U.S. patent application number 16/799701 was filed with the patent office on 2020-06-18 for synchronizing selected portions of data in a storage management system.
The applicant listed for this patent is Commvault Systems, Inc.. Invention is credited to Prosenjit SINHA.
Application Number | 20200192578 16/799701 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 56407980 |
Filed Date | 2020-06-18 |
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United States Patent
Application |
20200192578 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
SINHA; Prosenjit |
June 18, 2020 |
SYNCHRONIZING SELECTED PORTIONS OF DATA IN A STORAGE MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
Abstract
Disclosed methods and systems leverage resources in a storage
management system to partially synchronize primary data files based
on synchronizing selected portions thereof without regard to
changes that may be occurring in other non-synchronized portions.
Accordingly, a number of primary data files may be partially
synchronized by synchronizing designated portions thereof via
auto-restore operations from backup data. This approach relies on
storage management resources to designate portions of source data
that is to be kept synchronized across any number of targets;
detect changes to the designated portions; back up changes to
secondary storage; and distribute the changes from secondary
storage to the associated targets, with minimal impact to the
primary data environment. The approach may be mutually applied, so
that changes in any one of an associated group of source data files
may be likewise detected, backed up, and distributed to the other
members of the group.
Inventors: |
SINHA; Prosenjit;
(Manalapan, NJ) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Commvault Systems, Inc. |
Tinton Falls |
NJ |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
56407980 |
Appl. No.: |
16/799701 |
Filed: |
February 24, 2020 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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16150146 |
Oct 2, 2018 |
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16799701 |
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15893281 |
Feb 9, 2018 |
10126977 |
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16150146 |
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15412645 |
Jan 23, 2017 |
9928005 |
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15893281 |
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14601053 |
Jan 20, 2015 |
9588849 |
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15412645 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 16/00 20190101;
G06F 3/0619 20130101; G06F 11/1464 20130101; G06F 2201/84 20130101;
G06F 3/0653 20130101; G06F 16/178 20190101; G06F 3/067 20130101;
G06F 11/1451 20130101; G06F 3/065 20130101; G06F 3/0611 20130101;
G06F 11/1469 20130101 |
International
Class: |
G06F 3/06 20060101
G06F003/06; G06F 11/14 20060101 G06F011/14; G06F 16/00 20060101
G06F016/00; G06F 16/178 20060101 G06F016/178 |
Claims
1. A storage management system for partially synchronizing primary
data files comprising: a storage manager; a first computing device,
in communication with the storage manager, comprising a first data
agent and a primary storage device, wherein the primary storage
device comprises a primary data file in a primary storage file
format; at least one second computing device, in communication with
the storage manager, wherein the at least one second computing
device comprises a second data agent and a second primary storage
device, and wherein the second primary storage device comprises a
second primary data file wherein the second primary data file is in
a primary storage file format, and wherein the second primary data
file is distinct from the primary data file; and at least one
secondary storage computing device, in communication with the
storage manager, comprising a media agent and secondary storage
device; and wherein the storage manager manages the association of
a portion of the primary data file and a portion of the second
primary data file; and wherein a portion of the primary data file
is backed up as a secondary copy in the secondary storage computing
device; and wherein the secondary copy from the secondary storage
is transferred to the associated portion of the second primary data
file in a primary file format.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the association of a portion of
the primary data file and a portion of the second primary data file
is identified by a user.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage manager generates
metadata comprising the association between the portion of the
primary data file and the portion of the second primary data file
based on user identification.
4. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage manager communicates
metadata comprising the association between the portion of the
primary data file and the portion of the second primary data file
to the first data agent and second data agent.
5. The system of claim 1, wherein the first data agent monitors for
changes to the portion of the first primary data file and
communicates any changes to the storage manager.
6. The system of claim 1, wherein the second data agent monitors
for changes to the portion of the second primary data file and
communicates any changes to the storage manager.
7. The system of claim 1, wherein the backing up comprises: a)
interoperating of the first data agent with the media agent to
generate a secondary copy of the portion of the primary data and
wherein the secondary copy is in a secondary file format, and b)
storing the secondary copy to the secondary storage device.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein the transfer of the secondary
copy from the secondary storage comprises interoperating of the
second data agent with the media agent.
9. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage manager further
comprises a synchronization database, a partial synchronization
manager, and a jobs agent.
10. The system of claim 1, wherein the first computing device and
second computing device further comprises change log monitor and
system change log.
11. A storage management system for partially synchronizing primary
data files comprising: a storage manager; a first computing device,
in communication with the storage manager, comprising a first data
agent and a primary storage device, wherein the primary storage
device comprises a primary data file in a primary storage file
format and wherein the primary data file comprises a plurality of
portions of primary data file; at least one second computing
device, in communication with the storage manager, wherein the at
least one second computing device comprises a second data agent and
a second primary storage device, and wherein the second primary
storage device comprises a second primary data file wherein the
second primary data file is in a primary storage file format, and
wherein the second primary data file is distinct from the primary
data file and wherein the second primary data file comprise a
plurality of portions of second primary data file; and at least one
secondary storage computing device, in communication with the
storage manager, comprising a media agent and secondary storage
device; and wherein the storage manager manages the association of
a plurality of portions of the primary data file and a
corresponding plurality of portions of the second primary data
file; and wherein the plurality of portions of the primary data
file are backed up as secondary copies in the secondary storage
computing device; and wherein the secondary copies from the
secondary storage are transferred to the associated plurality of
portions of the second primary data file in a primary file
format.
12. The system of claim 11, wherein the backing up comprises: a)
interoperating of the first data agent with the media agent to
generate a secondary copy of the plurality portions of the primary
data and wherein the secondary copy of the plurality of portions of
the primary data are in a secondary file format, and b) storing the
secondary copies of the plurality of portions of the primary data
to the secondary storage device.
13. The system of claim 11, wherein the transfer of the secondary
copy from the secondary storage comprises interoperating of the
second data agent with the media agent.
14. The system of claim 11, wherein the first data agent receives
from the storage manager a plurality of metadata identifying the
plurality of portions of the first primary data file.
15. The system of claim 11, wherein the second data agent receives
from the storage manager a plurality of metadata identifying the
plurality of portions of the second primary data file.
16. The system of claim 11, wherein the second data agent monitors
changes to at least one of the plurality of the portions of the
second primary data file.
17. The system of claim 11, wherein the first primary data file and
the second primary data file are distinct from each other.
18. A storage management system for partially synchronizing primary
data files comprising: a storage manager; a first computing device,
in communication with the storage manager, comprising a first data
agent and a primary storage device, wherein the primary storage
device comprises a primary data file in a primary storage file
format; at least one second computing device in communication with
the storage manager, wherein the at least one second computing
device comprises a second data agent and a second primary storage
device, and wherein the second primary storage device comprises a
second primary data file wherein the second primary data file is in
a primary storage file format, and wherein the second primary data
file is distinct from the primary data file; and at least one
secondary storage computing device in communication with the
storage manager, comprising a media agent and secondary storage
device; and wherein the storage manager manages the association of
a portion of the primary data file and a portion of the second
primary data file; and wherein a portion of the primary data file
is backed up as a secondary copy in the secondary storage computing
device; and wherein the secondary copy from the secondary storage
is restored into the associated portion of the second primary data
file in a primary file format; and wherein the first primary data
file and the second primary data file are partially
synchronized.
19. The system of claim 18, wherein the backing up comprises: a)
interoperating of the first data agent with the media agent to
generate a secondary copy of the portion of the primary data and
wherein the secondary copy of the portion of the primary data are
in a secondary file format, and b) storing the secondary copies of
the portions of the primary data to the secondary storage
device.
20. The system of claim 18 wherein the restored comprises the data
agent interoperating with the media agent to retrieve the secondary
copy from the secondary storage device and transfer the secondary
copy to the second primary data file associated with the first
primary data file to generate the partially synchronize second
primary data file and wherein the partially synchronized second
primary data file is in primary file format.
Description
INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE TO ANY PRIORITY APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 16/150,146 filed on Oct. 2, 2018, which is a
Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/893,281 filed
on Feb. 9, 2018 (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,126,977), which is a
Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/412,645 filed
on Jan. 23, 2017 (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,928,005), which is a
Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/601,053 filed
on Jan. 20, 2015 (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,588,849). Any and all
applications for which a foreign or domestic priority claim is
identified in the Application Data Sheet of the present application
are hereby incorporated by reference herein under 37 CFR 1.57.
BACKGROUND
[0002] Businesses worldwide recognize the commercial value of their
data and seek reliable, cost-effective ways to protect the
information stored on their computer networks while minimizing
impact on productivity. A company might back up critical computing
systems such as databases, virtual machines, file servers, web
servers, and so on as part of a daily, weekly, or monthly
maintenance schedule. Given the rapidly expanding volume of data
under management, companies also continue to seek innovative
techniques for managing data growth. In collaboration environments,
a need arises to efficiently manage data growth and coordinate data
content across groups of users.
SUMMARY
[0003] In collaboration environments, is desirable to find a way to
coordinate data content, e.g., files, databases, etc., across a
plurality of users and/or storage devices in such a way that
network communications bandwidth and storage resources are kept
relatively modest. Several users may wish to keep current with a
rapidly changing source of data, e.g., a software development code
base, a live database comprising transactions, a media project
under development, etc. The traditional approach frequently copies
the source data to a local workspace for the user's own use as
needed. However, this approach is costly and may even be
impractical when the source of data is large and numerous users
wish to stay current. The traditional approach may cause network
communication bottlenecks and may also use up too much storage and
may be unsuitable for multi-party updates. The traditional approach
also may affect performance in the production environment, by
too-frequently tapping it for copies. Therefore, a more efficient
and streamlined approach is needed. Even when changes are
propagated incrementally, this may cover a much broader scope of
changes than strictly necessary.
