System and method for efficient entity transition

1. A method for managing virtual machines, the method comprising:

performing virtual machine (VM) discovery on a transitioned VM to obtain secondary information, wherein the transitioned VM is transitioned from a first production host to a second production host;

classifying, using a tag mapping, the transitioned VM using at least the secondary information to identify a tag;

associating the transitioned VM with a backup policy based on the tag;

sending the backup policy and the tag to the second production host hosting the transitioned VM;

after the classifying, updating an entry in the tag mapping associated with the tag using the secondary information, wherein updating the entry comprises adding VM information elements specified in the secondary information to the entry to obtain an updated entry; and

classifying, using the updated entry, a second transitioned VM using the updated entry of the tag mapping.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving a notification that identifies the transitioned VM, wherein the VM discovery is performed in response to the notification.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein performing the VM discovery comprises:

sending a request to the transitioned VM via an application programming interface (API) provided by the transitioned VM;

receiving the secondary information in response to the request.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the secondary information comprises information about an operating system executing on the transitioned VM.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the secondary information further comprises information about at least one application executing on the transitioned VM.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein classifying the transitioned VM further comprises using configuration information associated with the transitioned VM.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein prior to updating the entry, a VM information element of the plurality of VM information elements matches a second VM information element in at least one selected from a group consisting of the configuration information and the secondary information.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein after the updating the entry comprises at the least one of the VM information element that was not present in the entry prior to the updating.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein the configuration information comprises at least one selected from a group consisting of network settings and user-defined configuration information.

10. The method of claim 6 , wherein the confirmation information is specified in an open virtualization format (OVF) descriptor for the transitioned VM.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

updating, after the classifying, an entry in the tag mapping associated with the tag using the secondary information.

12. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer readable program code, which when executed by a computer processor enables the computer processor to perform a method for performing a backup operation, the method comprising:

performing virtual machine (VM) discovery on a transitioned VM to obtain secondary information, wherein the transitioned VM is transitioned from a first production host to a second production host;

classifying, using a tag mapping, the transitioned VM using at least the secondary information to identify a tag;

associating the transitioned VM with a backup policy based on the tag; and

sending the backup policy and the tag to a production host hosting the transitioned VM;

after the classifying, updating an entry in the tag mapping associated with the tag using the secondary information, wherein updating the entry comprises adding VM information elements specified in the secondary information to the entry to obtain an updated entry; and

classifying, using the updated entry a second transitioned VM using the updated entry of the tag mapping.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a notification that identifies the transitioned VM, wherein the VM discovery is performed in response to the notification.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12 , wherein performing the VM discovery comprises:

sending a request to the transitioned VM via an application programming interface (API) provided by the transitioned VM;

receiving the secondary information in response to the request.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12 , wherein prior to updating the entry, a VM information element of the plurality of VM information elements matches a second VM information element in at least one selected from a group consisting of the configuration information and the secondary information.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15 , wherein after the updating the entry comprises at the least one of the VM information element that was not present in the entry prior to the updating.

17. A system, comprising:

a processor;

a tag mapping;

a transitioned entity manager programmed to:

perform virtual machine (VM) discovery on a transitioned VM to obtain secondary information, wherein the transitioned VM is transitioned from a first production host to a second production host;

classify, using the tag mapping, the transitioned VM using at least the secondary information to identify a tag;

associate the transitioned VM with a backup policy based on the tag; and

send the backup policy and the tag to a production host hosting the transitioned VM;

after the classifying, updating an entry in the tag mapping associated with the tag using the secondary information, wherein updating the entry comprises adding VM information elements specified in the secondary information to the entry to obtain an updated entry; and

classifying, using the updated entry, a second transitioned VM using the updated entry of the tag mapping.