Efficient live-mount of a backed up virtual machine in a storage management system

• US 10,452,303 B2
• Filed: 03/05/2018
• Issued: 10/22/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Dornemann, Henry Wallace, Pawar, Rahul S., Kumarasamy, Paramasivam, Kilaru, Satish Chandra, Venkatesha, Ananda
• Primary Examiner(s): Sough, S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Franco, Christopher J
• Application Number:
  US15/911,575
• Publication Number:
  US 20180260157A1
• Time in Patent Office: 596 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/14 Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operation G06F11/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1446 Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0862 with prefetch
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual middleware or OS functionality using virtual machines to implement generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking G06F11/1484
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1016 Performance improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/151 Emulated environment, e.g. virtual machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/154 Networked environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/263 Network storage, e.g. SAN or NAS
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/461 Sector or disk block
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/507 using speculative control
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/602 Details relating to cache prefetching
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/6022 Using a prefetch buffer or dedicated prefetch cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 : by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0617 : in relation to availability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 : Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 : Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0649 : Lifecycle management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 : Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0664 : at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 : Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 : Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 : Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 : Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Systems and methods enable a virtual machine, including any applications executing thereon, to quickly start executing and servicing users based on pre-staged data blocks supplied from a backup copy in secondary storage. An enhanced media agent may pre-stage certain backed up data blocks which may be needed to launch the virtual machine, based on predictive analysis pertaining to the virtual machine'"'"'s operational profile. The enhanced media agent may also pre-stage backed up data blocks for a virtual-machine-file-relocation operation, based on the operation'"'"'s relocation scheme. Servicing read requests to the virtual machine may take priority over ongoing pre-staging of backed up data. Read requests may be tracked so that the media agent may properly maintain the contents of an associated read cache. Some embodiments of the illustrative storage management system may lack, or may simply not require, the relocation operation, and may operate in a “live mount” configuration.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

before executing a virtual machine on a second computing device,

copying a first set of data blocks based on a profile of the virtual machine, from a backup copy of data stored on a secondary storage device to a first computing device executing a media agent,

wherein the backup copy comprises at least one of a configuration file and a virtual disk associated with the virtual machine;

launching the executing of the virtual machine on the second computing device,

based on the first set of data blocks being served by the media agent from the first computing device to the second computing device;

while executing the virtual machine on the second computing device,

serving, by the media agent to the virtual machine, a read request for one or more data blocks that is issued by the virtual machine,

wherein the serving of the read request comprises;

(i) copying the requested one or more data blocks from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent if the requested one or more data blocks are not found in the first computing device, and

(ii) transmitting the requested one or more data blocks from the first computing device to the virtual machine in response to the read request; and

continuing to execute the virtual machine on the second computing device based on the media agent serving further data blocks to the virtual machine, and

wherein the further data blocks are copied from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent without restoring the backup copy of the virtual machine in its entirety.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining by the media agent, based on the profile of the virtual machine, the first set of data blocks to copy from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining by the media agent the first set of data blocks to copy from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent, wherein the determining is based on the profile of the virtual machine and is further based on using indexing generated by the media agent when the backup copy was created.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the profile of the virtual machine is received by the media agent from a data agent that executes on a third computing device.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

transmitting the profile of the virtual machine to the media agent by a data agent that executes on a third computing device; and

instructing the media agent, by the data agent to determine, based on the profile of the virtual machine, the first set of data blocks to copy from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the profile of the virtual machine indicates a file associated with the virtual machine, which file is selected by a user via a file manager application.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the profile of the virtual machine indicates a file associated with the virtual machine, which file is selected by a user via a file manager application, and wherein the backup copy comprises a representation of the file selected by the user.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the profile of the virtual machine indicates a file associated with the virtual machine;

and

determining by the media agent the one or more data blocks to copy from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent, wherein the determining is based on using indexing generated by the media agent when the backup copy was created to identify the one or more data blocks in the backup copy that were backed up from the file.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the profile of the virtual machine indicates a file associated with the virtual machine, which file is selected by a user, and wherein the backup copy comprises a representation of the file selected by the user;

