Patent ID: 8819369

Claim:
A method for restoring an original virtual machine from a snapshot according to a current virtual machine layout different than an original virtual machine layout of the original virtual machine, comprising: capturing a current virtual machine layout of a current virtual machine, the current virtual machine stored within one or more current datastores; comparing the current virtual machine layout with an original virtual machine layout, specified within a snapshot, of an original virtual machine, the original virtual machine stored within one or more original datastores when the snapshot was created; and responsive to the current virtual machine layout being different than the original virtual machine layout: removing one or more current virtual machine storage devices of the current virtual machine; creating a cloned datastore from the snapshot, the cloned datastore comprising a cloned virtual machine and one or more cloned virtual machine storage devices, the cloned virtual machine and the one or more cloned virtual machine storage devices corresponding to the original virtual machine; migrating the cloned virtual machine within the cloned datastore to the one or more current datastores according to the current virtual machine layout; and migrating the one or more cloned virtual machine storage devices within the cloned datastore to the one or more current datastores according to the current virtual machine layout.