Prioritization and Source-Nonspecific Based Virtual Machine Recovery Apparatuses, Methods and Systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2020057567-A1
Application number	US-201916661881-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 23, 2019
Priority date	Aug 7, 2017
Publication date	Feb 20, 2020
Grant date	—

Abstract

The Prioritization and Source-Nonspecific Based Virtual Machine Recovery Apparatuses, Methods and Systems (“MBR”) transforms backup configuration request, restore request inputs via MBR components into backup configuration response, restore response outputs. A restore request to build a recovery virtual machine using a backup disk image of a source device stored on a backup device is obtained. A virtual machine recovery environment comprising a guest virtual machine running a guest hypervisor is booted. A recovery virtual machine configuration identifying source-nonspecific software is determined. A recovery prioritization index for data blocks of the backup disk image is determined. Essential data blocks of the backup disk image are prefetched. An operating system of a nested guest abridged virtual machine is booted. Command data blocks are fetched when a user command is received. Remaining data blocks are fetched in priority order. The nested guest complete virtual machine is migrated to a non-nested guest virtual machine.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A recovery virtual machine restoring apparatus, comprising:
a memory; a component collection in the memory, including:
a virtual machine restore processing component;
a processor disposed in communication with the memory, and configured to issue a plurality of processing instructions from the component collection stored in the memory,
wherein the processor issues instructions from the virtual machine restore processing component, stored in the memory, to:
obtain, via at least one processor, by a recovery device, a restore request datastructure to build a recovery virtual machine using a backup disk image of a source device, wherein the backup disk image is stored on a backup device;
boot, via at least one processor, a virtual machine recovery environment on the recovery device, wherein the virtual machine recovery environment comprises a guest virtual machine running a guest hypervisor;
determine, via at least one processor, by the virtual machine recovery environment, a recovery virtual machine configuration for the recovery virtual machine, wherein the recovery virtual machine configuration identifies source-nonspecific software to be restored, wherein the source-nonspecific software is available from a set of source-nonspecific locations;
determine, via at least one processor, by the virtual machine recovery environment, a recovery prioritization index for data blocks of the backup disk image, wherein the recovery prioritization index identifies essential data blocks of the backup disk image;
prefetch, via at least one processor, by the virtual machine recovery environment, the essential data blocks of the backup disk image;
boot, via at least one processor, by the virtual machine recovery environment, an operating system of a nested guest abridged virtual machine;
fetch, via at least one processor, by the virtual machine recovery environment, when a user command is received by the nested guest abridged virtual machine, command data blocks associated with the user command that have not yet been fetched, and execute the user command by the nested guest abridged virtual machine;
fetch, via at least one processor, by the virtual machine recovery environment, when not fetching command data blocks, remaining data blocks of the backup disk image that have not yet been fetched, in priority order specified by the recovery prioritization index, wherein the remaining data blocks are fetched from a source-nonspecific location when the remaining data blocks are available in equivalent form from the source-nonspecific location, and wherein the remaining data blocks are fetched from the backup device when the remaining data blocks are not available in equivalent form from a source-nonspecific location; and
migrate, via at least one processor, by the virtual machine recovery environment, the nested guest abridged virtual machine to a non-nested guest virtual machine on the recovery device when the nested guest abridged virtual machine is a nested guest complete virtual machine that substantially recreates the backup disk image.

2 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the recovery device comprises a main guest virtual machine running a main guest hypervisor.

3 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the restore request datastructure is obtained from a recovery software agent as a result of a triggered event.

4 . The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the triggered event is one of: detecting that the source device is corrupted, detecting that the source device crashed, detecting that the source device is unreachable via network.

5 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the source-nonspecific software to be restored comprises at least one of: operating system, file system, application software, configuration data, user data.

6 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein fetching the source-nonspecific software to be restored from a source-nonspecific location provides a lower transmission time penalty compared to fetching from the backup device.

7 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the recovery prioritization index specifies recovery priority rankings for the data blocks of the backup disk image.

8 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the essential data blocks are data blocks sufficient to boot the nested guest abridged virtual machine and to provide partial functionality of the source device via the nested guest abridged virtual machine to a user.

9 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein essential data blocks associated with a source-nonspecific software available in equivalent form from a source-nonspecific location are prefetched from the source-nonspecific location, and other essential data blocks are prefetched from the backup device.

10 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the virtual machine recovery environment processes requests from the operating system of the nested guest abridged virtual machine to access data blocks of the backup disk image that have not yet been fetched.

11 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the command data blocks associated with the user command are fetched from the backup device.

12 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the command data blocks associated with the user command are fetched in batches of data blocks associated with an application or a data set.

13 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the remaining data blocks are fetched in batches of data blocks that improve the efficiency of reading or transmitting the remaining data blocks.

14 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the instructions to fetch the remaining data blocks further comprise instructions to:
select, via at least one processor, a data block with the next highest recovery priority ranking from the remaining data blocks; determine, via at least one processor, a source-nonspecific discrepancy hash for the selected data block; determine, via at least one processor, a backup device discrepancy hash for the selected data block; and determine, via at least one processor, that the selected data block should be fetched either from a source-nonspecific location when the source-nonspecific discrepancy hash matches the backup device discrepancy hash, or from the backup device when the source-nonspecific discrepancy hash does not match the backup device discrepancy hash.

15 . The apparatus of claim 14 , wherein the backup device discrepancy hash for the selected data block was precalculated at the time the selected data block was backed up to the backup device.

16 . A processor-readable recovery virtual machine restoring non-transient physical medium storing processor-executable components, the components, comprising:
a component collection stored in the medium, including:
a virtual machine restore processing component;
wherein the virtual machine restore processing component, stored in the medium, includes processor-issuable instructions to:
obtain, via at least one processor, by a recovery device, a restore request datastructure to build a recovery virtual machine using a backup disk image of a source device, wherein the backup disk image is stored on a backup device;
boot, via at least one processor, a virtual machine recovery environment on the recovery device, wherein the virtual machine recovery environment comprises a guest virtual machine running a guest hypervisor;
determine, via at least one processor, by the virtual machine recovery environment, a recovery virtual machine configuration for the recovery virtual machine, wherein the recovery virtual machine configuration identifies source-nonspecific software to be restored, wherein the source-nonspeci

Assignees

• Datto Inc

Inventors

• Hutcheson Campbell
• Speirs William Robert
• Gibbons Jr Robert J

Classifications

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• G06F8/63

  Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order · CPC title

• G06F2009/45562

  Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F2009/45566

  Nested virtual machines · CPC title

• G06F2009/4557

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