PROTECTING AND IDENTIFYING VIRTUAL MACHINES THAT HAVE THE SAME NAME IN A MULTI-TENANT DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENT

• US 20190332497A1
• Filed: 04/27/2018
• Published: 10/31/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Dethe, Tushar, Mallik, Shubhashish
• Granted Patent: US 11,429,492 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Systems and methods for protecting and identifying virtual machines that have the same name in a multi-tenant distributed environment are provided. When backing up a virtual machine, a unique identifier of the virtual machine is incorporated into the name of the virtual machine'"'"'s save set. This allows a backup administrator to distinguish between virtual machines that have the same name. This improves the ability to perform restore operations by enabling virtual machines that have the same name to be distinguished.

Claims

1. In a computing cluster that is backed up at a cluster level, a method for backing up virtual machines in the cluster, the method comprising:

for each virtual machine;

creating a map of a virtual machine by a backup server, wherein the map associates a name and a unique identifier of the virtual machine with attributes of the virtual machine;

storing a copy of the virtual machine in a storage;

by the backup server

backing up attributes of the virtual machine by the backup server; and

creating backup indexes by the backup server.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising exporting the virtual machine using the unique identifier.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising querying the virtual machine to determine the unique identifier.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the copy of the virtual machine includes a virtual hard disk and configuration files.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the backup indexes include save set names that incorporate the unique identifier.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying save sets available for a restore operation in a user interface.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein each save set includes the name of the virtual machine and the unique identifier.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the user is configured to display the attributes of each displayed save set.