Patent ID: 8539137
Filing Date: 2013-09-17
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for storing data of a Virtual Execution environment (VEE), comprising: launching, on a computer system, isolated VEEs with a shared OS kernel providing services to the VEEs in response to requests from the VEEs; starting a common storage device driver and a common file system driver; mounting a virtual disk drive for each VEE, wherein each VEE has its own file system driver object for handling a disk image of its VEE; wherein the virtual disk drive is represented on the a storage device as a disk image, and wherein the disk image is stored on a physical storage device or on a network storage device as at least one file; and wherein the file of the virtual disk drive comprises an internal structure visible to the shared OS kernel that includes user data storage blocks and redirection blocks that point to user data storage blocks and that are used by the VEE's file system driver, and wherein at least some of the virtual drives permit an over-commitment of disk space to their corresponding VEEs relative to standard allocation of disk space.