Abstract: Reducing buffer space that is reserved when a VM attempts to write to disk. A shared memory maintains stored information available to all VM's, allowing translation between accessible to RSD's, independent of how that VM's storage is divided into VSD's. When a guest OS writes to a VSD, an “extent”, designating a location in the shared memory and amount of data to be transferred, which can be passed directly from the guest OS, through each element involved in translating the operation into one or more operations on RSD's, keeping copying to a minimum. No substantial changes need be made to the guest OS.

Abstract: Reducing buffer space that is reserved when a VM attempts to write to disk. A shared memory maintains stored information available to all VM's, allowing translation between accessible to RSD's, independent of how that VM's storage is divided into VSD's. When a guest OS writes to a VSD, an “extent”, designating a location in the shared memory and amount of data to be transferred, which can be passed directly from the guest OS, through each element involved in translating the operation into one or more operations on RSD's, keeping copying to a minimum. No substantial changes need be made to the guest OS.

Abstract: A priority restore agent in a data storage system generates a priority restore data set for a client computer system or device by identifying a set of active data sets and/or a set of key data sets within client system data generated by the client computer system. The priority restore agent looks at or processes file system attributes for the client system data and compares these attributes with predefined restore parameters. The restore parameters may indicate that any file that has been accessed, modified, or created within a particular period of time be included in the priority restore data set. The key data sets may be identified in a set of automated restore rules. A data protection application within the data storage system can restore data in the priority restore data set onto the client computer system after a disaster or system crash.

Abstract: One or more computer systems, a carrier medium, and a method are provided for backing up data using a backup server. The user may instruct backup software on a backup server to identify a second computer system (other than the backup server) as the parent computer system of the backed-up files. The backup software may receive the name of this second computer system as input, and the backup software may then output the name to a catalog during the backup process. When the backed-up data is restored, the catalog may be used to identify the parent of the backed-up data as the second computer system. In one embodiment, the data to be backed up may be part of a mirror which comprises substantially the same data as an original data volume. A carrier medium may include program instructions which, when executed, cause the above operations on one or more computer systems.