VIRTUAL PROXY BASED BACKUP

• US 20190129808A1
• Filed: 12/14/2018
• Published: 05/02/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Acharya, Soumen, Chakraborty, Anupam, Yadav, Sunil, Dethe, Tushar
• Granted Patent: US 10,922,191 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/202 where processing functionality is redundant redundant communication control functionality G06F11/2005, redundant storage control functionality G06F11/2089
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2046 where the redundant components share persistent storage G06F11/2043 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning 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 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 9/45504 Abstract machines for programme code execution, e.g. Java virtual machine [JVM], interpreters, emulators
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Techniques for virtual proxy based backup of virtual machines in a cluster environment are disclosed. In some embodiments, each of a subset of virtual machines hosted by physical nodes in a cluster environment is configured as a virtual proxy dedicated to backup operations. During backup, data rollover of each virtual machine in the cluster environment that is subjected to backup is performed using a virtual proxy.

Claims

1. A backup method, comprising:

configuring, by one or more processors, one or more virtual proxies associated with backup operations, wherein the one or more virtual proxies are hosted by one or more physical nodes in a cluster environment;

localizing, by one or more processors, one or more shared disks that store data of at least one of the one or more virtual machines in the cluster environment, the one or more shared disks being localized to at least one of the one or more physical nodes in the cluster environment;

assigning, by one or more processors, one or more virtual machines in the cluster environment to a corresponding at least one of the one or more virtual proxies; and

performing, by one or more processors, data rollover during backup of at least one of the one or more virtual machines in the cluster environment that is subjected to backup using the corresponding at least one of the one or more virtual proxies to which the at least one of the one or more virtual machines is assigned.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least a subset of the one or more virtual machines is selected to be assigned to the at least one of the one or more virtual proxies based on a localization of the at least the subset of the one or more virtual machines in relation to the corresponding at least one virtual proxy.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the localizing the one or more shared disks comprises identifying at least one shared disk that has not been localized to the at least one of the one or more physical nodes, and distributing and localizing the identified at least one shared disk to the at least one of the one or more physical nodes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the cluster environment comprises one or more shared disks on which the one or more virtual machines are localized.

5. The method claim 1, wherein the localizing the one or more shared disks shared disk comprises localizing the one or more shared disks to at least one of the one or more physical nodes that hosts at least one of the one or more virtual proxies.

6. The method claim 1, wherein the assigning of the one or more virtual machines in the cluster environment to a corresponding at least one of the one or more virtual proxies comprises assigning at least a subset of the one or more virtual machines to at least one of the one or more virtual proxies.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the assigning the at least the subset of the one or more virtual machines to the at least one of the one or more virtual proxies comprises assigning a backup of one or more virtual machines subjected to a backup to the virtual proxy.

8. The method claim 1, wherein the assigning of the one or more virtual machines to the corresponding at least one of the one or more virtual proxies comprises assigning a virtual machine stored on a shared disk that is localized to at least one of the one or more physical nodes to at least one of the one or more virtual proxies running on the at least one of the one or more physical nodes.

9. The method claim 1, further comprising load balancing backup of virtual machines across a plurality of the one or more virtual proxies.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a snapshot of the cluster environment at a prescribed physical node and sharing the snapshot with other physical nodes that host virtual proxies.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein data rollover comprises copying application data from the snapshot to a backup.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein at least a subset of the one or more virtual proxies are excluded from the snapshot.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein at least a subset of the one or more virtual proxies perform data rollover in parallel.

14. A system, comprising:

one or more physical nodes in a cluster environment that hosts one or more virtual proxies associated with backup operations; and

one or more shared disks of the cluster environment shared by a plurality of the one or more physical nodes and localized to the physical node, wherein the shared disk stores data of at least one of one or more virtual machines in the cluster environment that is subjected to backup;

wherein one or more virtual machines in the cluster environment are assigned to the a corresponding at least one of the one or more virtual proxies, and at least one of the one or more virtual proxies to which at least one of the one or more virtual machines that is subjected to backup is assigned is used in connection with the backup.

15. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:

facilitating, by one or more processors, configuration of one or more virtual proxies associated with backup operations, wherein the one or more virtual proxies are hosted by one or more physical nodes in a cluster environment;

localizing, by one or more processors, one or more shared disks that store data of at least one of the one or more virtual machines in the cluster environment, the one or more shared disks being localized to at least one of the one or more physical nodes in the cluster environment;

assigning, by one or more processors, one or more virtual machines in the cluster environment to a corresponding at least one of the one or more virtual proxies; and

delegating, by one or more processors, to the corresponding at least one of the one or more virtual proxies to which the at least one of the one or more virtual machines is assigned data rollover of the at least one of the one or more virtual machines subjected to backup.