VM-centric snapshot deduplication for cloud data backup

Data deduplication is important for snapshot backup of virtual machines (VMs) because of excessive redundant content. Fingerprint search for source-side duplicate detection is resource intensive when the backup service for VMs is co-located with other cloud services. This paper presents the design and analysis of a fast VM-centric backup service with a tradeoff for a competitive deduplication efficiency while using small computing resources, suitable for running on a converged cloud architecture that cohosts many other services. The design consideration includes VM-centric file system block management for the increased VM snapshot availability. This paper describes an evaluation of this VM-centric scheme to assess its deduplication efficiency, resource usage, and fault tolerance.