Patent ID: 7707185
Filing Date: 2010-04-27
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for providing access to disk data of a virtual machine running on a first computer system hosting the virtual machine to a second computer system: storing data corresponding to the virtual machine as logical blocks in a physical persistent storage attached to the first computer system; quiesceing all applications running on the virtual machine; taking a snapshot of the data; creating a logical to physical mapping for the snapshot of the data, wherein the mapping is provided by the virtual machine and stored within the snapshot of the data, wherein the mapping defines correlation between virtual blocks to which the virtual machine saves the data and physical blocks to which the data is persistently stored; and reading the data residing in the snapshot by the second computer system according to the mapping, without starting a virtual machine for the snapshot on the first computer system, wherein the second computer system reads data in the snapshot directly without using a virtual machine.