Granted Patent B2

US 9,559,903 · App. 14/564,082 · Granted Jan 31, 2017

Inventor: William Scott Edwards (San Jose, CA)

Assignee: Axcient, Inc.

H04L41/0806G06F11/1464G06F11/1484G06F11/203G06Q10/10H04L61/1511H04L61/2015H04L63/0272H04L67/10H04L69/40G06F11/2023G06F2201/84G06F2201/85

Abstract

Claims (49)

1. A method for managing a cloud-based virtual machine, the method comprising:

providing one or more selections corresponding to one or more backups of a computing device via a user interface to an end user;

receiving a selection of at least one of the one or more backups;

receiving configuration details for the computing device, the configuration details comprising computing resources that are to be dedicated to a cloud-based virtual office that corresponds to the computing device;

virtualizing the backup within a cloud computing environment using a virtualization program to create the cloud-based virtual office having the configuration details;

providing access to the cloud-based virtual office to a remote user; and

receiving network settings for the cloud-based virtual office via a user interface that allows an end user to any of:

enable VPN access to the cloud-based virtual office, enable port forwarding for the cloud-based virtual office, enable inbound/outbound connections for the cloud-based virtual office, enable DHCP for the cloud-based virtual office, and combinations thereof.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising establishing a cloud gateway for the cloud-based virtual office by receiving gateway information and netmask information for the cloud-based virtual office.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein providing access to the cloud-based virtual office to a remote user comprises establishing at least one client Internet protocol address and at least one set of VPN access credentials.

4. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising receiving network settings for the cloud-based virtual office comprising any of VPN information, DHCP information, port forwarding information, or any combinations thereof.

5. The method according to claim 4 , further comprising:

updating the network settings for the cloud-based virtual office by receiving updated gateway and netmask information for the cloud-based virtual office; and

applying the updated gateway and the updated netmask information to the cloud-based virtual office.

6. The method according to claim 5 , further comprising managing Internet connectivity of the cloud-based virtual office by enabling or disabling inbound or outbound data transfer relative to the cloud-based virtual office.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising establishing virtual network computing (VNC) access to the cloud-based virtual office by specifying one or more Internet protocol addresses that are to be used when an Internet protocol address of a cloud gateway is unavailable.

8. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising establishing port forwarding settings for the cloud-based virtual office by receiving an external port number, an internal Internet protocol address, and an internal port address from an end user via a port forwarding user interface; and applying at least a portion of the port forwarding settings to the cloud-based virtual office.

9. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising establishing dynamic host configuration protocol settings for the cloud-based virtual office by receiving one or more domain names and one or more DNS server Internet protocol address associated with the one or more domain names from an end user via a DHCP user interface; and applying the dynamic host configuration protocol settings to the cloud-based virtual office.

10. The method according to claim 9 , further comprising assigning at least one of the one or more DNS server Internet protocol address of the cloud-based virtual office to a virtual machine by associating a media access control address of the virtual machine with the at least one of the one or more DNS server Internet protocol address.

11. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising establishing site-to-site virtual private network settings for the cloud-based virtual office by:

establishing a local machine that will execute a VPN endpoint image;

defining an endpoint name for the local machine within the cloud-based virtual office;

establishing network settings for the local machine;

downloading the VPN endpoint image to the local machine;

executing the VPN endpoint image using a virtualization program to create a virtual machine; and

adding the virtual machine to a network routing table of the cloud-based virtual office.

12. The method according claim 1 , further comprising executing a virtual machine for each server in the cloud-based virtual office by:

receiving a selection of a backup for the virtual machine;

receiving memory allocation settings for the virtual machine; and

rendering the virtual machine.

13. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising providing a virtual office user interface to an end user that comprises any of selectable network configuration tabs for the cloud-based virtual office, virtual machine information for each virtual machine within the cloud-based virtual office, a current status for the cloud-based virtual office, or combinations thereof.

14. The method according to claim 13 , wherein the selectable network configuration tabs comprises any of VPN information, DHCP information, port forwarding information, or combinations thereof.

15. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

generating backups for the cloud-based virtual office; and

populating a failover appliance with data included in the backups.

16. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising providing a user interface that allows an end user to control any of the cloud-based virtual machine, a non-cloud-based virtual machine, and combinations thereof.

17. The method according to claim 16 , wherein the user interface comprises representations of a backup status for each computing device, a current status for the cloud-based virtual machine that corresponds to the computing device, a visual representation of a status for the cloud-based virtual office, and any combinations thereof.

18. A method for establishing a cloud-based virtual office, the method comprising:

providing selections, corresponding to backups of servers of a computing network, to a user interface;

establishing a cloud gateway for the cloud-based virtual office;

virtualizing a backup for each selected server using a virtualization program to create the cloud-based virtual office that includes virtual server machines networked with one another via the cloud gateway, wherein each virtual server machine has dedicated computing resources that comprise at least a selection of CPU core settings for a virtual machine;

providing a workload to the cloud-based virtual office; and

receiving network settings for the cloud-based virtual office via a user interface that allows an end user to any of:

enable VPN access to the cloud-based virtual office, enable port forwarding for the cloud-based virtual office, enable inbound/outbound connections for the cloud-based virtual office, enable DHCP for the cloud-based virtual office, and combinations thereof.

19. A cloud-based virtual office executing within a computing environment, the cloud-based virtual office comprising virtual server machines that correspond to servers of a physical network, each of the virtual server machines being virtualized by a virtualization program from a backup of a physical server, the backup of the physical server being stored within memory of the computing environment, the virtualization program being executed by a processor of the computing environment upon an occurrence of a failover event, the processor further establishing a cloud gateway that networks the virtual server machines together, wherein each of the virtual server machines has dedicated computing resources that comprise at least a selection of CPU core settings for the virtual server machines; and

a user interface that receives network settings for the cloud-based virtual office that allows an end user to any of:

enable VPN access to the cloud-based virtual office, enable port forwarding for the cloud-based virtual office, enable inbound/outbound connections for the cloud-based virtual office, enable DHCP for the cloud-based virtual office, and combinations thereof.

20. The cloud-based virtual office according to claim 19 , wherein the computing environment further comprises an intermediary node between the physical network and a backup node that stores backups for at least a portion of the servers of the physical network.

21. The cloud-based virtual office according to claim 20 , wherein the computing environment further comprises a failover appliance that is disposed locally to the physical network.

Assignments (13)

Continuity (2)