[0004] The present inventor devised methods and systems that
leverage resources in a storage management system to partially
synchronize primary data files based on synchronizing selected
portions thereof without regard to changes that may be occurring in
other non-synchronized portions. Accordingly, a number of primary
data files may be partially synchronized by synchronizing
designated portions thereof via auto-restore operations from backup
data. This approach relies on storage management resources to:
designate portions of source data that are to be kept synchronized
across any number of targets; detect changes to the designated
portions; back up changes to secondary storage; and distribute the
changes from secondary storage to the associated targets with
minimal impact to the primary data environment. The approach may be
mutual, so that changes in any one of an associated group of source
data files may be likewise detected, backed up, and distributed to
the other members of the group. By managing synchronization in
specially-designated portions, i.e., using partial synchronization,
instead of attempting to synchronize files in their entirety, the
present approach uses substantially fewer communications and
storage resources. Accordingly, the present approach may be more
economically practicable and may enable partial-synchronization
operations to occur more frequently and provide more current data
to the respective users.
[0005] The illustrative embodiment employs an enhanced storage
manager and enhanced data agents that work with media agents in the
storage management system to perform partial-synchronization
operations across any number of primary data files. The enhanced
storage manager may receive designations from users and/or
administrators that identify which portions of which primary data
files they wish the storage management system to keep synchronized
on an on-going basis. The storage manager comprises enhancements
for storing metadata for designations of the selected portions
(hereinafter "synchronization portions") and their mutual
association, as well as enhancements for managing
partial-synchronization operations throughout the storage
management system. For example, the enhanced storage manager may
receive notice that a synchronization portion of a primary data
file has changed (e.g., a new transaction added to a particular
section of a database, a change to a portion of source code, a
change to a media file, etc.) and may then automatically launch a
partial-synchronization operation to bring all the associated
synchronization portions up-to-date with the detected change.
[0006] An enhanced data agent may comprise a monitor function that
keeps track of the designated synchronization portion of a given
data file that is under the purview of the data agent. When the
enhanced data agent detects a change in the monitored
synchronization portion, it may notify the storage manager. In
response, the storage manager may instruct the data agent to back
up the changed synchronization portion to secondary storage.
Notably, only the synchronization portion is backed up, not the
data file as a whole. The storage manager may then manage restore
operations to restore the secondary copy to all the associated
synchronization portions. No user interaction is required to pull
in changes or synchronize the local copy of a data file with one or
more associated other data files. The process may be managed by the
enhanced storage manager, which instructs data agent and media
agents to perform the requisite operations.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0007] FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary
information management system.
[0008] FIG. 1B is a detailed view of a primary storage device, a
secondary storage device, and some examples of primary data and
secondary copy data.
[0009] FIG. 1C is a block diagram of an exemplary information
management system including a storage manager, one or more data
agents, and one or more media agents.
[0010] FIG. 1D is a block diagram illustrating a scalable
information management system.
[0011] FIG. 1E illustrates certain secondary copy operations
according to an exemplary storage policy.
[0012] FIGS. 1F-1H are block diagrams illustrating suitable data
structures that may be employed by the information management
system.
[0013] FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating some salient portions
of a storage management system 200 for partially synchronizing
primary data files based on synchronizing portions thereof,
according to an illustrative embodiment of the present
invention.
[0014] FIG. 3 depicts some salient details of system 200 according
to the illustrative embodiment.
[0015] FIG. 4 depicts some salient operations of a method 400 for
partially synchronizing primary data files based on synchronizing
portions thereof (e.g., when source synchronization portion 214A
changes) according to an illustrative embodiment of the present
invention.
[0016] FIG. 5 depicts some salient operations of a method 500 for
partially synchronizing primary data files based on synchronizing
portions thereof (e.g., when source synchronization portion 214B
changes) according to the illustrative embodiment.
[0017] FIG. 6 depicts some salient sub-operations of block 415 in
method 400 and method 500.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0018] Systems and methods are disclosed for partially
synchronizing primary data files based on synchronizing portions
thereof via auto-restore operations from backup data. Examples of
such systems and methods are described in further detail herein, in
reference to FIGS. 2-6. Components and functionality for partially
synchronizing primary data files based on synchronizing portions
thereof via auto-restore operations from backup data may be
configured and/or incorporated into information management systems
such as those described herein in FIGS. 1A-1H.
Information Management System Overview
[0019] With the increasing importance of protecting and leveraging
data, organizations simply cannot afford to take the risk of losing
critical data. Moreover, runaway data growth and other modern
realities make protecting and managing data an increasingly
difficult task. There is therefore a need for efficient, powerful,
and user-friendly solutions for protecting and managing data.
[0020] Depending on the size of the organization, there are
typically many data production sources which are under the purview
of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of employees or other
individuals. In the past, individual employees were sometimes
responsible for managing and protecting their data. A patchwork of
hardware and software point solutions has been applied in other
cases. These solutions were often provided by different vendors and
had limited or no interoperability.
[0021] Certain embodiments described herein provide systems and
methods capable of addressing these and other shortcomings of prior
approaches by implementing unified, organization-wide information
management. FIG. 1A shows one such information management system
100, which generally includes combinations of hardware and software
configured to protect and manage data and metadata, which is
generated and used by the various computing devices in information
management system 100. The organization that employs the
information management system 100 may be a corporation or other
business entity, non-profit organization, educational institution,
household, governmental agency, or the like.
[0022] Generally, the systems and associated components described
herein may be compatible with and/or provide some or all of the
functionality of the systems and corresponding components described
in one or more of the following U.S. patents and patent application
publications assigned to CommVault Systems, Inc., each of which is
hereby incorporated in its entirety by reference herein: [0023]
U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,880, entitled "Modular Backup and Retrieval
System Used in Conjunction With a Storage Area Network"; [0024]
U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298, entitled "System And Method For Archiving
Objects In An Information Store"; [0025] U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207,
entitled "System and Method for Dynamically Performing Storage
Operations in a Computer Network"; [0026] U.S. Pat. No. 7,315,923,
entitled "System And Method For Combining Data Streams In Pipelined
Storage Operations In A Storage Network"; [0027] U.S. Pat. No.
7,343,453, entitled "Hierarchical Systems and Methods for Providing
a Unified View of Storage Information"; [0028] U.S. Pat. No.
7,395,282, entitled "Hierarchical Backup and Retrieval System";
[0029] U.S. Pat. No. 7,529,782, entitled "System and Methods for
Performing a Snapshot and for Restoring Data"; [0030] U.S. Pat. No.
7,617,262, entitled "System and Methods for Monitoring Application
Data in a Data Replication System"; [0031] U.S. Pat. No. 7,747,579,
entitled "Metabase for Facilitating Data Classification"; [0032]
U.S. Pat. No. 8,156,086, entitled "Systems And Methods For Stored
Data Verification"; [0033] U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, entitled
"Method and System for Offline Indexing of Content and Classifying
Stored Data"; [0034] U.S. Pat. No. 8,229,954, entitled "Managing
Copies Of Data"; [0035] U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, entitled "System
And Method For Performing Auxiliary Storage Operations"; [0036]
U.S. Pat. No. 8,285,681, entitled "Data Object Store and Server for
a Cloud Storage Environment, Including Data Deduplication and Data
Management Across Multiple Cloud Storage Sites"; [0037] U.S. Pat.
No. 8,307,177, entitled "Systems And Methods For Management Of
Virtualization Data"; [0038] U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652, entitled
"Content-Aligned, Block-Based Deduplication"; [0039] U.S. Pat. No.
8,578,120, entitled "Block-Level Single Instancing"; [0040] U.S.
Pat. Pub. No. 2006/0224846, entitled "System and Method to Support
Single Instance Storage Operations"; [0041] U.S. Pat. Pub. No.
2009/0319534, entitled "Application-Aware and Remote Single
Instance Data Management"; [0042] U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150818,
entitled "Client-Side Repository in a Networked Deduplicated
Storage System"; [0043] U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150826, entitled
"Distributed Deduplicated Storage System"; and [0044] US. Pat. Pub.
No. 2014/0201142, entitled "Partial Sharing of Secondary Storage
Files in a Data Storage System."
[0045] The information management system 100 can include a variety
of different computing devices. For instance, as will be described
in greater detail herein, the information management system 100 can
include one or more client computing devices 102 and secondary
storage computing devices 106.
[0046] Computing devices can include, without limitation, one or
more: workstations, personal computers, desktop computers, or other
types of generally fixed computing systems such as mainframe
computers and minicomputers. Other computing devices can include
mobile or portable computing devices, such as one or more laptops,
tablet computers, personal data assistants, mobile phones (such as
smartphones), and other mobile or portable computing devices such
as embedded computers, set top boxes, vehicle-mounted devices,
wearable computers, etc. Computing devices can include servers,
such as mail servers, file servers, database servers, and web
servers.
[0047] In some cases, a computing device includes virtualized
and/or cloud computing resources. For instance, one or more virtual
machines may be provided to the organization by a third-party cloud
service vendor. Or, in some embodiments, computing devices can
include one or more virtual machine(s) running on a physical host
computing device (or "host machine") operated by the organization.
As one example, the organization may use one virtual machine as a
database server and another virtual machine as a mail server, both
virtual machines operating on the same host machine.
[0048] A virtual machine includes an operating system and
associated virtual resources, and is hosted simultaneously with
another operating system on a physical host computer (or host
machine). A hypervisor (typically software, and also known in the
art as a virtual machine monitor or a virtual machine manager or
"VMM") sits between the virtual machine and the hardware of the
physical host machine. One example of hypervisor as virtualization
software is ESX Server, by VMware, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.; other
examples include Microsoft Virtual Server and Microsoft Windows
Server Hyper-V, both by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.,
and Sun xVM by Oracle America Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif. In some
embodiments, the hypervisor may be firmware or hardware or a
combination of software and/or firmware and/or hardware.
