Recovery and operation of captured running states from multiple computing systems on a single computing system

• US 7,480,822 B1
• Filed: 07/13/2005
• Issued: 01/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Veritas Technologies, LLC (Whitehouse Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Symantec Corporation (NortonLifeLock Inc.)
• Inventors: Arbon, Val, Hardman, Daniel H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lohn; Joshua A
• Application Number:
  US11/180,412
• Time in Patent Office: 1,287 Days
• Field of Search: 714/4, 714/5, 714/6, 714/7, 714/12, 714/13, 714/15
• US Class Current: 714/13
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2038 with a single idle spare processing component

Abstract

Restoring access to running states of multiple primary computing systems onto a single computing system. The captured running states each include, or are altered to include, at least one device driver that is configured to interface with a common virtualization component that runs on the single computing system. The common virtualization component is configured to at least indirectly interface with hardware on the single computing system. The hardware potentially operates using a different interface than the device driver is configured to interface with. The system identifies a boot order for each of the primary computing systems, and then starts the running states for each of the primary computing systems in the appropriate boot order in a manner that takes advantage of the virtual environment exposed by the single computing system.

Claims

1. A method for restoring access to running states of a plurality of primary computing systems onto a single computing system, the method comprising the following:

an act of accessing a captured running state of each of the primary computing systems on the single computing system, wherein the captured running states each include, or are altered to include, at least one device driver that is configured to interface with a common virtualization component that runs on the single computing system, wherein the common virtualization component is configured to at least indirectly interface with hardware on the single computing system that operates at least part of the hardware using a different interface than the at least one device driver is configured to interface with;

an act of identifying a boot order for each of the primary computing systems; and

an act of booting the captured running states for each of the primary computing systems in the identified boot order on the single computing system.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1, further comprising:

an act of capturing the running states of each of the primary computing systems.

3. A method in accordance with claim 2, further comprising:

an act of ensuring that each of the captured running states includes at least one device driver that is configured to interface with a common virtualization component.

4. A method in accordance with claim 3, wherein the act of capturing occurs before the act of ensuring.

5. A method in accordance with claim 3, wherein the act of capturing occurs after the act of ensuring.

6. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the at least one device driver are each the same on each of the captured running states.

7. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of identifying a boot order for each of the primary computing systems comprises:

an act of the single computing system receiving an identification of the boot order from a source external to the single computing system.

8. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of identifying a boot order for each of the primary computing systems comprises the following:

an act of monitoring initialization timestamps for a plurality of computing services that operate on the primary computing systems for one or more prior initializations of the plurality of computing services;

an act of automatically estimating one or more initialization dependencies of pairs of the plurality of computing services of the plurality of computing systems based on the act of monitoring;

an act of automatically deriving an initialization ordering for the plurality of computing services of the plurality of primary computing systems based on the estimated one or more initialization dependencies; and

an act of deriving the boot order based on the act of deriving the initialization ordering for the plurality of computing services of the plurality of primary computing systems.

9. A method in accordance with claim 8, wherein the act of estimating one or more initialization dependencies comprises:

for multiple pairs of the plurality of computing services, an act of estimating a sequential time-based correlation for the pair of initialization of the computing services; and

an act of estimating that the pairs of computing services with higher sequential time-based correlation have an initialization dependency.

10. A method in accordance with claim 8, wherein the act of monitoring initialization times for the plurality of computing services for one or more prior initializations of the plurality of computing services comprises the following:

an act of monitoring one or more initialization event logs for each of the plurality of primary computing systems; and

an act of filtering the one or more initialization event logs for events related to initialization of the plurality of computing services.

11. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of identifying a boot order for each of the primary computing systems comprises the following:

an act of monitoring boot times of the plurality of primary computing systems for one or more prior boots of the plurality of primary computing systems;

an act of automatically estimating one or more boot dependencies of the plurality of primary computing systems based on the act of monitoring; and

an act of automatically estimating the boot order for the plurality of primary computing systems based on the estimated one or more boot dependencies.

12. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein each of the running states is an entire volume of the corresponding primary computing system.

13. A method in accordance with claim 1, further comprising:

an act of the common virtualization component emulating the network between at least two of the plurality of primary computing systems when the capture running states of the at least two primary computing systems attempt to communicate over the network.

14. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the common virtualization component is configured to interface with hardware on the single computing system using an operating system of the single computing system.

15. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable storage media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a single computing system, cause the single computing system to perform a method for restoring access to running states of a plurality of primary computing systems onto the single computing system, the method comprising the following:

an act of accessing a captured running state of each of the primary computing systems on the single computing system, wherein the captured running states each include, or are altered to include, at least one device driver that is configured to interface with a common virtualization component that runs on the single computing system, wherein the common virtualization component is configured to at least indirectly interface with hardware on the single computing system, at least part of the hardware using a different interface than the at least one device driver is configured to interface with;

an act of identifying a boot order for each of the primary computing systems; and

an act of booting the captured running states for each of the primary computing systems in the identified boot order on the single computing system.

16. A computer program product in accordance with claim 15, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical memory media.

17. A method for restoring access to running states of a plurality of primary computing systems onto a single computing system, the method comprising the following:

an act of capturing the running states of each of the primary computing systems;

an act of ensuring that each of the captured running states includes at least one device driver that is configured to interface with a common virtualization component, wherein the common virtualization component is configured to at least indirectly interface with hardware on the single computing system, at least part of the hardware using a different interface than the device driver is configured to interface with;

an act of identifying a boot order for each of the primary computing systems; and

an act of booting the captured running states for each of the primary computing systems in the identified boot order on the single computing system.

18. A computing system comprising:

one or more processors;

at least one hardware component;

a device driver that is configured to interface with operating systems using a hardware interface to thereby control the hardware component;

one or more computer-readable media having thereon the following;

computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the computing system to operating a common virtualization component that is configured to at least indirectly interface with the device driver;

a captured running state for each of a plurality of primary computing systems, wherein each capture running state contains, or is altered to contain, at least one device driver, at least some of which operate using a different interface than the hardware interface; and

computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more processors, they cause the computing system to perform the following;

an act of identifying a boot order for each of the primary computing systems; and

an act of booting the captured running states for each of the primary computing systems in the identified boot order on the single computing system.

19. A computing system in accordance with claim 18, wherein the computer-readable media are physical memory media.

20. A computing system in accordance with claim 18, wherein the one or more computer-readable media further having thereon:

computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by the one or more processors, they cause the computing system to operate the operating system, wherein the common virtualization component interfaces with the device driver through the operating system.

21. A method comprising:

inserting a first device driver into a first running state of a first computing system, the first device driver being configured to interface with a virtualization component on a recovery system;

inserting second device driver into a second running state of a second computing system, the second device driver being configured to interface with the virtualization component on the recovery system;

capturing the first running state of the first computing system;

capturing the second running state of the second computing system;

including the virtualization component on the recovery computing system;

restoring the first running state to the recovery computing system, the first device driver interfacing with hardware of the recovery system through the virtualization component;

restoring the second running state to the recovery computing system, the second device driver interfacing with the hardware of the recovery system through the virtualization component;

providing access to the first and second running states.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

including an operating system on a recovery computing system, the virtualization component interfacing with the hardware of the recovery system through the operating system.

23. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

identifying a boot order for the first and second computing systems;

booting the first and second running states in the boot order.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein identifying a boot order further comprises:

monitoring initialization timestamps for the first and second computing systems that operate on the computing systems for one or more prior initializations of the computing services.

25. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

emulating a network between the first and second computing systems.