Virtual Machine State Protection via Backup Stalling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Virtual machines in production environments are susceptible to accidental deletions and shutdowns, leading to unexpected loss of virtual machine state, which existing technologies fail to adequately protect.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that detect triggered protection events for virtual machines, initiate the creation of a snapshot, issue a backup message to the virtual machine host for backup operations, and only allow impactful events to proceed after the backup is complete, ensuring the virtual machine state is protected.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a virtual machine snapshot is created immediately upon detecting a protection event, then the virtual machine state is captured quickly, but the snapshot creation may be aborted if the virtual machine is deleted during the process, leading to loss of protection
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs a backup operation before creating the snapshot. The system detects a protection event, issues a backup message to the virtual machine host to perform backup, and only after the backup is complete does it initiate snapshot creation. This preliminary backup action ensures that even if the virtual machine is deleted during snapshot creation, the state is already preserved in the backup.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a backup operation as an intermediary step between detecting the protection event and creating the snapshot. The backup message is sent to the virtual machine host, which performs the backup operation as a mediator that prepares the data before the snapshot process begins, ensuring data availability even if the virtual machine changes state.
2Reliability
If the system waits for backup completion before allowing impactful events to proceed, then data integrity is ensured, but the productivity of virtual machine operations is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The backup operation is performed in advance before the snapshot creation and before impactful events need to be handled. By completing the backup beforehand, the system ensures data integrity is established prior to any operations, allowing subsequent operations to proceed without waiting for backup completion.
Solution Approach 2:
The protection process is segmented into distinct phases: backup operation phase, snapshot creation phase, and event handling phase. Each phase is separated and executed sequentially, allowing the backup to complete independently without blocking subsequent operations that need to proceed promptly.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system for virtual machine protection. Specifically, the disclosed method and system dynamically protect virtual machine state from impactful events, such as accidental virtual machine deletions and shutdowns. The disclosed method and system work to stall the fulfillment of these impactful events while instigating the backup of protected virtual machine state, and thereafter, only permit these impactful events to proceed upon completion of the backup operation.