[0049] The hypervisor provides to each virtual operating system
virtual resources, such as a virtual processor, virtual memory, a
virtual network device, and a virtual disk. Each virtual machine
has one or more virtual disks. The hypervisor typically stores the
data of virtual disks in files on the file system of the physical
host machine, called virtual machine disk files (in the case of
VMware virtual servers) or virtual hard disk image files (in the
case of Microsoft virtual servers). For example, VMware's ESX
Server provides the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) for the
storage of virtual machine disk files. A virtual machine reads data
from and writes data to its virtual disk much the same way that an
actual physical machine reads data from and writes data to an
actual disk.
[0050] Examples of techniques for implementing information
management techniques in a cloud computing environment are
described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,285,681, which is incorporated by
reference herein. Examples of techniques for implementing
information management techniques in a virtualized computing
environment are described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,307,177, also
incorporated by reference herein.
[0051] The information management system 100 can also include a
variety of storage devices, including primary storage devices 104
and secondary storage devices 108, for example. Storage devices can
generally be of any suitable type including, without limitation,
disk drives, hard-disk arrays, semiconductor memory (e.g., solid
state storage devices), network attached storage (NAS) devices,
tape libraries or other magnetic, non-tape storage devices, optical
media storage devices, DNA/RNA-based memory technology,
combinations of the same, and the like. In some embodiments,
storage devices can form part of a distributed file system. In some
cases, storage devices are provided in a cloud (e.g., a private
cloud or one operated by a third-party vendor). A storage device in
some cases comprises a disk array or portion thereof.
[0052] The illustrated information management system 100 includes
one or more client computing device 102 having at least one
application 110 executing thereon, and one or more primary storage
devices 104 storing primary data 112. The client computing
device(s) 102 and the primary storage devices 104 may generally be
referred to in some cases as a primary storage subsystem 117. A
computing device in an information management system 100 that has a
data agent 142 installed and operating on it is generally referred
to as a client computing device 102 (or, in the context of a
component of the information management system 100 simply as a
"client").
[0053] Depending on the context, the term "information management
system" can refer to generally all of the illustrated hardware and
software components. Or, in other instances, the term may refer to
only a subset of the illustrated components.
[0054] For instance, in some cases, the information management
system 100 generally refers to a combination of specialized
components used to protect, move, manage, manipulate, analyze,
and/or process data and metadata generated by the client computing
devices 102. However, the information management system 100 in some
cases does not include the underlying components that generate
and/or store the primary data 112, such as the client computing
devices 102 themselves, the applications 110 and operating system
operating on the client computing devices 102, and the primary
storage devices 104. As an example, "information management system"
may sometimes refer to one or more of the following components and
corresponding data structures: storage managers, data agents, and
media agents. These components will be described in further detail
below.
Client Computing Devices
[0055] There are typically a variety of sources in an organization
that produce data to be protected and managed. As just one
illustrative example, in a corporate environment such data sources
can be employee workstations and company servers such as a mail
server, a web server, a database server, a transaction server, or
the like. In the information management system 100, the data
generation sources include the one or more client computing devices
102.
[0056] The client computing devices 102 may include any of the
types of computing devices described above, without limitation, and
in some cases the client computing devices 102 are associated with
one or more users and/or corresponding user accounts, of employees
or other individuals.
[0057] The information management system 100 generally addresses
and handles the data management and protection needs for the data
generated by the client computing devices 102. However, the use of
this term does not imply that the client computing devices 102
cannot be "servers" in other respects. For instance, a particular
client computing device 102 may act as a server with respect to
other devices, such as other client computing devices 102. As just
a few examples, the client computing devices 102 can include mail
servers, file servers, database servers, and web servers.
[0058] Each client computing device 102 may have one or more
applications 110 (e.g., software applications) executing thereon
which generate and manipulate the data that is to be protected from
loss and managed. The applications 110 generally facilitate the
operations of an organization (or multiple affiliated
organizations), and can include, without limitation, mail server
applications (e.g., Microsoft Exchange Server), file server
applications, mail client applications (e.g., Microsoft Exchange
Client), database applications (e.g., SQL, Oracle, SAP, Lotus Notes
Database), word processing applications (e.g., Microsoft Word),
spreadsheet applications, financial applications, presentation
applications, graphics and/or video applications, browser
applications, mobile applications, entertainment applications, and
so on.
[0059] The client computing devices 102 can have at least one
operating system (e.g., Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, IBM z/OS,
Linux, other Unix-based operating systems, etc.) installed thereon,
which may support or host one or more file systems and other
applications 110.
[0060] The client computing devices 102 and other components in
information management system 100 can be connected to one another
via one or more communication pathways 114. For example, a first
communication pathway 114 may connect (or communicatively couple)
client computing device 102 and secondary storage computing device
106; a second communication pathway 114 may connect storage manager
140 and client computing device 102; and a third communication
pathway 114 may connect storage manager 140 and secondary storage
computing device 106, etc. (see, e.g., FIG. 1A and FIG. 1C). The
communication pathways 114 can include one or more networks or
other connection types including one or more of the following,
without limitation: the Internet, a wide area network (WAN), a
local area network (LAN), a Storage Area Network (SAN), a Fibre
Channel connection, a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)
connection, a virtual private network (VPN), a token ring or TCP/IP
based network, an intranet network, a point-to-point link, a
cellular network, a wireless data transmission system, a two-way
cable system, an interactive kiosk network, a satellite network, a
broadband network, a baseband network, a neural network, a mesh
network, an ad hoc network, other appropriate wired, wireless, or
partially wired/wireless computer or telecommunications networks,
combinations of the same or the like. The communication pathways
114 in some cases may also include application programming
interfaces (APIs) including, e.g., cloud service provider APIs,
virtual machine management APIs, and hosted service provider APIs.
The underlying infrastructure of communication paths 114 may be
wired and/or wireless, analog and/or digital, or any combination
thereof; and the facilities used may be private, public,
third-party provided, or any combination thereof, without
limitation.
Primary Data and Exemplary Primary Storage Devices
[0061] Primary data 112 according to some embodiments is production
data or other "live" data generated by the operating system and/or
applications 110 operating on a client computing device 102. The
primary data 112 is generally stored on the primary storage
device(s) 104 and is organized via a file system supported by the
client computing device 102. For instance, the client computing
device(s) 102 and corresponding applications 110 may create,
access, modify, write, delete, and otherwise use primary data 112.
In some cases, some or all of the primary data 112 can be stored in
cloud storage resources (e.g., primary storage device 104 may be a
cloud-based resource).
[0062] Primary data 112 is generally in the native format of the
source application 110. According to certain aspects, primary data
112 is an initial or first (e.g., created before any other copies
or before at least one other copy) stored copy of data generated by
the source application 110. Primary data 112 in some cases is
created substantially directly from data generated by the
corresponding source applications 110.
[0063] The primary storage devices 104 storing the primary data 112
may be relatively fast and/or expensive technology (e.g., a disk
drive, a hard-disk array, solid state memory, etc.). In addition,
primary data 112 may be highly changeable and/or may be intended
for relatively short term retention (e.g., hours, days, or
weeks).
[0064] According to some embodiments, the client computing device
102 can access primary data 112 from the primary storage device 104
by making conventional file system calls via the operating system.
Primary data 112 may include structured data (e.g., database
files), unstructured data (e.g., documents), and/or semi-structured
data. Some specific examples are described below with respect to
FIG. 1B.
[0065] It can be useful in performing certain tasks to organize the
primary data 112 into units of different granularities. In general,
primary data 112 can include files, directories, file system
volumes, data blocks, extents, or any other hierarchies or
organizations of data objects. As used herein, a "data object" can
refer to both (1) any file that is currently addressable by a file
system or that was previously addressable by the file system (e.g.,
an archive file) and (2) a subset of such a file (e.g., a data
block).
[0066] As will be described in further detail, it can also be
useful in performing certain functions of the information
management system 100 to access and modify metadata within the
primary data 112. Metadata generally includes information about
data objects or characteristics associated with the data objects.
For simplicity herein, it is to be understood that, unless
expressly stated otherwise, any reference to primary data 112
generally also includes its associated metadata, but references to
the metadata do not include the primary data.
[0067] Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the
following: the data owner (e.g., the client or user that generates
the data), the last modified time (e.g., the time of the most
recent modification of the data object), a data object name (e.g.,
a file name), a data object size (e.g., a number of bytes of data),
information about the content (e.g., an indication as to the
existence of a particular search term), user-supplied tags, to/from
information for email (e.g., an email sender, recipient, etc.),
creation date, file type (e.g., format or application type), last
accessed time, application type (e.g., type of application that
generated the data object), location/network (e.g., a current, past
or future location of the data object and network pathways to/from
the data object), geographic location (e.g., GPS coordinates),
frequency of change (e.g., a period in which the data object is
modified), business unit (e.g., a group or department that
generates, manages or is otherwise associated with the data
object), aging information (e.g., a schedule, such as a time
period, in which the data object is migrated to secondary or long
term storage), boot sectors, partition layouts, file location
within a file folder directory structure, user permissions, owners,
groups, access control lists [ACLs]), system metadata (e.g.,
registry information), combinations of the same or other similar
information related to the data object.
[0068] In addition to metadata generated by or related to file
systems and operating systems, some of the applications 110 and/or
other components of the information management system 100 maintain
indices of metadata for data objects, e.g., metadata associated
with individual email messages. Thus, each data object may be
associated with corresponding metadata. The use of metadata to
perform classification and other functions is described in greater
detail below.
[0069] Each of the client computing devices 102 are generally
associated with and/or in communication with one or more of the
primary storage devices 104 storing corresponding primary data 112.
A client computing device 102 may be considered to be "associated
with" or "in communication with" a primary storage device 104 if it
is capable of one or more of: routing and/or storing data (e.g.,
primary data 112) to the particular primary storage device 104,
coordinating the routing and/or storing of data to the particular
primary storage device 104, retrieving data from the particular
primary storage device 104, coordinating the retrieval of data from
the particular primary storage device 104, and modifying and/or
deleting data retrieved from the particular primary storage device
104.
