Granted Patent B2

US 12,705,085 · App. 18/413,019 · Granted Aug 11, 2026

Inventor: Renaud B. Voltz (Los Altos Hills, CA)

Assignee: VMware LLC

G06F9/45558G06F9/4406G06F9/45541G06F9/547G06F13/4221G06F2009/4557G06F2009/45579G06F2009/45591G06F2009/45595G06F9/5077G06F2213/0026

Abstract

Claims (34)

1 . A method for operating a server, the method comprising:

storing a plurality of copies of a virtual machine (VM) image on a network accessible storage;

booting a virtual machine using a first copy of the VM image to execute on the hypervisor of a first computing device;

receiving a read request for a second copy of the VM image from a second computing device in a first format;

sending the read request to the network accessible storage in a second format; and

booting an operating system of the second computing device using the second copy of the VM image.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the VM image is stored in a VM-specific format.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein a network interface controller (NIC) converts the read request from the first format to the second format.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the NIC uses a first protocol for communication with the network accessible storage and a second protocol for communicating with the second computing device.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising loading the second copy of the VM image at the second computing device.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the VM image comprises a virtual machine disk (VMDK) file.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising managing the plurality of copies of VM images based on workload demands.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the network accessible storage comprises a distributed storage.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the network-accessible storage is a storage associated with a compute manager for the network.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the first copy of the VM image is encrypted.

11 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising analyzing data traffic associated with transmitting the second copy of the VM image.

12 . A method for operating a server, the method comprising:

storing a plurality of copies of a virtual machine (VM) image on a network accessible storage;

booting a virtual machine using a first copy of the VM image on a first computing device;

receiving a first read request for a second copy of the VM image from a second computing device in a first format;

converting the first read request to a second read request in a second format by a network interface controller;

sending second read request to the network accessible storage; and

booting the second computing device using the second copy of the VM image.

13 . The method of claim 12 , further updating a firmware of the network interface controller.

14 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising analyzing data traffic associated with transmitting the second copy of the VM image.

15 . A system comprising:

a network accessible storage storing a plurality of copies of a virtual machine (VM) image;

a first computing device executing a hypervisor on which a first VM runs by storing a first copy of the VM image that is used to boot-up the first VM; and

a second computing device comprising a network interface controller (NIC) and a storage, the NIC being configured to receive a read request for a second copy of the VM image in a first format and send a converted read request in a second format to the network accessible storage to retrieve a second copy of the VM image, the second copy of the VM image being stored in the network accessible storage, the second computing device operating using the second copy of the VM image to boot the second computing device.

16 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the NIC comprises a second operating system.

17 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the first computing device comprises a backup power module.

18 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the second computing device comprises a first processor and the NIC comprises a second processor.

19 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the NIC comprises a network adapter.

20 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the NIC comprises a non-volatile memory disk.

Assignments (2)

Continuity (4)

References Cited (268)