Patent ID: 8135930

Claim:
A method for replicating virtual machine data, the method comprising: creating a first snapshot of one or more source virtual machine disks on a source storage device, wherein the one or more source virtual machine disks comprises a plurality of source data blocks; detecting an out-of-sync condition between the one or more source virtual machine disks and one or more replicated virtual machine disks, the one or more replicated virtual machine disks comprising a plurality of target data blocks corresponding to the plurality of source data blocks; following said detecting, generating a target signature for each of the plurality of target data blocks of the one or more replicated virtual machine disks, wherein each target signature is indicative of data content of a particular target data block; storing each target signature in a target signature file; for each of the plurality of source data blocks, generating a source signature indicative of data content of a particular source data block, comparing the source signature of the particular source data block with the target signature of the corresponding target data block, and updating the one or more replicated virtual machine disks with a copy of the particular source data block when the source signature does not match the target signature; creating a second snapshot of the one or more source virtual machine disks; and committing the first snapshot to both the one or more source virtual machine disks and the one or more replicated virtual machine disks.