[0070] The primary storage devices 104 can include any of the
different types of storage devices described above, or some other
kind of suitable storage device. The primary storage devices 104
may have relatively fast I/O times and/or are relatively expensive
in comparison to the secondary storage devices 108. For example,
the information management system 100 may generally regularly
access data and metadata stored on primary storage devices 104,
whereas data and metadata stored on the secondary storage devices
108 is accessed relatively less frequently.
[0071] Primary storage device 104 may be dedicated or shared. In
some cases, each primary storage device 104 is dedicated to an
associated client computing device 102. For instance, a primary
storage device 104 in one embodiment is a local disk drive of a
corresponding client computing device 102. In other cases, one or
more primary storage devices 104 can be shared by multiple client
computing devices 102, e.g., via a network such as in a cloud
storage implementation. As one example, a primary storage device
104 can be a disk array shared by a group of client computing
devices 102, such as one of the following types of disk arrays: EMC
Clariion, EMC Symmetrix, EMC Celerra, Dell EqualLogic, IBM XIV,
NetApp FAS, HP EVA, and HP 3PAR.
[0072] The information management system 100 may also include
hosted services (not shown), which may be hosted in some cases by
an entity other than the organization that employs the other
components of the information management system 100. For instance,
the hosted services may be provided by various online service
providers to the organization. Such service providers can provide
services including social networking services, hosted email
services, or hosted productivity applications or other hosted
applications). Hosted services may include software-as-a-service
(SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), application service providers
(ASPs), cloud services, or other mechanisms for delivering
functionality via a network. As it provides services to users, each
hosted service may generate additional data and metadata under
management of the information management system 100, e.g., as
primary data 112. In some cases, the hosted services may be
accessed using one of the applications 110. As an example, a hosted
mail service may be accessed via browser running on a client
computing device 102. The hosted services may be implemented in a
variety of computing environments. In some cases, they are
implemented in an environment having a similar arrangement to the
information management system 100, where various physical and
logical components are distributed over a network.
Secondary Copies and Exemplary Secondary Storage Devices
[0073] The primary data 112 stored on the primary storage devices
104 may be compromised in some cases, such as when an employee
deliberately or accidentally deletes or overwrites primary data 112
during their normal course of work. Or the primary storage devices
104 can be damaged, lost, or otherwise corrupted. For recovery
and/or regulatory compliance purposes, it is therefore useful to
generate copies of the primary data 112. Accordingly, the
information management system 100 includes one or more secondary
storage computing devices 106 and one or more secondary storage
devices 108 configured to create and store one or more secondary
copies 116 of the primary data 112 and associated metadata. The
secondary storage computing devices 106 and the secondary storage
devices 108 may sometimes be referred to as a secondary storage
subsystem 118.
[0074] Creation of secondary copies 116 can help in search and
analysis efforts and meet other information management goals, such
as: restoring data and/or metadata if an original version (e.g., of
primary data 112) is lost (e.g., by deletion, corruption, or
disaster); allowing point-in-time recovery; complying with
regulatory data retention and electronic discovery (e-discovery)
requirements; reducing utilized storage capacity; facilitating
organization and search of data; improving user access to data
files across multiple computing devices and/or hosted services; and
implementing data retention policies.
[0075] The client computing devices 102 access or receive primary
data 112 and communicate the data, e.g., over one or more
communication pathways 114, for storage in the secondary storage
device(s) 108.
[0076] A secondary copy 116 can comprise a separate stored copy of
application data that is derived from one or more earlier-created,
stored copies (e.g., derived from primary data 112 or another
secondary copy 116). Secondary copies 116 can include point-in-time
data, and may be intended for relatively long-term retention (e.g.,
weeks, months or years), before some or all of the data is moved to
other storage or is discarded.
[0077] In some cases, a secondary copy 116 is a copy of application
data created and stored subsequent to at least one other stored
instance (e.g., subsequent to corresponding primary data 112 or to
another secondary copy 116), in a different storage device than at
least one previous stored copy, and/or remotely from at least one
previous stored copy. In some other cases, secondary copies can be
stored in the same storage device as primary data 112 and/or other
previously stored copies. For example, in one embodiment a disk
array capable of performing hardware snapshots stores primary data
112 and creates and stores hardware snapshots of the primary data
112 as secondary copies 116. Secondary copies 116 may be stored in
relatively slow and/or low cost storage (e.g., magnetic tape). A
secondary copy 116 may be stored in a backup or archive format, or
in some other format different than the native source application
format or other primary data format.
[0078] In some cases, secondary copies 116 are indexed so users can
browse and restore at another point in time. After creation of a
secondary copy 116 representative of certain primary data 112, a
pointer or other location indicia (e.g., a stub) may be placed in
primary data 112, or be otherwise associated with primary data 112
to indicate the current location on the secondary storage device(s)
108 of secondary copy 116.
[0079] Since an instance of a data object or metadata in primary
data 112 may change over time as it is modified by an application
110 (or hosted service or the operating system), the information
management system 100 may create and manage multiple secondary
copies 116 of a particular data object or metadata, each
representing the state of the data object in primary data 112 at a
particular point in time. Moreover, since an instance of a data
object in primary data 112 may eventually be deleted from the
primary storage device 104 and the file system, the information
management system 100 may continue to manage point-in-time
representations of that data object, even though the instance in
primary data 112 no longer exists.
[0080] For virtualized computing devices the operating system and
other applications 110 of the client computing device(s) 102 may
execute within or under the management of virtualization software
(e.g., a VMM), and the primary storage device(s) 104 may comprise a
virtual disk created on a physical storage device. The information
management system 100 may create secondary copies 116 of the files
or other data objects in a virtual disk file and/or secondary
copies 116 of the entire virtual disk file itself (e.g., of an
entire .vmdk file).
[0081] Secondary copies 116 may be distinguished from corresponding
primary data 112 in a variety of ways, some of which will now be
described. First, as discussed, secondary copies 116 can be stored
in a different format (e.g., backup, archive, or other non-native
format) than primary data 112. For this or other reasons, secondary
copies 116 may not be directly useable by the applications 110 of
the client computing device 102, e.g., via standard system calls or
otherwise without modification, processing, or other intervention
by the information management system 100.
[0082] Secondary copies 116 are also in some embodiments stored on
a secondary storage device 108 that is inaccessible to the
applications 110 running on the client computing devices 102
(and/or hosted services). Some secondary copies 116 may be "offline
copies," in that they are not readily available (e.g., not mounted
to tape or disk). Offline copies can include copies of data that
the information management system 100 can access without human
intervention (e.g., tapes within an automated tape library, but not
yet mounted in a drive), and copies that the information management
system 100 can access only with at least some human intervention
(e.g., tapes located at an offsite storage site).
The Use of Intermediate Devices for Creating Secondary Copies
[0083] Creating secondary copies can be a challenging task. For
instance, there can be hundreds or thousands of client computing
devices 102 continually generating large volumes of primary data
112 to be protected. Also, there can be significant overhead
involved in the creation of secondary copies 116. Moreover,
secondary storage devices 108 may be special purpose components,
and interacting with them can require specialized intelligence.
[0084] In some cases, the client computing devices 102 interact
directly with the secondary storage device 108 to create the
secondary copies 116. However, in view of the factors described
above, this approach can negatively impact the ability of the
client computing devices 102 to serve the applications 110 and
produce primary data 112. Further, the client computing devices 102
may not be optimized for interaction with the secondary storage
devices 108.
[0085] Thus, in some embodiments, the information management system
100 includes one or more software and/or hardware components which
generally act as intermediaries between the client computing
devices 102 and the secondary storage devices 108. In addition to
off-loading certain responsibilities from the client computing
devices 102, these intermediate components can provide other
benefits. For instance, as discussed further below with respect to
FIG. 1D, distributing some of the work involved in creating
secondary copies 116 can enhance scalability.
[0086] The intermediate components can include one or more
secondary storage computing devices 106 as shown in FIG. 1A and/or
one or more media agents, which can be software modules operating
on corresponding secondary storage computing devices 106 (or other
appropriate computing devices). Media agents are discussed below
(e.g., with respect to FIGS. 1C-1 E).
[0087] The secondary storage computing device(s) 106 can comprise
any of the computing devices described above, without limitation.
In some cases, the secondary storage computing device(s) 106
include specialized hardware and/or software componentry for
interacting with the secondary storage devices 108.
[0088] To create a secondary copy 116 involving the copying of data
from the primary storage subsystem 117 to the secondary storage
subsystem 118, the client computing device 102 in some embodiments
communicates the primary data 112 to be copied (or a processed
version thereof) to the designated secondary storage computing
device 106, via the communication pathway 114. The secondary
storage computing device 106 in turn conveys the received data (or
a processed version thereof) to the secondary storage device 108.
In some such configurations, the communication pathway 114 between
the client computing device 102 and the secondary storage computing
device 106 comprises a portion of a LAN, WAN or SAN. In other
cases, at least some client computing devices 102 communicate
directly with the secondary storage devices 108 (e.g., via Fibre
Channel or SCSI connections). In some other cases, one or more
secondary copies 116 are created from existing secondary copies,
such as in the case of an auxiliary copy operation, described in
greater detail below.
Exemplary Primary Data and an Exemplary Secondary Copy
[0089] FIG. 1B is a detailed view showing some specific examples of
primary data stored on the primary storage device(s) 104 and
secondary copy data stored on the secondary storage device(s) 108,
with other components in the system removed for the purposes of
illustration. Stored on the primary storage device(s) 104 are
primary data objects including word processing documents 119A-B,
spreadsheets 120, presentation documents 122, video files 124,
image files 126, email mailboxes 128 (and corresponding email
messages 129A-C), html/xml or other types of markup language files
130, databases 132 and corresponding tables or other data
structures 133A-133C).