and

determining by the media agent the one or more data blocks to copy from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent, wherein the determining is based on using indexing generated by the media agent when the backup copy was created to identify the one or more data blocks in the backup copy that were backed up from the file,

thereby enabling the user to view the file without restoring the backup copy of the virtual machine in its entirety.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing a user of a file manager application that executes on the second computing device with a view of data in the backup copy without restoring the backup copy in its entirety, comprising;

receiving by the media agent an indication of a file selected by the user via the file manager application, wherein the file is associated with the virtual machine and was backed up within the backup copy;

identifying by the media agent based on using indexing generated by the media agent when the backup copy was created a plurality of data blocks in the backup copy that were backed up from the file; and

wherein the plurality of data blocks in the backup copy comprise the one or more data blocks served by the media agent to the virtual machine.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing a user of a file manager application that executes on the second computing device with a view of configuration information about the virtual machine in the backup copy without restoring the backup copy in its entirety, comprising;

receiving by the media agent an indication of configuration information about the virtual machine selected by the user via the file manager application, wherein the configuration information is associated with the virtual machine and was backed up within the backup copy;

identifying by the media agent based on using indexing generated by the media agent when the backup copy was created a plurality of data blocks in the backup copy that were backed up from the configuration information of the virtual machine; and

wherein the plurality of data blocks in the backup copy comprise the one or more data blocks served by the media agent to the virtual machine.

12. A method comprising:

copying a first set of data blocks based on a profile of a virtual machine, from a backup copy of data stored on a secondary storage device to a first computing device executing a media agent, thereby enabling the virtual machine to launch on a second computing device,

wherein the backup copy comprises at least one of a configuration file and a virtual disk associated with the virtual machine, and

wherein the media agent performs the copying;

launching the virtual machine on the second computing device, using the first set of data blocks being served by the media agent from the first computing device to the second computing device;

while the virtual machine executes on the second computing device, serving, by the media agent to the virtual machine, a read request for one or more data blocks that is issued by the virtual machine, wherein the serving of the read request comprises;

(i) copying the requested one or more data blocks from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent if the requested one or more data blocks are not found in the first computing device, and

(ii) transmitting the requested one or more data blocks from the first computing device to the virtual machine in response to the read request; and

providing a user of the second computing device with a view of data in the backup copy without restoring the backup copy in its entirety, comprising;

receiving by the media agent an indication of a file selected by the user, wherein the file is associated with the virtual machine and was backed up within the backup copy, and

identifying by the media agent using indexing generated by the media agent when the backup copy was created a plurality of data blocks in the backup copy that were backed up from the file, wherein the plurality of data blocks in the backup copy comprise the one or more data blocks served by the media agent to the virtual machine.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein live mounting the virtual machine via the media agent provides the user with the view of data in the backup copy without restoring the backup copy in its entirety.

14. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

continuing to execute the virtual machine on the second computing device based on the media agent serving further data blocks to the virtual machine, wherein the further data blocks are copied from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent without restoring the backup copy of the virtual machine in its entirety.

15. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

determining by the media agent, based on the profile of the virtual machine, the first set of data blocks to copy from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent.

16. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

determining by the media agent the first set of data blocks to copy from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent, wherein the determining is based on the profile of the virtual machine and uses indexing generated by the media agent when the backup copy was created.

17. The method of claim 12 wherein the profile of the virtual machine is received by the media agent from a data agent that executes on a third computing device.

18. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

transmitting the profile of the virtual machine to the media agent by a data agent that executes on a third computing device; and

instructing the media agent, by the data agent to determine, based on the profile of the virtual machine, the first set of data blocks to copy from the backup copy to the first computing device executing the media agent.

19. The method of claim 12 wherein the providing the user of the second computing device with the view of data in the backup copy without restoring the backup copy in its entirety further comprises configuration information about the virtual machine that was backed up to the backup copy.