Providing persistent storage to transient cloud computing services

1. A method comprising:

creating on an on-premises cloud infrastructure, a cloud computing instance that is configured to direct I/O operations to non-volatile storage in a storage system that is communicatively coupled to the on-premises cloud infrastructure; and

storing, in the non-volatile storage in the storage system, data associated with the cloud computing instance including operational state data for restoring the cloud computing instance.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, responsive to the cloud computing instance becoming unavailable, creating a new cloud computing instance based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein creating the new cloud computing instance based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance includes configuring a state of the new cloud computing based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising configuring the cloud computing instance to utilize the non-volatile storage in the storage system for servicing input/output (‘I/O’) operations generated by the cloud computing instance.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the cloud computing instance is configured to utilize a cloud storage service for servicing input/output (‘I/O’) operations generated by the cloud computing instance, the method further comprising copying data stored by the cloud storage service to the non-volatile storage in the storage system.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the cloud storage service is supported by the on-premises cloud infrastructure.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the cloud computing instance is an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (‘EC2’) instance.

8. An apparatus comprising a computer processor, a computer memory operatively coupled to the computer processor, the computer memory having disposed within it computer program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, cause the apparatus to carry out the steps of:

creating on an on-premises cloud infrastructure, a cloud computing instance that is configured to direct I/O operations to non-volatile storage in a storage system that is communicatively coupled to the on-premises cloud infrastructure; and

storing, in the non-volatile storage in the storage system, data associated with the cloud computing instance including operational state data for restoring the cloud computing instance.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising computer program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, cause the apparatus to carry out the step of, responsive to the cloud computing instance becoming unavailable, creating a new cloud computing instance based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein creating the new cloud computing instance based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance includes configuring a state of the new cloud computing based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance.

11. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising computer program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, cause the apparatus to carry out the step of configuring the cloud computing instance to utilize the non-volatile storage in the storage system for servicing input/output (‘I/O’) operations generated by the cloud computing instance.

12. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the cloud computing instance is configured to utilize a cloud storage service for servicing input/output (‘I/O’) operations generated by the cloud computing instance, the instructions further causing the apparatus to carry out the step of copying data stored by the cloud storage service to the non-volatile storage in the storage system.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the cloud storage service is supported by the on-premises cloud infrastructure.

14. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the cloud computing instance is an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (‘EC2’) instance.

15. A computer program product disposed upon a computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising computer program instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to carry out the steps of: creating on an on-premises cloud infrastructure, a cloud computing instance that is configured to direct I/O operations to non-volatile storage in a storage system that is communicatively coupled to the on-premises cloud infrastructure; and storing, in the non-volatile storage in the storage system, data associated with the cloud computing instance including operational state data for restoring the cloud computing instance.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 further comprising computer program instructions that, when executed, cause the computer to carry out the step of, responsive to the cloud computing instance becoming unavailable, creating a new cloud computing instance based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein creating the new cloud computing instance based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance includes configuring a state of the new cloud computing based on the data associated with the cloud computing instance.

18. The computer program product of claim 15 further comprising computer program instructions that, when executed, cause the computer to carry out the step of configuring the cloud computing instance to utilize the non-volatile storage in the storage system for servicing input/output (‘I/O’) operations generated by the cloud computing instance.

19. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the cloud computing instance is configured to utilize a cloud storage service for servicing input/output (‘I/O’) operations generated by the cloud computing instance, the computer program product further comprising computer program instructions that, when executed, cause the computer to carry out the step of copying data stored by the cloud storage service to the non-volatile storage in the storage system.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the cloud storage service is supported by the on-premises cloud infrastructure.