[0090] Some or all primary data objects are associated with
corresponding metadata (e.g., "Metal-11"), which may include file
system metadata and/or application specific metadata. Stored on the
secondary storage device(s) 108 are secondary copy data objects
134A-C which may include copies of or otherwise represent
corresponding primary data objects and metadata.
[0091] As shown, the secondary copy data objects 134A-C can
individually represent more than one primary data object. For
example, secondary copy data object 134A represents three separate
primary data objects 133C, 122, and 129C (represented as 133C',
122', and 129C', respectively, and accompanied by the corresponding
metadata Meta11, Meta3, and Meta8, respectively). Moreover, as
indicated by the prime mark ('), a secondary copy object may store
a representation of a primary data object and/or metadata
differently than the original format, e.g., in a compressed,
encrypted, deduplicated, or other modified format. Likewise,
secondary data object 1346 represents primary data objects 120,
1336, and 119A as 120', 1336', and 119A', respectively and
accompanied by corresponding metadata Meta2, Meta10, and Metal ,
respectively. Also, secondary data object 134C represents primary
data objects 133A, 1196, and 129A as 133A', 1196', and 129A',
respectively, accompanied by corresponding metadata Meta9, Meta5,
and Meta6, respectively.
Exemplary Information Management System Architecture
[0092] The information management system 100 can incorporate a
variety of different hardware and software components, which can in
turn be organized with respect to one another in many different
configurations, depending on the embodiment. There are critical
design choices involved in specifying the functional
responsibilities of the components and the role of each component
in the information management system 100. For instance, as will be
discussed, such design choices can impact performance as well as
the adaptability of the information management system 100 to data
growth or other changing circumstances.
[0093] FIG. 1C shows an information management system 100 designed
according to these considerations and which includes: storage
manager 140, a centralized storage and/or information manager that
is configured to perform certain control functions, one or more
data agents 142 executing on the client computing device(s) 102
configured to process primary data 112, and one or more media
agents 144 executing on the one or more secondary storage computing
devices 106 for performing tasks involving the secondary storage
devices 108. While distributing functionality amongst multiple
computing devices can have certain advantages, in other contexts it
can be beneficial to consolidate functionality on the same
computing device. As such, in various other embodiments, one or
more of the components shown in FIG. 1C as being implemented on
separate computing devices are implemented on the same computing
device. In one configuration, a storage manager 140, one or more
data agents 142, and one or more media agents 144 are all
implemented on the same computing device. In another embodiment,
one or more data agents 142 and one or more media agents 144 are
implemented on the same computing device, while the storage manager
140 is implemented on a separate computing device, etc. without
limitation.
Storage Manager
[0094] As noted, the number of components in the information
management system 100 and the amount of data under management can
be quite large. Managing the components and data is therefore a
significant task, and a task that can grow in an often
unpredictable fashion as the quantity of components and data scale
to meet the needs of the organization. For these and other reasons,
according to certain embodiments, responsibility for controlling
the information management system 100, or at least a significant
portion of that responsibility, is allocated to the storage manager
140. By distributing control functionality in this manner, the
storage manager 140 can be adapted independently according to
changing circumstances. Moreover, a computing device for hosting
the storage manager 140 can be selected to best suit the functions
of the storage manager 140. These and other advantages are
described in further detail below with respect to FIG. 1D.
[0095] The storage manager 140 may be a software module or other
application, which, in some embodiments operates in conjunction
with one or more associated data structures, e.g., a dedicated
database (e.g., management database 146). In some embodiments,
storage manager 140 is a computing device comprising circuitry for
executing computer instructions and performs the functions
described herein. The storage manager generally initiates,
performs, coordinates and/or controls storage and other information
management operations performed by the information management
system 100, e.g., to protect and control the primary data 112 and
secondary copies 116 of data and metadata. In general, storage
manager 100 may be said to manage information management system
100, which includes managing the constituent components, e.g., data
agents and media agents, etc.
[0096] As shown by the dashed arrowed lines 114 in FIG. 1C, the
storage manager 140 may communicate with and/or control some or all
elements of the information management system 100, such as the data
agents 142 and media agents 144. Thus, in certain embodiments,
control information originates from the storage manager 140 and
status reporting is transmitted to storage manager 140 by the
various managed components, whereas payload data and payload
metadata is generally communicated between the data agents 142 and
the media agents 144 (or otherwise between the client computing
device(s) 102 and the secondary storage computing device(s) 106),
e.g., at the direction of and under the management of the storage
manager 140. Control information can generally include parameters
and instructions for carrying out information management
operations, such as, without limitation, instructions to perform a
task associated with an operation, timing information specifying
when to initiate a task associated with an operation, data path
information specifying what components to communicate with or
access in carrying out an operation, and the like. Payload data, on
the other hand, can include the actual data involved in the storage
operation, such as content data written to a secondary storage
device 108 in a secondary copy operation. Payload metadata can
include any of the types of metadata described herein, and may be
written to a storage device along with the payload content data
(e.g., in the form of a header).
[0097] In other embodiments, some information management operations
are controlled by other components in the information management
system 100 (e.g., the media agent(s) 144 or data agent(s) 142),
instead of or in combination with the storage manager 140.
[0098] According to certain embodiments, the storage manager 140
provides one or more of the following functions: [0099] initiating
execution of secondary copy operations; [0100] managing secondary
storage devices 108 and inventory/capacity of the same; [0101]
reporting, searching, and/or classification of data in the
information management system 100; [0102] allocating secondary
storage devices 108 for secondary storage operations; [0103]
monitoring completion of and providing status reporting related to
secondary storage operations; [0104] tracking age information
relating to secondary copies 116, secondary storage devices 108,
and comparing the age information against retention guidelines;
[0105] tracking movement of data within the information management
system 100; [0106] tracking logical associations between components
in the information management system 100; [0107] protecting
metadata associated with the information management system 100; and
[0108] implementing operations management functionality.
[0109] The storage manager 140 may maintain a database 146 (or
"storage manager database 146" or "management database 146") of
management-related data and information management policies 148.
The database 146 may include a management index 150 (or "index
150") or other data structure that stores logical associations
between components of the system, user preferences and/or profiles
(e.g., preferences regarding encryption, compression, or
deduplication of primary or secondary copy data, preferences
regarding the scheduling, type, or other aspects of primary or
secondary copy or other operations, mappings of particular
information management users or user accounts to certain computing
devices or other components, etc.), management tasks, media
containerization, or other useful data. For example, the storage
manager 140 may use the index 150 to track logical associations
between media agents 144 and secondary storage devices 108 and/or
movement of data from primary storage devices 104 to secondary
storage devices 108. For instance, the index 150 may store data
associating a client computing device 102 with a particular media
agent 144 and/or secondary storage device 108, as specified in an
information management policy 148 (e.g., a storage policy, which is
defined in more detail below).
[0110] Administrators and other people may be able to configure and
initiate certain information management operations on an individual
basis. But while this may be acceptable for some recovery
operations or other relatively less frequent tasks, it is often not
workable for implementing on-going organization-wide data
protection and management. Thus, the information management system
100 may utilize information management policies 148 for specifying
and executing information management operations (e.g., on an
automated basis). Generally, an information management policy 148
can include a data structure or other information source that
specifies a set of parameters (e.g., criteria and rules) associated
with storage or other information management operations.
[0111] The storage manager database 146 may maintain the
information management policies 148 and associated data, although
the information management policies 148 can be stored in any
appropriate location. For instance, an information management
policy 148 such as a storage policy may be stored as metadata in a
media agent database 152 or in a secondary storage device 108
(e.g., as an archive copy) for use in restore operations or other
information management operations, depending on the embodiment.
Information management policies 148 are described further
below.
[0112] According to certain embodiments, the storage manager
database 146 comprises a relational database (e.g., an SQL
database) for tracking metadata, such as metadata associated with
secondary copy operations (e.g., what client computing devices 102
and corresponding data were protected). This and other metadata may
additionally be stored in other locations, such as at the secondary
storage computing devices 106 or on the secondary storage devices
108, allowing data recovery without the use of the storage manager
140 in some cases.
[0113] As shown, the storage manager 140 may include a jobs agent
156, a user interface 158, and a management agent 154, all of which
may be implemented as interconnected software modules or
application programs.
[0114] The jobs agent 156 in some embodiments initiates, controls,
and/or monitors the status of some or all storage or other
information management operations previously performed, currently
being performed, or scheduled to be performed by the information
management system 100. For instance, the jobs agent 156 may access
information management policies 148 to determine when and how to
initiate and control secondary copy and other information
management operations, as will be discussed further.
[0115] The user interface 158 may include information processing
and display software, such as a graphical user interface ("GUI"),
an application program interface ("API"), or other interactive
interface(s) through which users and system processes can retrieve
information about the status of information management operations
(e.g., storage operations) or issue instructions to the information
management system 100 and its constituent components. Via the user
interface 158, users may optionally issue instructions to the
components in the information management system 100 regarding
performance of storage and recovery operations. For example, a user
may modify a schedule concerning the number of pending secondary
copy operations. As another example, a user may employ the GUI to
view the status of pending storage operations or to monitor the
status of certain components in the information management system
100 (e.g., the amount of capacity left in a storage device).
[0116] An "information management cell" (or "storage operation
cell" or "cell") may generally include a logical and/or physical
grouping of a combination of hardware and software components
associated with performing information management operations on
electronic data, typically one storage manager 140 and at least one
client computing device 102 (comprising data agent(s) 142) and at
least one media agent 144. For instance, the components shown in
FIG. 1C may together form an information management cell. Multiple
cells may be organized hierarchically. With this configuration,
cells may inherit properties from hierarchically superior cells or
be controlled by other cells in the hierarchy (automatically or
otherwise). Alternatively, in some embodiments, cells may inherit
or otherwise be associated with information management policies,
preferences, information management metrics, or other properties or
characteristics according to their relative position in a hierarchy
of cells. Cells may also be delineated and/or organized
hierarchically according to function, geography, architectural
considerations, or other factors useful or desirable in performing
information management operations. A first cell may represent a
geographic segment of an enterprise, such as a Chicago office, and
a second cell may represent a different geographic segment, such as
a New York office. Other cells may represent departments within a
particular office. Where delineated by function, a first cell may
perform one or more first types of information management
operations (e.g., one or more first types of secondary or other
copies), and a second cell may perform one or more second types of
information management operations (e.g., one or more second types
of secondary or other copies).
