Patent ID: 9600308
Date: 2017-03-21
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L

Claim:
1. A computer implemented method for monitoring resource usage of a virtual machine, the method comprising: instantiating, by a processor unit, the virtual machine; monitoring, by the processor unit, resource usage of the virtual machine to form monitoring data, wherein the monitoring is performed externally from the virtual machine by a hypervisor having capabilities of a monitoring proxy for virtual machines that it hosts; suspending, by the processor unit, the virtual machine; responsive to suspending the virtual machine, formatting and storing, by the processor unit, the monitoring data appended by the hypervisor specifically as metadata attached to a virtual machine image in combination with virtual resources associated with the virtual machine in an image software library, obviating a requirement in monitoring environments to make associations during migration of virtual machines and during configuration changes to applications executing within the virtual machine by maintaining associations between the monitoring data, virtual machine identifiers and virtual machines tracking changes in the virtual machine identifiers, including Internet Protocol IP addresses and media access control addresses of the virtual machine; maintaining the monitoring data as the metadata when one of the virtual machine, or a composite application, migrates to a different cloud environment and when moving the virtual machine between cloud infrastructures including a private cloud and a public cloud; and accessing the monitoring data as the metadata while the virtual machine is suspended and stored in the image software library and enabling automated population of monitoring data for cloned virtual machine images.