Granular recovery using hot-plug virtual disks

1. A method for using hot-plug virtual disks in granular recovery,

the method comprising:

receiving, at a cloud computing site, a backup configuration including one or more protected resources associated with a cloud computing tenant;

mounting a hot-plug virtual disk comprising a guest agent to a virtual machine including the protected resources associated with the cloud computing tenant, wherein the guest agent is executable by a host agent and interfaces with an application engine;

collecting metadata corresponding to the protected resources associated with the cloud computing tenant, wherein the one or more protected resources include one or more application items, wherein application engine is operable to recover one or more application items;

generating, at the cloud computing site, a backup of the virtual machine including the protected resources associated with the cloud computing tenant; and

storing the metadata corresponding to the protected resources associated with the cloud computing tenant and storing the backup of the virtual machine including the protected resources associated with the cloud computing tenant, wherein guest agent is operable to initiate recovery of the one or more application items by the application engine.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

storing the metadata corresponding to the protected resources at the virtual machine.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the hot-plug virtual disk is mounted to the virtual machine by the host agent running at a virtualization host.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the metadata corresponding to the protected resources includes an application item database location.

5. A method for using hot-plug virtual disks in granular recovery, the method comprising:

retrieving, at a cloud computing site, a list of protected resources associated with a cloud computing tenant included in a backup based upon, at least in part, metadata corresponding to the protected resources, wherein the list of protected resources include one or more application items;

receiving, at the cloud computing site, an indication of one or more protected resources selected for recovery;

determining, at the cloud computing site, which virtual disk includes the protected resources selected for recovery based upon, at least in part, the metadata corresponding to the protected resources selected for recovery;

mounting a hot-plug virtual disk comprising a guest agent to a virtual machine associated with the cloud computing tenant, the hot-plug virtual disk including recovery instructions for facilitating recovery of the protected resources selected for recovery, wherein the hot-plug virtual disk is mounted to the virtual machine by a host agent; and

recovering the protected resources selected for recovery to the virtual machine associated with the cloud computing tenants, wherein guest agent is operable to initiate recovery of the one or more application items by an application engine.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the protected resources include one or more application items and wherein a guest agent that initiates a recovery procedure passes information, describing which application items are to be recovered, to an application engine which recovers the application items.

7. A computing system for using hot-plug virtual disks in granular recovery, the computing system comprising one or more processors, wherein the one or more processors are operable to:

retrieve, at a cloud computing site, a list of one or more protected resources associated with a cloud computing tenant included in a backup based upon, at least in part, metadata corresponding to the protected resources, wherein the protected resources selected for recovery include one or more application items and wherein a guest agent that initiates a recovery procedure passes information, describing which application items are to be recovered, to an application engine which recovers the application items;

receive, at the cloud computing site, an indication of one or more protected resources selected for recovery;

determine, at the cloud computing site, which virtual disk includes the protected resources selected for recovery based upon, at least in part, the metadata corresponding to the protected resources selected for recovery;

mount a hot-plug virtual disk comprising a guest agent to a virtual machine associated with the cloud computing tenant, the hot-plug virtual disk including recovery instructions for facilitating recovery of the protected resources selected for recovery, wherein the hot-plug virtual disk is mounted to the virtual machine by a host agent; and

recover the protected resources selected for recovery to the virtual machine associated with the cloud computing tenant by running a recovery executable.

8. A system comprising:

a host agent running at a virtualization host that mounts a hot-plug virtual disk to a virtual machine associated with the virtualization host;

a guest agent included with the host agent that collects metadata related to application items associated with the virtual machine;

a cloud agent that passes a backup configuration including a list of protected resources associated with the virtual machine to the host agent, the protected resources including the application items;

an application engine running at the virtual machine that recovers the application items during a recovery process; and

a computer program product residing on a computer readable storage medium having a plurality of instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:

retrieving, at a cloud computing site, a list of protected resources associated with a cloud computing tenant,

receiving, at the cloud computing site, an indication of one or more protected resources selected for recovery,

determining which virtual disk includes the protected resources selected for recovery based upon, at least in part, the metadata,

mounting a hot-plug virtual disk to a virtual machine associated with the cloud computing tenant, the hot-plug virtual disk including recovery instructions for facilitating recovery of the protected resources selected for recovery; and

recovering the protected resources selected for recovery.

9. A system comprising:

a host agent running at a virtualization host that mounts a hot-plug virtual disk to a virtual machine associated with the virtualization host;

a guest agent that collects metadata related to application items associated with the virtual machine;

a cloud agent that passes a backup configuration including a list of protected resources comprising the application items;

an application engine that recovers the application items during a recovery process; and

a computer program product residing on a computer readable storage medium having a plurality of instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:

receiving, at a cloud computing site, a backup configuration including a list of protected resources associated with a cloud computing tenant;

mounting a hot-plug virtual disk to a virtual machine including the protected resources;

collecting metadata corresponding to the protected resources;

generating a backup of the virtual machine including the protected resources; and

storing the metadata and the backup of the virtual machine.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the metadata corresponding to the protected resources includes an application item database location.