[0117] The storage manager 140 may also track information that
permits it to select, designate, or otherwise identify content
indices, deduplication databases, or similar databases or resources
or data sets within its information management cell (or another
cell) to be searched in response to certain queries. Such queries
may be entered by the user via interaction with the user interface
158. In general, the management agent 154 allows multiple
information management cells to communicate with one another. For
example, the information management system 100 in some cases may be
one information management cell of a network of multiple cells
adjacent to one another or otherwise logically related in a WAN or
LAN. With this arrangement, the cells may be connected to one
another through respective management agents 154.
[0118] For instance, the management agent 154 can provide the
storage manager 140 with the ability to communicate with other
components within the information management system 100 (and/or
other cells within a larger information management system) via
network protocols and application programming interfaces ("APIs")
including, e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, REST, virtualization software
APIs, cloud service provider APIs, and hosted service provider
APIs. Inter-cell communication and hierarchy is described in
greater detail in e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,747,579 and 7,343,453,
which are incorporated by reference herein.
Data Agents
[0119] As discussed, a variety of different types of applications
110 can operate on a given client computing device 102, including
operating systems, database applications, e-mail applications, and
virtual machines, just to name a few. And, as part of the process
of creating and restoring secondary copies 116, the client
computing devices 102 may be tasked with processing and preparing
the primary data 112 from these various different applications 110.
Moreover, the nature of the processing/preparation can differ
across clients and application types, e.g., due to inherent
structural and formatting differences among applications 110.
[0120] The one or more data agent(s) 142 are therefore
advantageously configured in some embodiments to assist in the
performance of information management operations based on the type
of data that is being protected, at a client-specific and/or
application-specific level.
[0121] The data agent 142 may be a software module or component
that is generally responsible for managing, initiating, or
otherwise assisting in the performance of information management
operations in information management system 100, generally as
directed by storage manager 140. For instance, the data agent 142
may take part in performing data storage operations such as the
copying, archiving, migrating, and/or replicating of primary data
112 stored in the primary storage device(s) 104. The data agent 142
may receive control information from the storage manager 140, such
as commands to transfer copies of data objects, metadata, and other
payload data to the media agents 144.
[0122] In some embodiments, a data agent 142 may be distributed
between the client computing device 102 and storage manager 140
(and any other intermediate components) or may be deployed from a
remote location or its functions approximated by a remote process
that performs some or all of the functions of data agent 142. In
addition, a data agent 142 may perform some functions provided by a
media agent 144, or may perform other functions such as encryption
and deduplication.
[0123] As indicated, each data agent 142 may be specialized for a
particular application 110, and the system can employ multiple
application-specific data agents 142, each of which may perform
information management operations (e.g., perform backup, migration,
and data recovery) associated with a different application 110. For
instance, different individual data agents 142 may be designed to
handle Microsoft Exchange data, Lotus Notes data, Microsoft Windows
file system data, Microsoft Active Directory Objects data, SQL
Server data, SharePoint data, Oracle database data, SAP database
data, virtual machines and/or associated data, and other types of
data.
[0124] A file system data agent, for example, may handle data files
and/or other file system information. If a client computing device
102 has two or more types of data, a specialized data agent 142 may
be used for each data type to copy, archive, migrate, and restore
the client computing device 102 data. For example, to backup,
migrate, and/or restore all of the data on a Microsoft Exchange
server, the client computing device 102 may use a Microsoft
Exchange Mailbox data agent 142 to back up the Exchange mailboxes,
a Microsoft Exchange Database data agent 142 to back up the
Exchange databases, a Microsoft Exchange Public Folder data agent
142 to back up the Exchange Public Folders, and a Microsoft Windows
File System data agent 142 to back up the file system of the client
computing device 102. In such embodiments, these specialized data
agents 142 may be treated as four separate data agents 142 even
though they operate on the same client computing device 102.
[0125] Other embodiments may employ one or more generic data agents
142 that can handle and process data from two or more different
applications 110, or that can handle and process multiple data
types, instead of or in addition to using specialized data agents
142. For example, one generic data agent 142 may be used to back
up, migrate and restore Microsoft Exchange Mailbox data and
Microsoft Exchange Database data while another generic data agent
may handle Microsoft Exchange Public Folder data and Microsoft
Windows File System data.
[0126] Each data agent 142 may be configured to access data and/or
metadata stored in the primary storage device(s) 104 associated
with the data agent 142 and process the data as appropriate. For
example, during a secondary copy operation, the data agent 142 may
arrange or assemble the data and metadata into one or more files
having a certain format (e.g., a particular backup or archive
format) before transferring the file(s) to a media agent 144 or
other component. The file(s) may include a list of files or other
metadata. Each data agent 142 can also assist in restoring data or
metadata to primary storage devices 104 from a secondary copy 116.
For instance, the data agent 142 may operate in conjunction with
the storage manager 140 and one or more of the media agents 144 to
restore data from secondary storage device(s) 108.
Media Agents
[0127] As indicated above with respect to FIG. 1A, off-loading
certain responsibilities from the client computing devices 102 to
intermediate components such as the media agent(s) 144 can provide
a number of benefits including improved client computing device 102
operation, faster secondary copy operation performance, and
enhanced scalability. In one specific example which will be
discussed below in further detail, the media agent 144 can act as a
local cache of copied data and/or metadata that it has stored to
the secondary storage device(s) 108, providing improved restore
capabilities.
[0128] Generally speaking, a media agent 144 may be implemented as
a software module that manages, coordinates, and facilitates the
transmission of data, as directed by the storage manager 140,
between a client computing device 102 and one or more secondary
storage devices 108. Whereas the storage manager 140 controls the
operation of the information management system 100, the media agent
144 generally provides a portal to secondary storage devices 108.
For instance, other components in the system interact with the
media agents 144 to gain access to data stored on the secondary
storage devices 108, whether it be for the purposes of reading,
writing, modifying, or deleting data. Moreover, as will be
described further, media agents 144 can generate and store
information relating to characteristics of the stored data and/or
metadata, or can generate and store other types of information that
generally provides insight into the contents of the secondary
storage devices 108.
[0129] Media agents 144 can comprise separate nodes in the
information management system 100 (e.g., nodes that are separate
from the client computing devices 102, storage manager 140, and/or
secondary storage devices 108). In general, a node within the
information management system 100 can be a logically and/or
physically separate component, and in some cases is a component
that is individually addressable or otherwise identifiable. In
addition, each media agent 144 may operate on a dedicated secondary
storage computing device 106 in some cases, while in other
embodiments a plurality of media agents 144 operate on the same
secondary storage computing device 106.
[0130] A media agent 144 (and corresponding media agent database
152) may be considered to be "associated with" a particular
secondary storage device 108 if that media agent 144 is capable of
one or more of: routing and/or storing data to the particular
secondary storage device 108, coordinating the routing and/or
storing of data to the particular secondary storage device 108,
retrieving data from the particular secondary storage device 108,
coordinating the retrieval of data from a particular secondary
storage device 108, and modifying and/or deleting data retrieved
from the particular secondary storage device 108.
[0131] While media agent(s) 144 are generally associated with one
or more secondary storage devices 108, one or more media agents 144
in certain embodiments are physically separate from the secondary
storage devices 108. For instance, the media agents 144 may operate
on secondary storage computing devices 106 having different
housings or packages than the secondary storage devices 108. In one
example, a media agent 144 operates on a first server computer and
is in communication with a secondary storage device(s) 108
operating in a separate, rack-mounted RAID-based system.
[0132] Where the information management system 100 includes
multiple media agents 144 (see, e.g., FIG. 1D), a first media agent
144 may provide failover functionality for a second, failed media
agent 144. In addition, media agents 144 can be dynamically
selected for storage operations to provide load balancing. Failover
and load balancing are described in greater detail below.
[0133] In operation, a media agent 144 associated with a particular
secondary storage device 108 may instruct the secondary storage
device 108 to perform an information management operation. For
instance, a media agent 144 may instruct a tape library to use a
robotic arm or other retrieval means to load or eject a certain
storage media, and to subsequently archive, migrate, or retrieve
data to or from that media, e.g., for the purpose of restoring the
data to a client computing device 102. As another example, a
secondary storage device 108 may include an array of hard disk
drives or solid state drives organized in a RAID configuration, and
the media agent 144 may forward a logical unit number (LUN) and
other appropriate information to the array, which uses the received
information to execute the desired storage operation. The media
agent 144 may communicate with a secondary storage device 108 via a
suitable communications link, such as a SCSI or Fiber Channel
link.
[0134] As shown, each media agent 144 may maintain an associated
media agent database 152. The media agent database 152 may be
stored in a disk or other storage device (not shown) that is local
to the secondary storage computing device 106 on which the media
agent 144 operates. In other cases, the media agent database 152 is
stored remotely from the secondary storage computing device
106.
[0135] The media agent database 152 can include, among other
things, an index 153 (see, e.g., FIG. 1C), which comprises
information generated during secondary copy operations and other
storage or information management operations. The index 153
provides a media agent 144 or other component with a fast and
efficient mechanism for locating secondary copies 116 or other data
stored in the secondary storage devices 108. In some cases, the
index 153 does not form a part of and is instead separate from the
media agent database 152.
