Host-Based Storage Tracking for Virtual Machine Backup
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional backup systems for virtual machines are inefficient, requiring proprietary software tailored for specific operating systems and consuming significant resources, making them difficult to scale when managing multiple virtual machines with different operating systems.
Innovation Solution
A data storage system that employs a storage tracking virtual machine to receive indications of write operations from guest virtual machines via an inter-virtual machine communication interface, using filter drivers or breakpoints to communicate write operation information to a backup storage device, allowing for efficient tracking and buffering of write operations across multiple virtual machines in a single update.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If proprietary backup software is installed in each virtual machine tailored for specific operating systems, then backup functionality can be provided for each VM, but device complexity and resource consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal backup agent running on the host system that can manage multiple virtual machines with different operating systems through a single interface. This host-based agent communicates with backup storage devices via standard protocols (FC, iSCSI, NFS, SMB) without requiring VM-specific proprietary software, thereby reducing complexity while maintaining broad compatibility and backup functionality across diverse virtual machine environments
2Reliability
If proprietary backup software is installed in each virtual machine, then backup can be provided for each VM, but scalability becomes difficult when managing large numbers of virtual machines with different operating systems
Solution Approach 1:
The host-based backup agent provides universal management capability that can simultaneously monitor and backup multiple virtual machines regardless of their operating systems. The agent uses standardized communication protocols and file system interfaces to interact with different VM types, enabling linear scalability without requiring custom software for each VM type
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a host-based backup agent as an intermediary layer between the virtual machines and the backup storage system. This mediator consolidates the backup management function at the host level, where it can uniformly handle multiple VMs through standard protocols, thereby enabling easy scalability without direct VM-to-backup-storage connections
3Reliability
If traditional backup systems perform write operations for each virtual machine individually, then backup can be provided for each VM, but resource consumption and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the backup operations for multiple virtual machines into a single coordinated process. The host-based backup agent aggregates write operations from multiple VMs and performs backup in batches, consolidating what would otherwise be multiple individual VM-to-backup-storage transactions into one efficient operation that reduces overall resource consumption and processing time
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques relating to tracking storage operations performed by a guest virtual machine executing on a computer system are disclosed. The guest virtual machine may include a filter driver that provides an indication to a storage tracking virtual machine executing on the computer system that the guest virtual machine is performing a write operation to a production storage device. The storage tracking virtual machine then communicates information about the write operation to a backup storage device (e.g., one that provides continuous data production (CDP) to the computer system). In another embodiment, the storage tracking virtual machine may insert breakpoints into a guest virtual machine. When a first breakpoint triggers, the storage tracking virtual machine captures an I/O buffer of the guest virtual machine. After a second breakpoint triggers, the storage tracking virtual machine communicates information about the write operation to a backup storage device.