Image restore from incremental backup

1. A method for restoring a virtual machine in a cluster computing environment that includes a plurality of nodes including a proxy node, the method comprising:

performing a redirected restore of a virtual machine from a backup chain of the virtual machine to a destination node in the cluster computing environment that is different from a node of the cluster computing environment from which the backup chain was generated, wherein the backup chain includes components of a virtual machine, wherein the backup chain includes a backup component document that includes original names of the components of the virtual machine, wherein the redirected restore is performed by an agent operating on a proxy node;

preparing a configuration of the virtual machine based on the components associated with the virtual machine and included in the backup chain by:

renaming differencing components that were renamed when backing up the virtual machine based on the backup component document in order to change a path of the components to a path of a targeted directory;

importing snapshots, differencing snapshots, configuration files and differencing configuration files;

obtaining settings for the virtual machine by importing a virtual machine management object that stored the settings, where the settings include virtual hard disk settings, wherein the virtual machine management object is obtained from the imported virtual machine;

setting a resource property of the location to the path of the targeted directory for the virtual hard disks; and

removing any version of the virtual machine that exists in the cluster computing environment;

merging the snapshots and merging the configuration files to prepare the virtual machine for operation;

instantiating the virtual machine on the destination node of the cluster computing environment.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein restoring a backup chain includes retrieving a save set from a storage device.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein preparing a configuration of the virtual machine includes preparing a planned virtual machine from the components, wherein the components include the snapshots, the differencing snapshots, the configuration files, and the differencing configuration files.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein preparing a planned virtual machine includes renaming at least some of the components of the virtual machine such that a virtual hard drive points to a targeted directory.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising applying the settings to the virtual machine.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising applying the settings of the virtual hard drive.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising converting the planned virtual machine to a realized virtual machine.

8. The method of claim 4 , wherein renaming at least some of the components includes providing the targeted path name for the virtual hard drive.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtual machine is restored to the destination node in the computing environment by an agent residing on a proxy node that is different from the destination node.

10. A method for restoring a virtual machine to a destination node in a cluster, the method comprising:

retrieving a save set of the virtual machine that was running on a node in the cluster from a backup location by an agent operating on a proxy node in the cluster, wherein the proxy node is different from the destination node and from the node from which the virtual machine was backed up, wherein the agent on the proxy node performs a redirected restore of the virtual machine to the destination node, wherein the save set includes components of a virtual machine, wherein the components include snapshots and incremental snapshots and configuration files and incremental configuration files, wherein the save set includes a backup component document that includes original names of the snapshots and the incremental snapshots;

forming a planned virtual machine from the save set by fixing a configuration of the planned virtual machine, wherein the configuration is included in the save sets;

obtaining a backup component document generated by a framework that generated the save set;

renaming at least some of the components based on information generated during a backup of the virtual machine back based on the backup component document in order to change a path of the components to a path of a targeted directory;

obtaining settings of the planned virtual machine from a virtual machine management object in which the settings area stored and applying the settings to the planned virtual machine, wherein the virtual machine management object is obtained from the imported virtual machine;

setting a resource property of a destination node to a path for a virtual hard disk of the virtual machine;

removing any version of the virtual machine that is present in the cluster;

merging the components to finalize the planned virtual machine; and

converting the planned virtual machine to a realized virtual machine, wherein the realized virtual machine is realized without relying on the framework that generated the save set.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising migrating the realized virtual machine to a destination node in the cluster.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein forming a planned virtual machine includes importing the snapshots, the incremental snapshots, the configuration files, and the incremental configuration files.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein forming a planned virtual machine includes obtaining settings of the virtual hard disks of the planned virtual machine and applying the settings.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising changing the resource property of the destination node for the virtual machine such that the resource property points to the realized virtual machine.

15. The method of claim 13 , further comprising interpreting the backup component document generated by the framework to rename at least some of the components.

16. The method of claim 10 , further comprising renaming the components such that the snapshots and the differencing snapshots point to a targeted directory.

17. A method for restoring a virtual machine to a destination node in a cluster using an agent running on a proxy node in the cluster, the method comprising:

removing any versions of the virtual machine that exist in the cluster before performing a redirected restore of the virtual machine to the destination node, wherein the destination node is different from the node from which a backup chain of the virtual machine was generated, wherein;

performing the redirected restore of the virtual machine to the destination node by restoring the backup chain beginning with a full backup and subsequent incremental backups to a targeted location, wherein components included in the backup chain are used to realize a planned virtual machine and wherein the backup chain includes one or more snapshots including differential differencing disks and one or more configuration files, wherein the backup chain is associated with a backup component document that includes original names of the one or more snapshots;

fixing the planned virtual machine by:

renaming at least the differencing disks and the configuration files based on the backup component document produced by a framework that generated the one or more snapshots, wherein renaming configuration files includes renaming paths and filenames based on the backup component such that the components all point to a targeted directory;

importing the planned virtual machine;

obtaining settings for the planned virtual machine and for a virtual hard drive associated with the planned virtual machine and applying the settings, wherein the settings are obtained from the imported virtual machine;

setting a resource property to a path corresponding to the targeted directory for the virtual hard disks;

merging the snapshots included in the planned virtual machine; and

instantiating the planned virtual machine to a realized virtual machine on the destination node without relying on the framework that generated the backup chain.

18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising migrating the realized virtual machine to the destination node.

19. The method of claim 17 , further comprising changing a host resource to a path of the virtual hard disk.

20. The method of claim 17 , wherein the virtual machine is restored without invoking a framework that generated the one or more snapshots included in the backup chain.