Back up and recovery in virtual machine environments

• US 9,606,876 B2
• Filed: 08/29/2014
• Issued: 03/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: He, Zhengwen, Jandir, Mandeep K., Smith, James P., Yakushev, Mark L., Zaremba, Christopher
• Primary Examiner(s): Rones, Charles
• Assistant Examiner(s): WONG, NANCI N
• Application Number:
  US14/472,418
• Publication Number:
  US 20150370652A1
• Time in Patent Office: 942 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/80 Database-specific techniques
• 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

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provide efficient and cost-effective systems and methods for backing up and recovering a virtual machine and application data therein. Embodiments of the present invention can be used to satisfy near-zero RPOs by providing more recovery points for backups in virtual machine environments, while also providing increased granularity for recovery (i.e., single virtual disk, single file, etc.) and maintaining central management capabilities and back up efficiencies offered by virtual machine-level backups.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying, by one or more computer processors, an application executing in a guest operating system in a virtual machine and log data associated with the application, wherein the log data represents changes to data of SQL database transaction logs that have occurred since a point in time;

querying a relational data structure to determine when a full backup of the virtual machine has been generated and stored;

responsive to generation of the full backup of the virtual machine, creating, by one or more computer processors, an incremental backup of the virtual machine;

storing, in one or more storage devices, by one or more computer processors, the incremental backup of the virtual machine;

confirming, by one or more computer processors, that the full and incremental backups of the virtual machine have been stored in the one or more storage devices, and that the full and incremental backups of the virtual machine are in a data format that is compatible with a data format used to back up the log data, by querying the relational data structure;

creating, by one or more computer processors, a backup of the log data associated with the application;

storing in one or more storage devices, by one or more computer processors, the backup of the log data; and

relating in the relational data structure, by one or more computer processors, the full and incremental backups of the virtual machine and the backup of the log data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is a database management program, and the log data comprises a transaction log describing modifications made to an SQL database.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating, by one or more computer processors, a backup of the log data associated with the application comprises:

executing in the guest operating system, by one or more computer processors, one or more programs to access a file system of the guest operating system; and

executing in the guest operating system, by one or more computer processors, one or more programs to copy one or more log files containing the log data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating, by one or more computer processors, a backup of the log data associated with the application comprises:

executing outside of the guest operating system, by one or more computer processors, one or more programs to inject code into the virtual machine to create a backup of the log data associated with the application.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating, by one or more computer processors, a backup of the log data associated with the application comprises:

executing outside of the guest operating system, by one or more computer processors, one or more programs to inject code into the virtual machine to invoke a snapshot of the virtual machine; and

executing outside of the guest operating system, by one or more computer processors, one or more programs to inject code into the virtual machine to copy the log data from the snapshot of the virtual machine, wherein the log data is associated with the application.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating, by one or more computer processors, a backup of the log data associated with the application comprises:

executing outside of the guest operating system, by one or more computer processors, one or more programs to inject code into the virtual machine to invoke a snapshot of one or more virtual disks of the virtual machine on which the log data reside;

executing outside of the guest operating system, by one or more computer processors, one or more programs to inject code into the virtual machine to mount the snapshot of the one or more virtual disks of the virtual machine on which the log data reside; and

executing outside of the guest operating system, by one or more computer processors, one or more programs to inject code into the virtual machine to copy the log data from the mounted snapshot.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying, by one or more computer processors, one or more available recovery points for recovering data based on time points associated with backups of the virtual machine stored in the one or more storage devices and backups of the log data stored in the one or more storage devices;

receiving, by one or more computer processors, a selection of an available recovery point from the one or more available recovery points;

identifying, by one or more computer processors, a backup of the virtual machine and a backup of the log data that are needed to satisfy the selected recovery point;

receiving from the one or more storage devices, by one or more computer processors, the identified backup of the virtual machine and the identified backup of the log data that are needed to satisfy the selected recovery point;

mounting, by one or computer processors, the identified backup of the virtual machine and initiating recovery of the application; and

providing to the application, by one or more computer processors, the log data from the identified backup of the log data.