Virtual machine fault tolerance

A method for providing virtual machine fault tolerance from a snapshot, comprising:

• providing a snapshot of a virtual machine hosted on a primary computing device to a secondary computing device, the snapshot representing the virtual machine according to a primary virtual machine type supported by the primary computing device;
• detecting a re-initialization of the primary computing device due to a failure;
• receiving a second snapshot from the secondary computing device, the second snapshot based upon a backup of the virtual machine hosted on the secondary computing device, the second snapshot representing the virtual machine according to a secondary virtual machine type supported by the secondary computing device;
• and
• responsive to the primary computing device not supporting the secondary virtual machine type:
• utilizing the second snapshot to host a temporary virtual machine within a virtual machine host software environment that supports the secondary virtual machine type;
• converting the temporary virtual machine from the secondary virtual machine type to the primary virtual machine type to create a restored primary virtual machine;
• and
• hosting the restored primary virtual machine on the primary computing device as the virtual machine.

A system for providing virtual machine fault tolerance from a snapshot, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• memory comprising instructions that when executed by at least one of the one or more processors implement at least some of:
• a backup component configured to:
• maintain one or more snapshots of a virtual machine hosted on a primary computing device according to a primary virtual machine type;
• and
• a hosting component configured to:
• detect failure of the virtual machine hosted on the primary computing device;
• and
• host the virtual machine on a secondary computing device, supporting a secondary virtual machine type, based upon a snapshot, comprising:
• responsive to the secondary computing device not supporting the primary virtual machine type:
• utilize the snapshot to host a temporary virtual machine within a virtual machine host software environment that supports the primary virtual machine type;
• convert the temporary virtual machine from the primary virtual machine type to the secondary virtual machine type to create a secondary virtual machine;
• and
• host the secondary virtual machine on the secondary computing device as the virtual machine on the secondary computing device, at least some of at least one of the backup component or the hosting component implemented at least in part via a processor.