
If on-demand restore technology is used for cloud volumes, then productivity is improved, but loss of time occurs during data retrieval from cloud storage
Solution Approach 1:
The on-demand restore technology implements partial action by retrieving and restoring only the specific data blocks or volume portions that are immediately needed, rather than waiting for complete data retrieval from cloud storage. This selective restoration approach enables productive use of partially restored systems while minimizing the impact of cloud storage retrieval delays on overall productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are provided for virtual machine hosting and serverless disaster recovery. A virtual machine is hosted by a first hypervisor that may be located on-premise. Snapshots of virtual machine disks of the virtual machine are backed up to a cloud storage environment. The snapshots are used to on-demand host a new instance of the virtual machine within a destination environment such as within the cloud storage environment through a second hypervisor. The new instance of the virtual machine is hosted for various reasons such as part of a disaster recovery operation if the virtual machine fails, load balancing of I/O operations, migration to a different hosting environment (e.g., a cheaper or more performant environment), development testing, etc.