Providing snapshots of virtual storage devices
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- receiving, at a computer system, a request to create a snapshot of a virtual storage device, wherein the virtual storage device virtually stores data at virtual addresses, the data being physically stored at a plurality of physical storage locations that are managed by an underlying storage system associated with virtual storage device, the plurality of physical storage locations being associated with physical addresses and being distributed across a plurality of physical storage devices, the underlying storage system managing storage of the data across the plurality of physical storage devices using unique identifiers that are;
i) independent of the plurality of physical storage devices and the plurality of physical storage locations and ii) different from the virtual addresses;
identifying, by the computer system, one or more regions of the virtual storage device that have been written to since a previous snapshot of the virtual storage device was created, wherein data written to the one or more identified regions is stored in the plurality of physical storage locations separately from other stored data that corresponds to other snapshots of the one or more regions;
generating a unique identifier for the requested snapshot; and
creating the requested snapshot using the identified one more regions and the unique identifier, wherein the requested snapshot includes a mapping of the unique identifier to the one or more identified regions of the virtual storage device and does not include any data stored in the virtual storage device.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include receiving, at a computer system, a request to create a snapshot of a virtual storage device, wherein the virtual storage device virtually stores data at virtual addresses, the data being physically stored at a plurality of physical storage locations that are managed by an underlying storage system associated with virtual storage device; the methods can further include identifying, by the computer system, one or more regions of the virtual storage device that have been written to since a previous snapshot of the virtual storage device was created; the methods can additionally include generating a unique identifier for the requested snapshot; and creating the requested snapshot using the identified one more regions and the unique identifier.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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receiving, at a computer system, a request to create a snapshot of a virtual storage device, wherein the virtual storage device virtually stores data at virtual addresses, the data being physically stored at a plurality of physical storage locations that are managed by an underlying storage system associated with virtual storage device, the plurality of physical storage locations being associated with physical addresses and being distributed across a plurality of physical storage devices, the underlying storage system managing storage of the data across the plurality of physical storage devices using unique identifiers that are;
i) independent of the plurality of physical storage devices and the plurality of physical storage locations and ii) different from the virtual addresses;identifying, by the computer system, one or more regions of the virtual storage device that have been written to since a previous snapshot of the virtual storage device was created, wherein data written to the one or more identified regions is stored in the plurality of physical storage locations separately from other stored data that corresponds to other snapshots of the one or more regions; generating a unique identifier for the requested snapshot; and creating the requested snapshot using the identified one more regions and the unique identifier, wherein the requested snapshot includes a mapping of the unique identifier to the one or more identified regions of the virtual storage device and does not include any data stored in the virtual storage device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A system comprising:
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a computer system; an interface of the computer system to receive a request to create a snapshot of a virtual storage device, wherein the virtual storage device virtually stores data at virtual addresses, the data being physically stored at a plurality of physical storage locations that are managed by an underlying storage system associated with virtual storage device, the plurality of physical storage locations being associated with physical addresses and being distributed across a plurality of physical storage devices, the underlying storage system managing storage of the data across the plurality of physical storage devices using unique identifiers that are;
i) independent of the plurality of physical storage devices and the plurality of physical storage locations and ii) different from the virtual addresses;a snapshot manager of the computer system to identify one or more regions of the virtual storage device that have been written to since a previous snapshot of the virtual storage device was created, wherein data written to the one or more identified regions is stored in the plurality of physical storage locations separately from other stored data that corresponds to other snapshots of the one or more regions; a snapshot generator of the computer system i) to generate a unique identifier for the requested snapshot, and ii) to create the requested snapshot using the identified one more regions and the unique identifier, wherein the requested snapshot includes a mapping of the unique identifier to the one or more identified regions of the virtual storage device and does not include any data stored in the virtual storage device. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A computer program product tangibly embodied on a computer readable medium, the computer program product including instructions that, when executed, cause a computing device to perform operations comprising:
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receiving a request to create a snapshot of a virtual storage device wherein the virtual storage device virtually stores data at virtual addresses, the data being physically stored at a plurality of physical storage locations that are managed by an underlying storage system associated with virtual storage device, the plurality of physical storage locations being associated with physical addresses and being distributed across a plurality of physical storage devices, the underlying storage system managing storage of the data across the plurality of physical storage devices using unique identifiers that are;
i) independent of the plurality of physical storage devices and the plurality of physical storage locations and ii) different from the virtual addresses;identifying one or more regions of the virtual storage device that have been written to since a previous snapshot of the virtual storage device was created, wherein data written to the one or more identified regions is stored in the plurality of physical storage locations separately from other stored data that corresponds to other snapshots of the one or more regions; generating a unique identifier for the requested snapshot; and creating the requested snapshot using the identified one more regions and the unique identifier, wherein the requested snapshot includes a mapping of the unique identifier to the one or more identified regions of the virtual storage device and does not include any data stored in the virtual storage device. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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Specification