[0136] A media agent index 153 or other data structure associated
with the particular media agent 144 may include information about
the stored data. For instance, for each secondary copy 116, the
index 153 may include metadata such as a list of the data objects
(e.g., files/subdirectories, database objects, mailbox objects,
etc.), a path to the secondary copy 116 on the corresponding
secondary storage device 108, location information indicating where
the data objects are stored in the secondary storage device 108,
when the data objects were created or modified, etc. Thus, the
index 153 includes metadata associated with the secondary copies
116 that is readily available for use without having to be first
retrieved from the secondary storage device 108. In yet further
embodiments, some or all of the information in index 153 may
instead or additionally be stored along with the secondary copies
of data in a secondary storage device 108. In some embodiments, the
secondary storage devices 108 can include sufficient information to
perform a "bare metal restore", where the operating system of a
failed client computing device 102 or other restore target is
automatically rebuilt as part of a restore operation.
[0137] Because the index 153 maintained in the media agent database
152 may operate as a cache, it can also be referred to as "an index
cache." In such cases, information stored in the index cache 153
typically comprises data that reflects certain particulars about
storage operations that have occurred relatively recently. After
some triggering event, such as after a certain period of time
elapses, or the index cache 153 reaches a particular size, the
index cache 153 may be copied or migrated to a secondary storage
device(s) 108. This information may need to be retrieved and
uploaded back into the index cache 153 or otherwise restored to a
media agent 144 to facilitate retrieval of data from the secondary
storage device(s) 108. In some embodiments, the cached information
may include format or containerization information related to
archives or other files stored on the storage device(s) 108. In
this manner, the index cache 153 allows for accelerated
restores.
[0138] In some alternative embodiments the media agent 144
generally acts as a coordinator or facilitator of storage
operations between client computing devices 102 and corresponding
secondary storage devices 108, but does not actually write the data
to the secondary storage device 108. For instance, the storage
manager 140 (or the media agent 144) may instruct a client
computing device 102 and secondary storage device 108 to
communicate with one another directly. In such a case the client
computing device 102 transmits the data directly or via one or more
intermediary components to the secondary storage device 108
according to the received instructions, and vice versa. In some
such cases, the media agent 144 may still receive, process, and/or
maintain metadata related to the storage operations. Moreover, in
these embodiments, the payload data can flow through the media
agent 144 for the purposes of populating the index cache 153
maintained in the media agent database 152, but not for writing to
the secondary storage device 108.
[0139] The media agent 144 and/or other components such as the
storage manager 140 may in some cases incorporate additional
functionality, such as data classification, content indexing,
deduplication, encryption, compression, and the like. Further
details regarding these and other functions are described
below.
Distributed, Scalable Architecture
[0140] As described, certain functions of the information
management system 100 can be distributed amongst various physical
and/or logical components in the system. For instance, one or more
of the storage manager 140, data agents 142, and media agents 144
may operate on computing devices that are physically separate from
one another. This architecture can provide a number of
benefits.
[0141] For instance, hardware and software design choices for each
distributed component can be targeted to suit its particular
function. The secondary computing devices 106 on which the media
agents 144 operate can be tailored for interaction with associated
secondary storage devices 108 and provide fast index cache
operation, among other specific tasks. Similarly, the client
computing device(s) 102 can be selected to effectively service the
applications 110 thereon, in order to efficiently produce and store
primary data 112.
[0142] Moreover, in some cases, one or more of the individual
components in the information management system 100 can be
distributed to multiple, separate computing devices. As one
example, for large file systems where the amount of data stored in
the management database 146 is relatively large, the database 146
may be migrated to or otherwise reside on a specialized database
server (e.g., an SQL server) separate from a server that implements
the other functions of the storage manager 140. This distributed
configuration can provide added protection because the database 146
can be protected with standard database utilities (e.g., SQL log
shipping or database replication) independent from other functions
of the storage manager 140. The database 146 can be efficiently
replicated to a remote site for use in the event of a disaster or
other data loss at the primary site. Or the database 146 can be
replicated to another computing device within the same site, such
as to a higher performance machine in the event that a storage
manager host device can no longer service the needs of a growing
information management system 100.
[0143] The distributed architecture also provides both scalability
and efficient component utilization. FIG. 1D shows an embodiment of
the information management system 100 including a plurality of
client computing devices 102 and associated data agents 142 as well
as a plurality of secondary storage computing devices 106 and
associated media agents 144.
[0144] Additional components can be added or subtracted based on
the evolving needs of the information management system 100. For
instance, depending on where bottlenecks are identified,
administrators can add additional client computing devices 102,
secondary storage computing devices 106 (and corresponding media
agents 144), and/or secondary storage devices 108. Moreover, where
multiple fungible components are available, load balancing can be
implemented to dynamically address identified bottlenecks. As an
example, the storage manager 140 may dynamically select which media
agents 144 and/or secondary storage devices 108 to use for storage
operations based on a processing load analysis of the media agents
144 and/or secondary storage devices 108, respectively.
[0145] Moreover, each client computing device 102 in some
embodiments can communicate with, among other components, any of
the media agents 144, e.g., as directed by the storage manager 140.
And each media agent 144 may be able to communicate with, among
other components, any of the secondary storage devices 108, e.g.,
as directed by the storage manager 140. Thus, operations can be
routed to the secondary storage devices 108 in a dynamic and highly
flexible manner, to provide load balancing, failover, and the like.
Further examples of scalable systems capable of dynamic storage
operations, and of systems capable of performing load balancing and
fail over are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, which is
incorporated by reference herein.
[0146] In alternative configurations, certain components are not
distributed and may instead reside and execute on the same
computing device. For example, in some embodiments, one or more
data agents 142 and the storage manager 140 operate on the same
client computing device 102. In another embodiment, one or more
data agents 142 and one or more media agents 144 operate on a
single computing device.
Exemplary Types of Information Management Operations
[0147] In order to protect and leverage stored data, the
information management system 100 can be configured to perform a
variety of information management operations. As will be described,
these operations can generally include secondary copy and other
data movement operations, processing and data manipulation
operations, analysis, reporting, and management operations. The
operations described herein may be performed on any type of
computing device, e.g., between two computers connected via a LAN,
to a mobile client telecommunications device connected to a server
via a WLAN, to any manner of client computing device coupled to a
cloud storage target, etc., without limitation.
Data Movement Operations
[0148] Data movement operations according to certain embodiments
are generally operations that involve the copying or migration of
data (e.g., payload data) between different locations in the
information management system 100 in an original/native and/or one
or more different formats. For example, data movement operations
can include operations in which stored data is copied, migrated, or
otherwise transferred from one or more first storage devices to one
or more second storage devices, such as from primary storage
device(s) 104 to secondary storage device(s) 108, from secondary
storage device(s) 108 to different secondary storage device(s) 108,
from secondary storage devices 108 to primary storage devices 104,
or from primary storage device(s) 104 to different primary storage
device(s) 104.
[0149] Data movement operations can include by way of example,
backup operations, archive operations, information lifecycle
management operations such as hierarchical storage management
operations, replication operations (e.g., continuous data
replication operations), snapshot operations, deduplication or
single-instancing operations, auxiliary copy operations, and the
like. As will be discussed, some of these operations involve the
copying, migration or other movement of data, without actually
creating multiple, distinct copies. Nonetheless, some or all of
these operations are referred to as "copy" operations for
simplicity.
[0150] Backup Operations
[0151] A backup operation creates a copy of a version of data
(e.g., one or more files or other data units) in primary data 112
at a particular point in time. Each subsequent backup copy may be
maintained independently of the first. Further, a backup copy in
some embodiments is generally stored in a form that is different
than the native format, e.g., a backup format. This can be in
contrast to the version in primary data 112 from which the backup
copy is derived, and which may instead be stored in a native format
of the source application(s) 110. In various cases, backup copies
can be stored in a format in which the data is compressed,
encrypted, deduplicated, and/or otherwise modified from the
original application format. For example, a backup copy may be
stored in a backup format that facilitates compression and/or
efficient long-term storage.
[0152] Backup copies can have relatively long retention periods as
compared to primary data 112, and may be stored on media with
slower retrieval times than primary data 112 and certain other
types of secondary copies 116. On the other hand, backups may have
relatively shorter retention periods than some other types of
secondary copies 116, such as archive copies (described below).
Backups may sometimes be stored at an offsite location.
[0153] Backup operations can include full backups, differential
backups, incremental backups, "synthetic full" backups, and/or
creating a "reference copy." A full backup (or "standard full
backup") in some embodiments is generally a complete image of the
data to be protected. However, because full backup copies can
consume a relatively large amount of storage, it can be useful to
use a full backup copy as a baseline and only store changes
relative to the full backup copy for subsequent backup copies.
[0154] For instance, a differential backup operation (or cumulative
incremental backup operation) tracks and stores changes that have
occurred since the last full backup. Differential backups can grow
quickly in size, but can provide relatively efficient restore times
because a restore can be completed in some cases using only the
full backup copy and the latest differential copy.
[0155] An incremental backup operation generally tracks and stores
changes since the most recent backup copy of any type, which can
greatly reduce storage utilization. In some cases, however, restore
times can be relatively long in comparison to full or differential
backups because completing a restore operation may involve
accessing a full backup in addition to multiple incremental
backups.
[0156] Synthetic full backups generally consolidate data without
directly backing up data from the client computing device. A
synthetic full backup is created from the most recent full backup
(i.e., standard or synthetic) and subsequent incremental and/or
differential backups. The resulting synthetic full backup is
identical to what would have been created had the last backup for
the subclient been a standard full backup. Unlike standard full,
incremental, and differential backups, a synthetic full backup does
not actually transfer data from a client computer to the backup
media, because it operates as a backup consolidator. A synthetic
full backup extracts the index data of each participating
subclient. Using this index data and the previously backed up user
data images, it builds new full backup images, one for each
subclient. The new backup images consolidate the index and user
data stored in the related incremental, differential, and previous
full backups, in some embodiments creating an archive file at the
subclient level.
[0157] Any of the above types of backup operations can be at the
volume-level, file-level, or block-level. Volume level backup
operations generally involve the copying of a data volume (e.g., a
logical disk or partition) as a whole. In a file-level backup, the
information management system 100 may generally track changes to
individual files, and includes copies of files in the backup copy.
