SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING VIRTUAL HARD DISKS IN CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS
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Abstract
A system, method, and computer-readable storage medium for managing virtual hard disks in a cloud computing/storage environment are provided. The method includes associating, using a virtual hard disk (VHD) management system of a server device, a plurality of data blocks of a virtual hard disk stored at a cloud vendor to a corresponding plurality of cloud objects. A plurality of cloud object identifiers associated with the plurality of cloud objects in a first cloud allocation table are stored. Changes to one or more data blocks are determined. Corresponding new cloud allocation tables for every data block in the plurality of data blocks that has changed are formed, the new cloud allocation tables having corresponding new cloud object identifiers. The first and the new cloud allocation tables are downloaded and merged to form an updated cloud allocation table. The updated cloud allocation table is uploaded to the cloud vendor.
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Citations
40 Claims
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1-20. -20. (canceled)
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21. A method, comprising:
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modifying a first virtual hard disk file, having a block allocation table, to form a second virtual hard disk having a cloud allocation table, wherein; the first virtual hard disk file comprises a disk header, a disk footer, and a plurality of data blocks storing the contents of the first virtual hard disk, the block allocation table comprises a table of absolute sector offsets into the file, the respective offsets corresponding to respective ones of the data blocks, the cloud allocation table comprises pointers to the data in the data blocks stored as distributed cloud objects, at least some of the distributed cloud objects being distributed in different files or blobs from one another; creating a plurality of recovery points by, for each of at least some of the plurality of recovery points; accessing a previous recovery point; and for cloud objects storing data that has changed since the previous recovery point, causing the changed data to be stored in a new cloud object identified in a cloud allocation table of a current recovery point; merging, with one or more computing devices, at least some of the recovery points without downloading to the one or more computing devices at least some of the cloud objects pointed to in respective cloud allocation tables of the merged recovery points; and storing the merged recovery points. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37)
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38. A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium storing instructions that when executed by one or more processors effectuate operations comprising:
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modifying a first virtual hard disk file, having a block allocation table, to form a second virtual hard disk having a cloud allocation table, wherein; the first virtual hard disk file comprises a disk header, a disk footer, and a plurality of data blocks storing the contents of the first virtual hard disk, the block allocation table comprises a table of absolute sector offsets into the file, the respective offsets corresponding to respective ones of the data blocks, the cloud allocation table comprises pointers to the data in the data blocks stored as distributed cloud objects, at least some of the distributed cloud objects being distributed in different files or blobs from one another; creating a plurality of recovery points by, for each of at least some of the plurality of recovery points; accessing a previous recovery point; and for cloud objects storing data that has changed since the previous recovery point, causing the changed data to be stored in a new cloud object identified in a cloud allocation table of a current recovery point; merging, with one or more computing devices, at least some of the recovery points without downloading to the one or more computing devices at least some of the cloud objects pointed to in respective cloud allocation tables of the merged recovery points; and storing the merged recovery points. - View Dependent Claims (39, 40)
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Specification