Elastic temporary filesystem

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed in a computing device, perform a method of:

• intercepting, by operation of an I/O virtualization layer, a storage command associated with a first virtual machine (VM) including a first storage command and a second storage command;
• determining that the first storage command specifies a logical storage space of a first virtual disk, and upon determining that the first storage command specifies the logical storage space of the first virtual disk, executing the first storage command on the first virtual disk;
• and
• determining that the second storage command specifies a logical storage space of a temporary virtual disk, which is a persistent storage, wherein data of the temporary virtual disk are stored in a pool file, which is a shared file in a file system that is accessible by a plurality of virtual machines including the first virtual machine, and upon determining that the second storage command specifies the logical storage space of the temporary virtual disk, determining a location of an extent corresponding to the logical storage space of the temporary virtual disk within the pool file based on a mapping, which comprises a list of extents within the pool file that have been written to and locations of the extents within the pool file, the extents within the pool file being associated with the plurality of virtual machines, and executing the second storage command on the extent at the determined location within the pool file.

A computer system comprising:

• a storage device having a pool file comprising a first plurality of extents associated with a first virtual machine (VM) and a second plurality of extents associated with a second VM;
• a system memory having a mapping of the first and second plurality of extents that have been written to locations within the pool file;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• intercept a storage command associated with the first VM, wherein the storage command specifies a logical storage space of a virtual disk, wherein the virtual disk is one of a first virtual disk and a temporary virtual disk, which is a persistent storage, and wherein data of the temporary virtual disk are stored in the pool file, which is a shared file in a file system that is accessible by a plurality of virtual machines including the first virtual machine;
• if the storage command specifies the logical storage space of the first virtual disk, execute the storage command on the first virtual disk;
• and
• if the storage command specifies the logical storage space of the temporary virtual disk, determine whether a first extent of the first plurality of extents corresponding to the logical storage space of the temporary virtual disk is present within the pool file based on the mapping, and if the first extent is determined to be present within the pool file, determine a location of the first extent within the pool file based on the mapping and execute the storage command on the first extent at the determined location within the pool file.