Smart de-fragmentation of file systems inside VMs for fast rehydration in the cloud and efficient deduplication to the cloud

1. A method, comprising:

using one or more hardware processors to perform operations comprising:

chunking a respective disk of each of a plurality of virtual machines (VM) to create a respective plurality of chunks associated with each of the VMs;

creating, for each VM, a vector of the plurality of chunks associated with that VM;

creating, based on the chunking process, a cluster comprising one or more of the VMs, wherein the cluster is created based on an evaluation, by a similarity module, of the vectors, and the VMs in the cluster are included in the cluster based on a comparison of their respective vectors;

creating, using the similarity module, a VM template whose data and disk structure match respective data and disk structures of each of the VMs in the cluster, wherein the VM template is created based on the VMs in the cluster; and

in response to a file operation involving a first one of the VM disks, defragmenting the first VM disk so that a disk structure of the first VM disk is the same as a disk structure of the VM template, wherein when the file operation is a file re-write operation, the operations further comprise moving file data to the same location the file data was in before the re-write operation was performed.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein defragmentation of the first VM disk is performed by a defrag agent residing at the VM whose VM disk was the subject of the file operation.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein after the first VM disk has been defragmented, data stored on the first VM disk is the same as data stored on a disk of the VM template.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein creation of the cluster is based on identification of an amount of chunks which are not common to the VMs.

5. The method as recited in claim 4 , wherein when the amount of chunks not common to the VMs is below a threshold, those VMs are included in the cluster.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein defragmenting the first VM disk comprises:

zeroing data related to the file operation so that the first VM disk includes zeros where the data previously resided; and

moving the zeros to a disk location of the first VM disk specified by the VM template.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise using a full image of the VM template to create a temporary recovery VM that is usable to recover, in the event of a disaster, any of the VMs in the cluster.

8. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise taking a full image of the VM template, and backing up the full image of the VM template.

9. The method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the full image of the VM template includes an instance of a defrag agent.

10. A non-transitory storage medium having stored therein computer-executable instructions which, when executed by one or more hardware processors, perform operations comprising:

chunking a respective disk of each of a plurality of virtual machines (VM) to create a respective plurality of chunks associated with each of the VMs;

creating, for each VM, a vector of the plurality of chunks associated with that VM;

creating, based on the chunking process, a cluster comprising one or more of the VMs, wherein the cluster is created based on an evaluation, by a similarity module, of the vectors, and the VMs in the cluster are included in the cluster based on a comparison of their respective vectors;

creating, using the similarity module, a VM template whose data and disk structure match respective data and disk structures of each of the VMs in the cluster, wherein the VM template is created based on the VMs in the cluster; and

in response to a file operation involving a first one of the VM disks, defragmenting the first VM disk so that a disk structure of the first VM disk is the same as a disk structure of the VM template, wherein when the file operation is a file re-write operation, the operations further comprise moving file data to the same location the file data was in before the re-write operation was performed.

11. The non-transitory storage medium as recited in claim 10 , wherein defragmentation of the first VM disk is performed by a defrag agent residing at the VM whose VM disk was the subject of the file operation.

12. The non-transitory storage medium as recited in claim 10 , wherein after the first VM disk has been defragmented, data stored on the first VM disk is the same as data stored on a disk of the VM template.

13. The non-transitory storage medium as recited in claim 10 , wherein creation of the cluster is based on identification of an amount of chunks which are not common to the VMs.

14. The non-transitory storage medium as recited in claim 13 , wherein when the amount of chunks not common to the VMs is below a threshold, those VMs are included in the cluster.

15. The non-transitory storage medium as recited in claim 10 , wherein defragmenting the first VM disk comprises:

zeroing data related to the file operation so that the first VM disk includes zeros where the data previously resided; and

moving the zeros to a disk location of the first VM disk specified by the VM template.

16. The non-transitory storage medium as recited in claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise using a full image of the VM template to create a temporary recovery VM that is usable to recover, in the event of a disaster, any of the VMs in the cluster.

17. The non-transitory storage medium as recited in claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise taking a full image of the VM template, and backing up the full image of the VM template.

18. The non-transitory storage medium as recited in claim 17 , wherein the full image of the VM template includes an instance of a defrag agent.