System and method for providing a virtualized replication and high availability environment

A method to provide a virtualized replication and high availability environment, the method comprising:

• hosting a virtualization architecture on a production server system, wherein the virtualization architecture comprises a virtualization stack having access to hardware associated with the production server system, and configured to execute a plurality of virtual machines on the production server system;
• discovering, via a replication and high availability engine, the plurality of virtual machines, wherein the discovering comprises determining identifying information of the plurality of virtual machines;
• invoking a copy service associated with the virtualization stack, based on the identifying information of one or more of the plurality of the discovered virtual machines, to capture virtual machine operation files associated with the one or more of the plurality of discovered virtual machines;
• synchronizing, via the replication and high availability engine, the virtual machine operation files to a replica server;
• replicating, via the replication and high availability engine, a change to the virtual machine operation files associated with the one or more discovered virtual machines to the replica server;
• providing a choice of (i) replication of virtual machine operation files, or changes thereto, back from the replica server to the production server system as those files or changes were previously on the production server system, or (ii) transmitting from the replica server to the production server system, of virtual machine operation files, or changes thereto, that correspond to a replicated virtual machine after that replicated virtual machine has operated on the replica server, or (iii) both (i) and (ii);
• and
• redirecting an end user and/or workload from the one or more discovered virtual machines to an on-demand virtual machine created from synchronized virtual machine operation files and started on the replica server.

A computer program product comprising:

• a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing information, the stored information comprising:
• instructions configured to cause a computing device to:
• host a virtualization architecture on a production server system, wherein the virtualization architecture comprises a virtualization stack having access to hardware associated with the production server system, and configured to execute a plurality of virtual machines on the production server system;
• determine, via a replication and high availability engine, identifying information of the plurality of virtual machines to discover the plurality of virtual machines;
• invoke a copy service associated with the virtualization stack, based on the identifying information of one or more of the plurality of the discovered virtual machines, to capture virtual machine operation files associated with one or more of the plurality of discovered virtual machines;
• synchronize, via the replication and high availability engine, the virtual machine operation files to a replica server;
• and
• replicate, via the replication and high availability engine, a change to the virtual machine operation files associated with the one or more discovered virtual machines to the replica server;
• provide a choice of (i) replication of virtual machine operation files, or changes thereto, back from the replica server to the production server system as those files or changes were previously on the production server system, or (ii) transmission from the replica server to the production server system, of virtual machine operation files, or changes thereto, that correspond to a replicated virtual machine after that replicated virtual machine has operated on the replica server, or (iii) both (i) and (ii);
• and
• redirect an end user and/or workload from the one or more discovered virtual machines to an on-demand virtual machine created from synchronized virtual machine operation files and started on the replica server.