PASSIVE MONITORING OF VIRTUAL SYSTEMS USING AGENT-LESS, OFFLINE INDEXING

摘要

Aspects of the present invention provide a solution for passively monitoring a computer system. In an embodiment, a virtual server is accessed by an indexing agent that is contained in an indexing appliance. The virtual server is located on a physical server and is one of a plurality of virtual system instances on a common physical server. The indexing appliance is separate from the virtual server and, as such, the indexing agent is not executed within the virtual server, itself. The indexing agent retrieves a virtual image of the virtual server and indexes the virtual image to extract features indicative of changes in the virtual server. These features are analyzed to perform passive monitoring of the virtual server. Since the indexing appliance is separate from the virtual server for which passive monitoring is being performed, the indexing agent can perform the retrieving and the indexing without utilizing agents executing within the virtual server.