Patent attributes
Virtual machine (VM) proliferation may be reduced through the use of Virtual Server Agents (VSAs) assigned to a group of VM hosts that may determine the availability of a VM to perform a task. Tasks may be assigned to existing VMs instead of creating a new VM to perform the task. Furthermore, a VSA coordinator may determine a grouping of VMs or VM hosts based on one or more factors associated with the VMs or the VM hosts, such as VM type or geographical location of the VM hosts. The VSA coordinator may also assign one or more VSAs to facilitate managing the group of VM hosts. In some embodiments, the VSA coordinators may facilitate load balancing of VSAs during operation, such as during a backup operation, a restore operation, or any other operation between a primary storage system and a secondary storage system.
