Patent ID: 8438349

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-accessible storage medium storing program instructions executable to: perform a backup of a virtual machine executing on a virtualization server computer by: requesting a first snapshot of a virtual disk image file of the virtual machine to be created on a network-attached storage (NAS) device coupled to the virtualization server computer, wherein the virtual disk image file stores a plurality of files used by the virtual machine, wherein the virtual disk image file and the first snapshot are stored in a file system volume on the NAS device; requesting a second snapshot of the file system volume to be created on the NAS device; after requesting the second snapshot of the file system volume to be created, requesting the first snapshot of the virtual disk image file to be released; receiving access information useable to access the second snapshot on the NAS device; and using the second snapshot to backup the virtual disk image file from the NAS device to a backup storage device without transferring the virtual disk image file through the virtualization server computer.