TARGETED BACKUP OF VIRTUAL MACHINE

• US 20180113632A1
• Filed: 10/25/2016
• Published: 04/26/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: SANCHETI, Ashwin Gautamchand, DORNEMANN, Henry Wallace
• Granted Patent: US 10,152,251 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2025 using centralised failover control functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2048 where the redundant components share neither address space nor persistent storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• 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 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• 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 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A data storage environment can include one or more virtual machines instantiated on a host computing device. Based on physical location data of the one or more virtual machines received from the host computing device, a storage manager can control the performance of a secondary copy operation on one or more storage units that store virtual machine data associated with the one or more virtual machines and/or the performance of a secondary copy operation on the one or more virtual machines.

Claims

1. A method for backing up a virtual machine, the method comprising:

identifying one or more storage units of a storage array storing a plurality of virtual machines, the plurality of virtual machines residing in one or more virtual data stores and configured for execution on one or more processors of a host computing device;

requesting the storage array to generate one or more storage unit clones from the one or more storage units based at least in part on said identifying the one or more storage units;

mounting the one or more storage unit clones to a proxy computing device, wherein a file system of the one or more storage unit clones is unknown to the proxy computing device such that the proxy computing device is unable to identify the plurality of virtual machines stored in the storage unit clone;

identifying a physical location of the plurality of virtual machines within the one or more storage unit clones based at least in part on metadata associated with the plurality of virtual machines received during a previous storage operation of the plurality of virtual machines; and

performing a secondary storage operation on a selected portion of the storage unit clone based at least in part on the identified physical location, the selected portion comprising at least one virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines, wherein the at least one virtual machine is individually identifiable during the secondary storage operation based at least in part on the identified physical location.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying the one or more storage units is based at least in part on location data received in response to a snapshot operation of the plurality of virtual machines performed by the host computing device.

3. A method for backing up a virtual machine, the method comprising:

identifying a first storage unit of a primary storage device storing virtual machine data corresponding to a virtual machine configured for execution on one or more processors of a host computing device;

mounting a second storage unit associated with the first storage unit to a proxy computing device;

identifying a physical location of the virtual machine data within the mounted second storage unit; and

performing a secondary storage operation on a selected portion of the mounted second storage unit based at least in part on the identified physical location, the selected portion comprising the virtual machine data.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first storage unit is the second storage unit.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising requesting a primary storage device to generate a storage unit clone of the first storage unit.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the second storage unit comprises the storage unit clone.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the storage unit clone comprises a physical copy of data from the storage unit.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein the primary storage device comprises a storage array.

9. The method of claim 3, wherein said identifying the first storage unit and said identifying the physical location is based at least in part on data received from a snapshot operation of the virtual machine.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein a file system of the mounted second storage unit is unknown to the proxy computing device.

11. The method of claim 3, wherein the proxy computing device is a separate computing device from the host computing device and a secondary storage computing device.

12. The method of claim 3, further comprising performing a snapshot of the first storage unit prior to mounting the second storage unit to the proxy computing device.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising notifying the primary storage device that the secondary storage operation is complete, wherein the primary storage device removes the snapshot based at least in part on the notification.

14. A data storage system, comprising:

a storage manager comprising one or more processors and at least one data store, the storage manager being communicatively coupled to a primary storage device and a host computing device, the host computing device comprising one or more second processors, at least one data store, and at least one virtual machine instantiated thereon and executing on the one or more second processors, the storage manager configured to;

request the primary storage device to generate a storage unit clone of a first storage unit, the first storage unit storing virtual machine data corresponding to the at least one virtual machine; and

mount the storage unit clone to a proxy computing device, the storage unit clone comprising a copy of the virtual machine data; and

a secondary storage computing device communicatively coupled to the proxy computing device, the secondary storage computing device configured to;

identify a physical location of the copy of the virtual machine data within the mounted storage unit clone; and

perform a secondary storage operation on a selected portion of the mounted storage unit clone based at least in part on the identified physical location, the selected portion comprising the copy of the virtual machine data.

15. The data storage system of claim 14, wherein the primary storage device comprises a storage array.

16. The data storage system of claim 14, wherein the storage manager is further configured to identify the storage unit prior to the request based at least in part on location data received in response to a snapshot operation of the at least one virtual machine.

17. The data storage system of claim 14, wherein the secondary storage computing device is configured to identify the physical location based at least in part on data received from a snapshot operation of the at least one virtual machine.

18. The data storage system of claim 14, wherein a file system of the mounted storage unit clone is unknown to the proxy computing device.

19. The data storage system of claim 14, wherein the storage manager is further configured request the primary storage device to perform a snapshot of the storage unit prior to mounting the storage unit clone to the proxy computing device.

20. The data storage system of claim 19, wherein the storage manager is further configured to notify the primary storage device that the secondary storage operation is complete, wherein the primary storage device removes the snapshot based at least in part on the notification.