System and method for incremental virtual machine backup using storage system functionality

A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations to back up virtual machines, the operations comprising:

• receiving a request at a first storage system for an incremental backup of a virtual machine (VM) from a backup application server over a network, the request including a VM identifier identifying the VM, wherein the VM is hosted by a first host system communicatively coupled to the first storage system over a storage network;
• in response to the request, identifying by backup logic of the first storage system a first VM disk image file from a persistent storage device of the first storage system based on the VM identifier, wherein the first VM disk image file represents a first snapshot of the VM that was captured by the first host system;
• determining, by a disk change tracker of the first storage system, a difference between the first VM disk image file and a second VM disk image file representing a second snapshot of the VM, wherein the second VM disk image file has been previously backed up from the first storage system to a second storage system;
• and
• transmitting, by the backup logic of the first storage system, the difference between the first and second VM disk image files to the second storage system operating as a target backup storage system directly without going through the backup application server, wherein the backup application server is a separate server for managing backup of a plurality of storage systems over the network.

A storage system, comprising:

• a processor;
• a persistent storage device coupled to the processor;
• backup logic coupled to the persistent storage device and processor to
• receive a request at the storage system operating as a first storage system for an incremental backup of a virtual machine (VM) from a backup application server over a network, the request including a VM identifier identifying the VM, wherein the VM is hosted by a first host system communicatively coupled to the storage system over a storage network,
• in response to the request, identify a first VM disk image file from the persistent storage device based on the VM identifier, wherein the first VM disk image file represents a first snapshot of the VM that was captured by the first host system,
• determine a difference between the first VM disk image file and a second VM disk image file representing a second snapshot of the VM, wherein the second VM disk image file has been previously backed up from the first storage system to a second storage system;
• and
• transmit the difference between the first and second VM disk image files to the second storage system operating as a target backup storage system directly without going through the backup application server, wherein the backup application server is a separate server for managing backup of a plurality of storage systems over the network.