MANAGING REPLICATED VIRTUAL STORAGE AT RECOVERY SITES
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- replicated virtual storage of a replicated virtual machine, including at least a replicated base virtual disk substantially corresponding to a primary base virtual disk to be replicated;
a receiver configured to receive a plurality of copies of differencing disks, of a plurality of copy types, each associated with the primary base virtual disk; and
a replication management module configured to arrange the received copies of the differencing disks of the plurality of copy types relative to the replicated base virtual disk as the differencing disks were arranged relative to the primary base virtual disk.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Techniques involving replication of storage are described. A representative technique includes apparatuses and methods for receiving replicated virtual storage of a replicated virtual machine, including at least a replicated base virtual disk that substantially corresponds to a primary base virtual disk to be replicated. Copies of differencing disks or other forms of virtual storage updates are received at a recovery site, each of the differencing disks being associated with the primary base virtual disk as descendents thereof. The received copies of the differencing disks are arranged relative to the replicated base virtual disk corresponding to the manner in which the differencing disks were arranged relative to the primary base virtual disk, thereby maintaining the data view of the replicated virtual machine in synchronization with the virtual machine at the primary site.
-
Citations
20 Claims
-
1. An apparatus comprising:
-
replicated virtual storage of a replicated virtual machine, including at least a replicated base virtual disk substantially corresponding to a primary base virtual disk to be replicated; a receiver configured to receive a plurality of copies of differencing disks, of a plurality of copy types, each associated with the primary base virtual disk; and a replication management module configured to arrange the received copies of the differencing disks of the plurality of copy types relative to the replicated base virtual disk as the differencing disks were arranged relative to the primary base virtual disk. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. A computer-implemented method comprising:
-
storing a base virtual disk image of a virtual disk associated with a virtual machine; storing changes to the virtual disk by recording the changes to a current read-write differencing disk at the top of a disk chain that includes the base virtual disk image and any intervening differencing disks; and recurrently creating transferrable copies of the changes to the virtual disk for replicated storage by creating a copy of the current read-write differencing disk and prohibiting further changes thereto, creating a new current differencing disk at the top of the disk chain, and transferring the copies of the differencing disks for the replicated storage. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
-
-
18. Computer-readable media having instructions stored thereon which are executable by a computing system for performing steps comprising:
-
creating a chain of read-only snapshots of a virtual machine'"'"'s differencing disk, with a new differencing disk being created upon each snapshot that provides read and write capability at the tip of the chain; including a plurality of types of the snapshots on the chain, including at least an application-consistent snapshot type and a crash-consistent snapshot type; creating a replicated chain of the read-only snapshots that corresponds to the chain of read-only snapshots of the virtual machine'"'"'s differencing disk; enabling selection of one of the read-only snapshots in the replicated chain as a restoration point for initiating a replicated virtual machine; and initiating the replicated virtual machine from the selected one of the read-only snapshots and including one or more of the read-only snapshots that follow the selected restoration point in succession. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
-
Specification