Exposing a proprietary image backup to a hypervisor as a disk file that is bootable by the hypervisor

1. A method of exposing a proprietary image backup to a hypervisor as a disk file that is bootable by the hypervisor, the method comprising:

identifying the proprietary image backup having a proprietary format and storing an operating system;

identifying a plugin file corresponding to the proprietary image backup;

reconfiguring the operating system to cause the operating system to be bootable when using hardware emulated by the hypervisor;

gathering operating system data from the proprietary image backup;

reformatting the operating system data into a native format of the hypervisor to cause the operating system data to appear to be gathered from a disk file formatted in the native format of the hypervisor; and

booting the operating system in a virtual machine of the hypervisor.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein a file extension of a name attribute of the plugin file falsely identifies the plugin file as having the native format of the hypervisor.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:

intercepting read requests directed to the plugin file; and

responding to the read requests with data gathered from the proprietary image backup after the data is reformatted into the native format of the hypervisor.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:

creating a differencing disk file associated with the plugin file;

receiving write requests; and

directing the write requests to the differencing disk file.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the reconfiguring of the operating system includes modifying the operating system as stored in the proprietary image backup.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the reconfiguring of the operating system includes:

leaving the operating system as stored in the proprietary image backup unmodified; and

storing modifications to the operating system in a location other than the proprietary image backup.

7. The method as recited in claim 6 , wherein the storing of the modifications to the operating system in the location other than the proprietary image backup includes:

creating a differencing disk file associated with the plugin file; and

storing the modifications to the operating system in the differencing disk file.

8. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the reconfiguring of the operating system includes patching a storage controller device driver of the operating system.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the reconfiguring of the operating system includes patching a kernel of the operating system.

10. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the reconfiguring of the operating system includes patching an input/output device driver of the operating system.

11. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the reconfiguring of the operating system includes patching boot code of the operating system.

12. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the reconfiguring of the operating system includes patching a partition structure associated with the operating system.

13. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the reconfiguring of the operating system includes patching a drive letter and/or volume identifier of a volume that stores the operating system.

14. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:

storing the reformatted operating system data in a replacement disk file formatted in the native format of the hypervisor;

reformatting data in the proprietary image backup from the proprietary format to the native format of the hypervisor; and

storing the reformatted data in the replacement disk file.

15. The method as recited in claim 14 , further comprising:

intercepting read requests directed to the plugin file; and

responding to the read requests by gathering data from the proprietary image backup and the replacement disk file in a load-balanced fashion to cause data to be gathered simultaneously from both the proprietary image backup and the replacement disk file to service the read requests.

16. The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the replacement disk file is the plugin file.

17. The method as recited in claim 16 , further comprising:

servicing requests directed to the plugin file from the plugin file once the data in the proprietary image backup has finished being reformatted and stored in the plugin file.

18. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the proprietary image backup is an image backup of a volume of physical storage of a physical machine.

19. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing one or more programs that are configured, when executed, to cause one or more processors to perform the method of claim 1 .