Patent ID: 8886865

Claim:
A computer implemented method for managing virtual disks in the process of cloning a first virtual machine (VM) to produce a second VM, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a request to clone the first VM linked to a base virtual disk to produce the second VM, wherein the base virtual disk includes a chain of one or more virtual disks; responsive to determining that a last virtual disk in the chain exceeds a threshold size: creating a virtual disk for the first VM by creating a first redo log and linking the first redo log to the base virtual disk, and creating a virtual disk for the second VM, without copying contents of the base virtual disk, by creating a second redo log and linking the second redo log to the base virtual disk; and responsive to determining that the last virtual disk in the chain does not exceed the threshold size, creating the virtual disk for the second VM by copying contents of the last virtual disk in the chain to a second redo log and linking the second redo log to a next-to-last redo log of the chain.