Virtual machine object version control

A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a processor performs a set of acts comprising:

• identifying virtual machines that access a file in a virtual machine volume;
• sending a quiesce command to the virtual machines to place the virtual machines into a quiesced state;
• waiting for acknowledgement of the quiesce command from the virtual machines that access the file, wherein the acknowledgement indicates that an acknowledging virtual machine is quiesced and write requests to at least the file are suspended for the acknowledging virtual machine while the acknowledging virtual machine is in the quiesced state;
• storing, after receiving acknowledgement of the quiesce command from the virtual machines that access the file, a snapshot of the virtual machine volume, wherein the snapshot of the virtual machine volume corresponds to the file in the virtual machine volume;
• storing a virtual machine attribute value of a virtual machine of the virtual machines in the quiesced state, wherein the virtual machine attribute value represents a state of a computing resource of the quiesced virtual machine, and the virtual machine attribute value is stored separately from the snapshot of the virtual machine volume;
• storing an association between the virtual machine attribute value and the snapshot;
• and
• releasing the virtual machines from the quiesced state after storing the snapshot and the virtual machine attribute value.

A system, comprising:

• a storage medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions;
• and
• a processor that executes the sequence of instructions to cause the processor or processors to perform a set of acts, the set of acts comprising:
• identifying virtual machines that access a file in a virtual machine volume;
• sending a quiesce command to the virtual machines to place the virtual machines into a quiesced state;
• waiting for acknowledgement of the quiesce command from the virtual machines that access the file, wherein the acknowledgement indicates that an acknowledging virtual machine is quiesced and write requests to at least the file are suspended for the acknowledging virtual machine while the acknowledging virtual machine is in the quiesced state;
• storing, after receiving acknowledgement of the quiesce command from the virtual machines that access the file, a snapshot of the virtual machine volume, wherein the snapshot of the virtual machine volume corresponds to the file in the virtual machine volume;
• storing a virtual machine attribute value of a virtual machine of the virtual machines in the quiesced state, wherein the virtual machine attribute value represents a state of a computing resource of the virtual machine, and the virtual machine attribute value is stored separately from the snapshot of the virtual machine volume;
• storing an association between the virtual machine attribute value and the snapshot;
• and
• releasing the virtual machines from the quiesced state after storing the snapshot and the virtual machine attribute value.

A computer readable medium, comprising:

• providing a user interface for accessing a data structure comprising a set of a virtual machine attribute values and a snapshot of a virtual machine volume corresponding to a file in the virtual machine volume accessed by a virtual machine, the virtual machine attribute values and the snapshot were stored while the virtual machine was in a quiesced state, and the virtual machine was released from the quiesced state after storing the virtual machine attribute values and the snapshot,
• wherein virtual machines identified as having accessed the file in the virtual machine volume were sent a quiesce command, the virtual machine attribute value and the snapshot of the virtual machine volume and are stored after waiting for acknowledgement of the quiesce command from the virtual machines that accessed the file, the acknowledgement indicates that an acknowledging virtual machine is in a quiesced state and write requests to at least the file are suspended for the acknowledging virtual machine while the acknowledging virtual machine is in the quiesced state, the snapshot of the virtual machine volume corresponds to the file in the virtual machine volume, the virtual machine attribute values represent a state of a computing resource of the quiesced virtual machine, the virtual machine attribute values are stored separately from the snapshot of the virtual machine volume, and the data structure further comprises a stored association between a respective virtual machine attribute value and a snapshot of the virtual machine volume;
• and
• performing a lookup operation on an index of the data structure in response to input received from the user interface;
• and
• restoring a previous version of a data object corresponding to the lookup operation.