Patent ID: 9703655
Date: 2017-07-11
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A method, in a reliable distributed computing system, said system including one or more virtual machines, each said virtual machine having access to a plurality of virtual storage devices, each said virtual machine operating under the control of a guest operating system, of recovering a largest amount of data after a loss of data in one or more virtual storage devices, said method including steps of maintaining metadata associating one or more said real storage devices with one or more said virtual storage devices; after said loss of data, in response to said metadata, receiving an instruction from a user selecting one of: an instruction to recover a set of particular virtual storage devices, an instruction to recover a largest number of virtual storage devices; when said instruction from the user includes said instruction to recover a set of particular virtual storage devices, determining a set of real storage devices from which to recover a largest number of file storage units associated with those particular virtual storage devices, and determining an order in which to couple said set of real storage devices to the reliable distributed computing system; when said instruction from the user includes said instruction to recover a largest number of virtual storage devices, determining a set of real storage devices from which to recover a largest number of said virtual storage devices, and determining an order in which said set of real storage devices should be coupled to the reliable distributed computing system; informing said user of which real storage device to next couple to the reliable distributed computing system; reading still-good data from said real storage device that was next coupled; when said instruction from the user includes said instruction to recover a set of particular virtual storage devices, reconstructing the particular virtual storage device; when said instruction from the user includes said instruction to recover a largest number of virtual storage devices, reconstructing the largest number of virtual storage devices, as directed by the user.