Microsoft Corporation
SAVING AND RESTORING PRE-PROVISIONED VIRTUAL MACHINE STATES

Abstract:

The present disclosure relates to systems, method, and computer-readable media to enable saving and restoring virtual machines (VMs) in a way that reduces time associated with booting VMs and reducing expense of memory resources on a cloud computing system. The systems described herein involve loading or otherwise pre-booting pre-provisioned VMs on server nodes and saving VM states of the pre-provisioned VMs within an accessible storage volume. Responsive to a received customer request, the systems described herein can restore the pre-provisioned VM from the saved VM state by bringing the VM back to a running state (e.g., responsive to a customer request). The systems described herein facilitate aggressive VM deployment prediction at minimal expense to available processing resources.