Virtual machine linking

A system, including one or more processors and memory coupled to the processors, containing computer instructions that, when executed on the processors, cause the system to implement a process that implements a process of identifying historical snapshots for a virtual machine (abbreviated VM), comprising

• receiving a request for a historical snapshot of a VM, the request indicating an ID for the VM;
• detecting that the ID for the VM in the request received is a new ID assigned to a VM by an external machine hosting VMs in a hosted service environment;
• and
• determining whether the new ID corresponds to a newly created VM created by the external machine or an existing VM that has been previously registered with the external machine using a previous ID, wherein determining whether the new ID corresponds to a new VM includes looking at some property of the VM and wherein the property is a use case identifier that signals an instant recovery request for a specific VM;
• upon identifying that the new ID corresponds to a newly created VM, creating a new VM Group (abbreviated VMG) object for the newly created VM and corresponding to the new ID;
• upon determining that the new ID corresponds to an existing VM that has been previously registered with the external machine using a previous ID;
• identifying an existing VMG object for the existing VM;
• adding the new ID to the existing VMG object;
• thereby holding identifiers for the newly created VM and the existing VM together in a single object;
• using the existing VMG object, determining one or more snapshot histories of historical snapshots from snapshot histories stored in association with a previous ID and snapshot histories stored in association with the new ID;
• and
• returning at least one historical snapshot from the snapshot histories determined;
• searching in multiple snapshot histories of a VMG object, for an unexpired snapshot and when found, making an incremental copy of the VM based upon the unexpired snapshot, wherein the unexpired snapshot is chained to another in the snapshot history and anchored to the previous ID stored in the existing VMG object.

A non-transitory computer readable media storing instructions identifying historical snapshots for a virtual machine (VM), which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, perform:

• receiving a request for a historical snapshot of a VM, the request indicating an ID for the VM;
• detecting that the ID for the VM in the request received is a new ID assigned to a VM by an external machine hosting VMs in a hosted service environment;
• and
• determining whether the new ID corresponds to a newly created VM created by the external machine or an existing VM that has been previously registered with the external machine using a previous ID, wherein determining whether the new ID corresponds to a new VM includes looking at some property of the VM and wherein the property is a use case identifier that signals an instant recovery request for a specific VM;
• upon identifying that the new ID corresponds to a newly created VM, creating a new VM Group (VMG) object for the newly created VM and corresponding to the new ID;
• upon determining that the new ID corresponds to an existing VM that has been previously registered with the external machine using a previous ID;
• identifying an existing VMG object for the existing VM;
• adding the new ID to the existing VMG object;
• thereby holding identifiers for the newly created VM and the existing VM together in a single object;
• using the existing VMG object, determining one or more snapshot histories of historical snapshots from snapshot histories stored in association with a previous ID and snapshot histories stored in association with the new ID;
• and
• returning at least one historical snapshot from the snapshot histories determined;
• searching in multiple snapshot histories of a VMG object, for an unexpired snapshot and when found, making an incremental copy of the VM based upon the unexpired snapshot, wherein the unexpired snapshot is chained to another in the snapshot history and anchored to the previous ID stored in the existing VMG object.