Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for performing a backup or restoring one or more virtual disks of a virtual machine (VM) having a universally unique identifier (UUID). A backup API within a virtual machine manager (VMM) on a host can discover virtual disks that are configured for a particular VM. The VMM can use the backup API to communicate with a backup agent on a source storage to discover mappings of virtual disks to portions of storage, including mapping of raw virtual disks to logical units of storage on a storage device or appliance. Backup of the virtual disks can include backing up the VM configuration data and metadata and backing up the raw disk mapping files. Backups can be in accordance with one or more policies stored at the backup server and associated with the virtual machine UUID or associated with an account that the virtual machine, or its user, are associated with.

Abstract: A first configuration tag is received from a host, wherein each configuration tag comprises a configuration state and a configuration value pair for a given software. The first configuration tag is stored with a first timestamp. A second configuration tag is received from the host. The second configuration tag is stored with a second timestamp. A difference is determined between the first configuration tag and the second configuration tag.