Multitenant hosted virtual machine infrastructure

A plurality of hardware computer systems each including at least one processor, comprising:

• a virtual machine management module executing on at least one of the processors that causes a plurality of virtual machines to be executed on at least one of the processors in accordance with instructions from each of a plurality of principals;
• a plurality of persistent storage devices directly or indirectly accessible, via one or more physical storage controllers, to the processors on which the plurality of virtual machines are executed;
• and
• virtual storage management software executed on at least one of the processors to:
• receive, from a user, a request for saving a copy of a virtual data center, wherein the virtual data center includes virtual hardware;
• verify whether the user has access rights to save the copy of the virtual data center;
• verify whether the user has available resource quota to save the copy of the virtual data center;
• when the user has the access rights and the available resource quota:
• suspend the virtual hardware of the virtual data center;
• suspend one or more virtual network services deployed for the virtual data center;
• unconfigure one or more rules associated with the virtual hardware of the virtual data center;
• deallocate one or more networks allocated for the virtual data center;
• create a snapshot of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center and one or more disk images associated with the virtual machine at least one of the plurality of persistent storage devices;
• and
• create a copy of a configuration of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center in a configuration record associated with the virtual storage management software.

A method in a computing system including at least one processor for operating a virtual computing infrastructure for a plurality of tenants, comprising

• receiving, from a tenant, a request to save a copy of a virtual data center operating in the virtual computing infrastructure, wherein the virtual data center includes virtual hardware;
• verifying whether the user has access rights to save the copy of the virtual data center;
• verifying whether the user has available resource quota to save the copy of the virtual data center;
• when the user has the access rights and the available resource quota:
• suspending the virtual hardware of the virtual data center;
• suspending one or more virtual network services deployed for the virtual data center;
• unconfiguring one or more rules associated with the virtual hardware of the virtual data center;
• deallocating one or more networks allocated for the virtual data center;
• creating a snapshot of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center and one or more disk images associated with the virtual machine at least one of a plurality of persistent storage devices associated with the virtual computing infrastructure;
• and
• creating a copy of a configuration of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center in a configuration record of the virtual computing infrastructure.

At least one computer-readable storage device which is not an electro-magnetic signal having contents adapted to cause a data processing device to perform a method for operating a virtual computing infrastructure for a plurality of tenants, the method comprising:

• receiving, from a tenant, a request to save a copy of a virtual data center operating in the virtual computing infrastructure, wherein the virtual data center includes virtual hardware;
• verifying whether the user has access rights to save the copy of the virtual data center;
• verifying whether the user has available resource quota to save the copy of the virtual data center;
• when the user has the access rights and the available resource quota:
• suspending the virtual hardware of the virtual data center;
• suspending one or more virtual network services deployed for the virtual data center;
• unconfiguring one or more rules associated with the virtual hardware of the virtual data center;
• deallocating one or more networks allocated for the virtual data center;
• creating a snapshot of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center and one or more disk images associated with the virtual machine at least one of a plurality of persistent storage devices associated with the virtual computing infrastructure;
• and
• creating a copy of a configuration of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center in a configuration record of the virtual computing infrastructure.

A method in a computing system including at least one processor for operating a virtual computing infrastructure for a plurality of tenants, comprising:

• receiving, from a tenant, a request to save a copy of a virtual data center operating in the virtual computing infrastructure, wherein the virtual data center includes virtual hardware;
• creating a snapshot of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center and one or more disk images associated with the virtual machine at least one of a plurality of persistent storage devices associated with the virtual computing infrastructure;
• and
• creating a copy of a configuration of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center in a configuration record of the virtual computing infrastructure.

At least one computer-readable storage device which is not an electro-magnetic signal having contents adapted to cause a data processing device to perform a method for operating a virtual computing infrastructure for a plurality of tenants, the method comprising:

• receiving, from a tenant, a request to save a copy of a virtual data center operating in the virtual computing infrastructure, wherein the virtual data center includes virtual hardware;
• creating a snapshot of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center and one or more disk images associated with the virtual machine at least one of a plurality of persistent storage devices associated with the virtual computing infrastructure;
• and
• creating a copy of a configuration of the virtual hardware of the virtual data center in a configuration record of the virtual computing infrastructure.