Patent ID: 8983988
Filing Date: 2015-03-17
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method for enabling a central management service to operate on individual files associated with different virtual machines running in one or more host computers that are each networked to a remote storage system, the method comprising: receiving, at a virtualization software layer on a host computer, an input/output (IO) request from a first virtual machine running on the host computer, wherein (i) the IO request relates to a first file stored in a first virtual disk associated with the first virtual machine, the first virtual disk locally attached to the host computer, and (ii) a second file corresponding to the first file is individually stored in the remote storage system in accordance with a file system that governs how data is stored in the remote storage system; notifying the central management service of the received IO request, wherein the central management service (i) determines a second pathname used by the file system to access the second file in the remote storage system, the second pathname being resolved from a first pathname associated with the IO request and used by the first virtual machine to identify the first file within the first virtual disk, (ii) uses the file system to access the second file in the remote storage system using the second pathname, and (iii) performs a management task on the second file that was accessed by the management service; and performing, by the virtualization software layer, the IO request on the second file in the remote storage system using the second pathname upon a notification of a successful completion of the management task by the central management service.