Hypervisor agnostic interchangeable backup recovery and file level recovery from virtual disks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9684567-B2
Application number	US-201414477755-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 4, 2014
Priority date	Sep 4, 2014
Publication date	Jun 20, 2017
Grant date	Jun 20, 2017

Abstract

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for hypervisor agnostic interchangeable backup recovery and file level recovery from virtual disks. Data is stored for a first virtual disk that represents data in a first format and metadata for the first virtual disk in a common data format in a storage having a fixed block length. A virtual disk file represents data in a second format that allows variable size blocks. Multiple instances of the fixed block length of blocks of data for the second virtual disk indicated in the virtual disk file are read. Each instance of the read fixed block length of blocks is written to the storage in the common data format with metadata describing the format of the blocks in the second virtual disk, and can be restored to a third virtual disk in the first or second format.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer program product for storing data from virtual disks, wherein the computer program product comprises at least one computer readable storage medium including program instructions, wherein the program instructions when executed by a processor cause operations, the operations comprising:
storing data for a first virtual disk that represents data in a first format and metadata for the first virtual disk in a common data format in a storage, wherein the common data format stores blocks of data having a fixed block length;
processing a virtual disk file representing a second virtual disk, wherein the virtual disk file represents data in a second format that allows variable size blocks, wherein the second format is different from the first format used to represent the data for the first virtual disk and different from the common data format;
reading multiple instances of the fixed block length of blocks of data for the second virtual disk indicated in the virtual disk file;
for each instance of the fixed block length of blocks read, writing the instance of the read fixed block length of blocks to the storage in the common data format with metadata describing the second format of the blocks in the second virtual disk; and
restoring the blocks in the common data format in the storage stored from the second virtual disk to a third virtual disk in the first or second format.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the restoring comprises:
processing the blocks in the common data format and the metadata from the second virtual disk to restore the blocks into a third virtual disk in the first format.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the restoring comprises:
processing the blocks in the common data format and the metadata from the second virtual disk to restore the blocks into a third virtual disk in the second format; and
generating a new virtual disk file providing information on the data blocks of the third virtual disk.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the virtual disk file comprises a parent virtual disk file having information on all data in the second virtual disk as of an initial point-in-time, and wherein the operations further comprise:
processing a child virtual disk file in the second format having data for the second virtual disk as of an incremental point-in-time following the initial point-in-time;
wherein the reading of each instance of the fixed block length of blocks comprises: determining whether the child virtual disk file has changed data for any of the blocks to read in the second virtual disk for the instance of the fixed block length of blocks between an initial and incremental point-in-times;
reading the fixed block length of blocks as indicated in the parent virtual disk file in response to determining that the child virtual disk file does not provide blocks for the fixed block length of blocks to read; and
reading the fixed block length of blocks as indicated in the child virtual disk file and as indicated in the parent virtual disk file for blocks of the instance of the fixed block length of blocks not indicated in the child virtual disk file.

5. The computer program product of claim 4 , wherein the operations further comprise:
processing the metadata and the blocks in the common data format stored to restore the blocks in the storage stored in the common data format to a third virtual disk; and
generating a new virtual disk file indicating the data in the third virtual disk in the second format.

6. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the virtual disk file comprises a parent virtual disk file having information on all data in the first virtual disk as of an initial point-in-time, and wherein the operations further comprise:
processing a plurality of child virtual disk files in the second format having data for the second virtual disk represented by the parent virtual disk file at different incremental point-in-times;
wherein the reading of each instance of the fixed block length of blocks comprises:
determining whether at least one of the child virtual disk files has changed data for any of the blocks to read in the second virtual disk for the fixed block length of blocks between an initial and incremental point-in-times;
reading the fixed block length of blocks as indicated in the parent virtual disk file in response to determining that the child virtual disk files do not provide blocks for the fixed block length of blocks to read; and
reading the fixed block length of blocks as indicated in the child virtual disk file providing data as of a most recent point-in-time and as indicated in the parent virtual disk file that are not indicated in one of the child virtual disk files.

7. The computer program product of claim 6 , wherein the reads to the blocks indicated in the parent and child virtual disk files to access the data blocks to write to the storage in the common data format are for a fixed length of data used in the common data format, and wherein the blocks for one block in the common data format are read from data blocks represented in the parent virtual disk file and the child virtual disk file when the child virtual disk file indicates changed data for a portion of the block in the common data format.

8. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the fixed block length in the common data format has a different length than the variable size blocks identified in the virtual disk file.

9. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the first and second virtual disks in the first and second formats, respectively, are used by different first and second hypervisors implementing virtual machines.

10. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
mounting the second virtual disk represented by the virtual disk file, wherein the reads are performed against the mounted second virtual disk and written to the storage in the common data format.

11. A system for storing data from virtual disks including a first virtual disk and a second virtual disk, comprising:
a processor; and
at least one computer readable storage medium including program instructions that when executed by the processor to cause operations, the operations comprising:
storing data for the first virtual disk that represents data in a first format and metadata for the first virtual disk in a common data format in a storage, wherein the common data format stores blocks of data having a fixed block length;
processing a virtual disk file representing the second virtual disk, wherein the virtual disk file represents data in a second format that allows variable size blocks, wherein the second format is different from the first format used to represent the data for the first virtual disk and different from the common data format;
reading multiple instances of the fixed block length of blocks of data for the second virtual disk indicated in the virtual disk file;
for each instance of the fixed block length of blocks read, writing the instance of the read fixed block length of blocks to the storage in the common data format with metadata describing the second format of the blocks in the second virtual disk; and
restoring the blocks in the common data format in the storage stored from the second virtual disk to a third virtual disk in the first or second format.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the restoring comprises:
processing the blocks in the common data format and the metadata from the second virtual disk file to restore the blocks into a third virtual disk in the second format; and
generating a new virtual disk file p

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Derk David G
• Edwards Jr Robert C
• Fruchtman Michael S
• Hochberg Avishai H
• Piletski Vadzim L
• Hoobler Iii Delbert B
• Smith James P

Classifications

• G06F11/1469 Primary

  Backup restoration techniques · CPC title

• G06F2201/815

  Virtual · CPC title

• G06F2201/84

  Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data · CPC title

• G06F11/1451

  by selection of backup contents · CPC title

• G06F3/0605

  by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator · CPC title