Virtual machine snapshotting and analysis

摘要

Described are techniques for capturing and analyzing snapshots of virtual machines. One or more computers may automatically obtain snapshots of virtual machines as they are executing to form a pool of virtual machine snapshots. The virtual machine snapshots are then read to obtain a set of features properties of the virtual machine snapshots, including information about a running guest operating system, software installed on the virtual machine, metadata about the virtual machine itself, and others. The features or properties are analyzed, in one embodiment using a machine learning algorithm, to automatically compute and store information about the virtual machines.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
accessing stored virtual machine snapshots, the virtual machine snapshots having been captured from one or more executing virtual machines; and automatically forming a pool of features comprised of features obtained from the accessed virtual machine snapshots; and performing automated analysis on the pool of features to identify one or more traits of one or more of the virtual machine snapshots, wherein the automated analysis either:
computes probabilities that correspond to the one or more virtual machines, respectively;categorizes one or more of the virtual machines into one or more pre-defined categories; orranks the one or more virtual machines relative to each other with respect to relevance to a predefined trait, wherein a rank of a virtual machine indicates its relative relevance to the predefined trait.