Nutanix, Inc.
Saving and restoring storage devices using application-consistent snapshots

Abstract:

Systems for disaster recovery techniques. A method for capturing snapshots in a clustered virtualization environment commences upon identifying user virtual machines to be grouped together to form an application group. A virtualized controller sends or broadcasts messages to the plurality of user virtual machines where the messages request the user virtual machines to quiesce their respective transactions and other application activities. The user virtual machines associated with the application group quiesce their processing, flush their caches, and flush their file data. The virtualized controller waits for confirmations that the application activities associated with the application group have been quiesced. A backup agent commences activities to capture a snapshot of the storage devices associated with quiesced application processes. The application processes can run in conjunction with a hypervisor, or they can run as process containers. The application-consistent snapshot can be used on a different cluster to bring up the same application.