US Patent 10579283 Elastic virtual backup proxy

Rules are stored for dynamically managing virtual machine backups in a computing environment. Each rule includes a triggering condition and an action to be performed when the triggering condition is satisfied. A selection of at least one rule to apply to the environment is received. The environment is polled to detect changes. The selected at least one rule is evaluated against a detected change. Based on the evaluation, a determination is made that a triggering condition has been satisfied. An action specified in the at least one rule is performed where the action includes one of commissioning a new virtual backup proxy or decommissioning an existing virtual backup proxy.