Virtual machine state recorder

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10698716-B2
Application number	US-201815921990-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 15, 2018
Priority date	Mar 15, 2018
Publication date	Jun 30, 2020
Grant date	Jun 30, 2020

Abstract

Disclosed herein are related to a method, a system, and a non-transitory computer readable medium for backing up a virtual machine. In one aspect, an instruction to store a requested state of a virtual machine is received. Configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state are determined, and a configuration data indicative of the determined configurations of the virtual machine is generated. The configuration data is stored. Another instruction to load the virtual machine in the requested state from a plurality of states of the virtual machine may be received. The stored configuration data indicative of the configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state may be retrieved. The configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state may be identified based on the retrieved configuration data, and the virtual machine in the requested state may be loaded according to the identified configurations.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
receive an instruction to store a requested state of a desired virtual machine (VM) and a future trigger time for the requested state of the desired VM;
determine target configurations of the desired VM in the requested state at the future trigger time;
generate configuration data indicative of the determined target configurations of the desired VM; and
store the configuration data and the future trigger time; and
at the future trigger time, retrieve the configuration data and load a host machine with a VM having a configuration based on the retrieved configuration data.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the future trigger time is a pre-determined time period after a user request time.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the requested state of the virtual machine is a state of the virtual machine at which the virtual machine periodically saves the state of the virtual machine.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the target configurations are determined at a second time before the future trigger time.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 4 , further comprising instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive a user input specifying the target state of the virtual machine at the first time, wherein the configurations of the virtual machine are determined based on the user input.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive another instruction to load the virtual machine in the requested state from a plurality of states of the virtual machine; and
retrieve the stored configuration data indicative of the configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 6 , further comprising instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
identify the configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state based on the retrieved configuration data; and
load the virtual machine in the requested state according to the identified configurations.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7 , wherein said another instruction is generated in response to a user selection of the requested state of the virtual machine from the plurality of states.

9. A method comprising:
receiving an instruction to store a requested state of a desired virtual machine (VM) and a future trigger time for the requested state of the desired VM;
determining target configurations of the desired VM in the requested state at the future trigger time;
generating configuration data indicative of the determined target configurations of the desired VM; and
storing the configuration data and the future trigger time; and
at the future trigger time, retrieving the configuration data and loading a host machine with a VM having a configuration based on the retrieved configuration data.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the requested state of the virtual machine is a state of the virtual machine at which a user requested to save the state of the virtual machine.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the requested state of the virtual machine is a state of the virtual machine at which the virtual machine periodically saves the state of the virtual machine.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the target configurations are determined at a second time before the future trigger time.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
receiving a user input specifying the target state of the virtual machine at the first time,
wherein the configurations of the virtual machine are determined based on the user input.

14. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
receiving another instruction to load the virtual machine in the requested state from a plurality of states of the virtual machine; and
retrieving the stored configuration data indicative of the configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
identifying the configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state based on the retrieved configuration data; and
loading the virtual machine in the requested state according to the identified configurations, wherein said another instruction is generated in response to a user selection of the requested state of the virtual machine from the plurality of states.

16. A system comprising:
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive an instruction to store a requested state of a desired virtual machine (VM) and a future trigger time for the requested state of the desired VM,
determine target configurations of the desired VM in the requested state at the future trigger time,
generate configuration data indicative of the determined target configurations of the desired VM, and
store the configuration data and the future trigger time; and
at the future trigger time, retrieve the configuration data and load a host machine with a VM having a configuration based on the retrieved configuration data.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the requested state of the virtual machine is a state of the virtual machine at which a user requested to save the state of the virtual machine.

18. The system of claim 16 , wherein the requested state of the virtual machine is a state of the virtual machine at which the virtual machine periodically saves the state of the virtual machine.

19. The system of claim 16 , wherein the target configurations are determined at a second time before the future trigger time.

20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the non-transitory computer readable medium further comprises instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive a user input specifying the target state of the virtual machine at the first time,
wherein the configurations of the virtual machine are determined based on the user input.

21. The system of claim 16 , wherein the non-transitory computer readable medium further comprises instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive another instruction to load the virtual machine in the requested state from a plurality of states of the virtual machine, said another instruction generated in response to a user selection of the requested state of the virtual machine from the plurality of states, and
retrieve the stored configuration data indicative of the configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state.

22. The system of claim 21 , wherein the non-transitory computer readable medium further comprises instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
identify the configurations of the virtual machine in the requested state based on the retrieved configuration data, and
load the virtual machine in the requested state according to the identified configurations.

Assignees

• Nutanix Inc

Inventors

• Samprathi Ravikanth
• Babu Srinivas Bandi Ramesh
• Hill Thomas
• Sohi Aroosh

Classifications

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

  Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing · CPC title

• G06F2009/45583

  Memory management, e.g. access or allocation · CPC title