US Patent 8677085 Virtual machine snapshotting in object storage system

The storage system exports logical storage volumes that are provisioned as storage objects within logical storage containers. These storage objects are accessed on demand by connected computer systems using standard protocols, such as SCSI and NFS, through logical endpoints for the protocol traffic that are configured in the storage system. A snapshot profile can be separately defined for each of these logical storage volumes, even for those that are within the same storage container. The snapshot profile for a logical storage volume defines whether or not snapshot is enabled for that logical storage volume, the frequency of the snapshot, and the number of snapshots to be retained.