Patent attributes
Techniques are provided for backing up virtual machines from a computing environment to a storage environment. A virtual machine agent is utilized to generate a snapshot of the virtual machine. Metadata comprising a snapshot identifier of the snapshot and virtual disk information of virtual disks captured by snapshot is generated at the computing environment. The metadata is retrieved and used to create a metafile that is transferred to the storage environment within which snapshots of the virtual machine are to be stored. The snapshot is retrieved from the computing environment and is packaged into a snapshot package having a protocol format used by the storage environment. The snapshot package is transferred to the storage environment.