VIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE RECOVERY CONFIGURATOR

• US 20140365822A1
• Filed: 06/05/2013
• Published: 12/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: 11 11 Systems, Inc., Cortland Products Corp. (Alter Domus Luxembourg SARL)
• Original Assignee: Sungard Availability Services LP (Sungard Availability Services Capital, Inc.)
• Inventors: Tarves, William J. Jr.
• Granted Patent: US 9,183,097 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/15
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1415 at system level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1662 the resynchronized component or unit being a persistent storage device re-synchronization of failed mirror storage G06F11/2082; rebuild or reconstruction of parity RAID storage G06F11/1008
• 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 11/3672 Test management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors

Abstract

Systems, methods and procedures to capture, format and process configuration information needed for a Managed Recovery Program (MRP) solution that supports orderly handling of virtual machines in an information technology production environment. An MRP automation package is portable and contains all of the required configuration data to bring virtual infrastructure on line in a recovery environment as well as associated scripts that can be executed to automatically process the configuration data.

Claims

1. A method for recovering a production environment which includes one or more physical and/or virtual machine infrastructure elements that together comprise one or more data centers, and where a recovery environment provides a managed recovery service for the infrastructure elements, the method carried out in the recovery environment, comprising:

receiving a recovery automation data file containing configuration information for the physical infrastructure elements;

receiving a virtual recovery automation file containing configuration information for the virtual infrastructure elements and a script file containing instructions to be executed in the recovery environment;

instantiating a recovery system for hosting one or more available physical machines of the same type as in the production environment, the physical machines allocated from a group of machines such that a number of available physical machines may vary over time;

configuring physical machines in the recovery environment according to the virtual recovery automation file;

instantiating virtual machines in the recovery environment according to the virtual recovery automation file; and

executing the script file within the recovery system to configure the recovery environment.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the virtual machines in the recovery environment are managed by a hypervisor.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the virtual recovery automation package further includes specification for recovering physical machines in the production environment as virtual machines in the recovery environment.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the configuration files are comma separated value files.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein configuration information in the virtual recovery automation includes hosts, networks, datastores, and virtual machines.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the recovery machines are managed by a Vcenter server and the recovery machines are ESX hosts.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

allocating physical machines from a list of physical machines reported as being available from a recovery service provider; and

executing the scripts on the physical machines thus allocated.

8. The method of claim 3 wherein a target location of the virtual machines in the recovery environment is specified according to the virtual recovery automation file.

9. The method of claim 3 wherein compute specifications including one or more of Central Processing Unit (CPU), Random Access Memory (RAM) or disk storage for virtual machines in the recovery environment are modified and/or specified according to the virtual recovery automation file.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein network configurations of virtual machines in the recovery environment can be modified according to the virtual recovery automation file.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein virtual machines in the recovery environment are organized according to the virtual recovery automation file.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

performing specified system checks including at least network and storage verification prior to execution of the script file.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the virtual recovery automation file specifies configuration changes to be applied to a set of virtual machines in the recovery environment.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the set of virtual machines to which the specification changes are applied includes all virtual machines in the recovery environment.

15. A data processing system recovery environment for providing a managed recovery service for a production environment which includes one or more physical and/or virtual machine infrastructure elements that together comprise one or more data centers comprising:

a recovery system that includes

one or more physical data processors for providing the managed recovery service that further comprise;

a communication interface and memory for receiving and storing

(a) a recovery automation data file containing configuration information for the physical infrastructure elements;

(b) a virtual recovery automation data file containing configuration information for the virtual infrastructure elements and

(c) a script file containing instructions to be executed in the recovery environment;

the physical machines allocated from a group of machines in the recovery environment such that a number of available physical machines may vary over time;

the processor(s) executing one or more programs to

configure the physical machines in the recovery system according to the virtual recovery automation file;

instantiate virtual machines in the recovery system according to the virtual recovery automation file; and

execute the script file within the recovery system to configure the recovery environment.

16. The system of claim 15 additionally comprising:

a hypervisor for managing the virtual machines.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein the virtual recovery automation package further includes a specification for recovering physical machines in the production environment as virtual machines in the recovery environment.

18. The system of claim 15 wherein the configuration files are comma separated value files.

19. The system of claim 15 wherein configuration information in the virtual recovery automation includes hosts, networks, datastores, and virtual machines.

20. The system of claim 15 further comprising:

a vCenter server for managing the physical machines; and

wherein the physical machines in the system are ESX hosts.

21. The system of claim 15 further wherein the physical machines are allocated from a list of physical machines reported as being available from a recovery service provider.