In the case of a block-level backup, files are broken into
constituent blocks, and changes are tracked at the block-level.
Upon restore, the information management system 100 reassembles the
blocks into files in a transparent fashion.
[0158] Far less data may actually be transferred and copied to the
secondary storage devices 108 during a file-level copy than a
volume-level copy. Likewise, a block-level copy may involve the
transfer of less data than a file-level copy, resulting in faster
execution times. However, restoring a relatively higher-granularity
copy can result in longer restore times. For instance, when
restoring a block-level copy, the process of locating constituent
blocks can sometimes result in longer restore times as compared to
file-level backups. Similar to backup operations, the other types
of secondary copy operations described herein can also be
implemented at either the volume-level, file-level, or
block-level.
[0159] For example, in some embodiments, a reference copy may
comprise copy(ies) of selected objects from backed up data,
typically to help organize data by keeping contextual information
from multiple sources together, and/or help retain specific data
for a longer period of time, such as for legal hold needs. A
reference copy generally maintains data integrity, and when the
data is restored, it may be viewed in the same format as the source
data. In some embodiments, a reference copy is based on a
specialized client, individual subclient and associated information
management policies (e.g., storage policy, retention policy, etc.)
that are administered within information management system 100.
[0160] Archive Operations
[0161] Because backup operations generally involve maintaining a
version of the copied data in primary data 112 and also maintaining
backup copies in secondary storage device(s) 108, they can consume
significant storage capacity. To help reduce storage consumption,
an archive operation according to certain embodiments creates a
secondary copy 116 by both copying and removing source data. Or,
seen another way, archive operations can involve moving some or all
of the source data to the archive destination. Thus, data
satisfying criteria for removal (e.g., data of a threshold age or
size) may be removed from source storage. The source data may be
primary data 112 or a secondary copy 116, depending on the
situation. As with backup copies, archive copies can be stored in a
format in which the data is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated,
and/or otherwise modified from the format of the original
application or source copy. In addition, archive copies may be
retained for relatively long periods of time (e.g., years) and, in
some cases, are never deleted. Archive copies are generally
retained for longer periods of time than backup copies, for
example. In certain embodiments, archive copies may be made and
kept for extended periods in order to meet compliance
regulations.
[0162] Moreover, when primary data 112 is archived, in some cases
the corresponding primary data 112 or a portion thereof is deleted
when creating the archive copy. Thus, archiving can serve the
purpose of freeing up space in the primary storage device(s) 104
and easing the demand on computational resources on client
computing device 102. Similarly, when a secondary copy 116 is
archived, the secondary copy 116 may be deleted, and an archive
copy can therefore serve the purpose of freeing up space in
secondary storage device(s) 108. In contrast, source copies often
remain intact when creating backup copies. Examples of compatible
data archiving operations are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298,
which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0163] Snapshot Operations
[0164] Snapshot operations can provide a relatively lightweight,
efficient mechanism for protecting data. From an end-user
viewpoint, a snapshot may be thought of as an "instant" image of
the primary data 112 at a given point in time, and may include
state and/or status information relative to an application that
creates/manages the primary data 112. In one embodiment, a snapshot
may generally capture the directory structure of an object in
primary data 112 such as a file or volume or other data set at a
particular moment in time and may also preserve file attributes and
contents. A snapshot in some cases is created relatively quickly,
e.g., substantially instantly, using a minimum amount of file
space, but may still function as a conventional file system
backup.
[0165] A "hardware snapshot" (or "hardware-based snapshot")
operation can be a snapshot operation where a target storage device
(e.g., a primary storage device 104 or a secondary storage device
108) performs the snapshot operation in a self-contained fashion,
substantially independently, using hardware, firmware and/or
software operating on the storage device itself. For instance, the
storage device may be capable of performing snapshot operations
upon request, generally without intervention or oversight from any
of the other components in the information management system 100.
In this manner, hardware snapshots can off-load other components of
information management system 100 from processing involved in
snapshot creation and management.
[0166] A "software snapshot" (or "software-based snapshot")
operation, on the other hand, can be a snapshot operation in which
one or more other components in information management system 100
(e.g., client computing devices 102, data agents 142, etc.)
implement a software layer that manages the snapshot operation via
interaction with the target storage device. For instance, the
component executing the snapshot management software layer may
derive a set of pointers and/or data that represents the snapshot.
The snapshot management software layer may then transmit the same
to the target storage device, along with appropriate instructions
for writing the snapshot.
[0167] Some types of snapshots do not actually create another
physical copy of all the data as it existed at the particular point
in time, but may simply create pointers that are able to map files
and directories to specific memory locations (e.g., to specific
disk blocks) where the data resides, as it existed at the
particular point in time. For example, a snapshot copy may include
a set of pointers derived from the file system or from an
application. In some other cases, the snapshot may be created at
the block-level, such that creation of the snapshot occurs without
awareness of the file system. Each pointer points to a respective
stored data block, so that collectively, the set of pointers
reflect the storage location and state of the data object (e.g.,
file(s) or volume(s) or data set(s)) at a particular point in time
when the snapshot copy was created.
[0168] An initial snapshot may use only a small amount of disk
space needed to record a mapping or other data structure
representing or otherwise tracking the blocks that correspond to
the current state of the file system. Additional disk space is
usually required only when files and directories are modified later
on. Furthermore, when files are modified, typically only the
pointers which map to blocks are copied, not the blocks themselves.
In some embodiments, for example in the case of "copy-on-write"
snapshots, when a block changes in primary storage, the block is
copied to secondary storage or cached in primary storage before the
block is overwritten in primary storage, and the pointer to that
block is changed to reflect the new location of that block. The
snapshot mapping of file system data may also be updated to reflect
the changed block(s) at that particular point in time. In some
other cases, a snapshot includes a full physical copy of all or
substantially all of the data represented by the snapshot. Further
examples of snapshot operations are provided in U.S. Pat. No.
7,529,782, which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0169] A snapshot copy in many cases can be made quickly and
without significantly impacting primary computing resources because
large amounts of data need not be copied or moved. In some
embodiments, a snapshot may exist as a virtual file system,
parallel to the actual file system. Users in some cases gain
read-only access to the record of files and directories of the
snapshot. By electing to restore primary data 112 from a snapshot
taken at a given point in time, users may also return the current
file system to the state of the file system that existed when the
snapshot was taken.
[0170] Replication Operations
[0171] Another type of secondary copy operation is a replication
operation. Some types of secondary copies 116 are used to
periodically capture images of primary data 112 at particular
points in time (e.g., backups, archives, and snapshots). However,
it can also be useful for recovery purposes to protect primary data
112 in a more continuous fashion, by replicating the primary data
112 substantially as changes occur. In some cases a replication
copy can be a mirror copy, for instance, where changes made to
primary data 112 are mirrored or substantially immediately copied
to another location (e.g., to secondary storage device(s) 108). By
copying each write operation to the replication copy, two storage
systems are kept synchronized or substantially synchronized so that
they are virtually identical at approximately the same time. Where
entire disk volumes are mirrored, however, mirroring can require
significant amount of storage space and utilizes a large amount of
processing resources.
[0172] According to some embodiments storage operations are
performed on replicated data that represents a recoverable state,
or "known good state" of a particular application running on the
source system. For instance, in certain embodiments, known good
replication copies may be viewed as copies of primary data 112.
This feature allows the system to directly access, copy, restore,
backup or otherwise manipulate the replication copies as if the
data were the "live" primary data 112. This can reduce access time,
storage utilization, and impact on source applications 110, among
other benefits. Based on known good state information, the
information management system 100 can replicate sections of
application data that represent a recoverable state rather than
rote copying of blocks of data. Examples of compatible replication
operations (e.g., continuous data replication) are provided in U.S.
Pat. No. 7,617,262, which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0173] Deduplication/Single-Instancing Operations
[0174] Another type of data movement operation is deduplication or
single-instance storage, which is useful to reduce the amount of
non-primary data. For instance, some or all of the above-described
secondary storage operations can involve deduplication in some
fashion. New data is read, broken down into portions (e.g.,
sub-file level blocks, files, etc.) of a selected granularity,
compared with blocks that are already in secondary storage, and
only the new blocks are stored. Blocks that already exist are
represented as pointers to the already stored data.
[0175] In order to streamline the comparison process, the
information management system 100 may calculate and/or store
signatures (e.g., hashes or cryptographically unique IDs)
corresponding to the individual data blocks in a database and
compare the signatures instead of comparing entire data blocks. In
some cases, only a single instance of each element is stored, and
deduplication operations may therefore be referred to
interchangeably as "single-instancing" operations. Depending on the
implementation, however, deduplication or single-instancing
operations can store more than one instance of certain data blocks,
but nonetheless significantly reduce data redundancy. Depending on
the embodiment, deduplication blocks can be of fixed or variable
length. Using variable length blocks can provide enhanced
deduplication by responding to changes in the data stream, but can
involve complex processing. In some cases, the information
management system 100 utilizes a technique for dynamically aligning
deduplication blocks (e.g., fixed-length blocks) based on changing
content in the data stream, as described in U.S. Pat. No.
8,364,652, which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0176] The information management system 100 can perform
deduplication in a variety of manners at a variety of locations in
the information management system 100. For instance, in some
embodiments, the information management system 100 implements
"target-side" deduplication by deduplicating data (e.g., secondary
copies 116) stored in the secondary storage devices 108. In some
such cases, the media agents 144 are generally configured to manage
the deduplication process. For instance, one or more of the media
agents 144 maintain a corresponding deduplication database that
stores deduplication information (e.g., datablock signatures).
Examples of such a configuration are provided in U.S. Pat. Pub. No.
2012/0150826, which is incorporated by reference herein. Instead of
or in combination with "target-side" deduplication, deduplication
can also be performed on the "source-side" (or "client-side"),
e.g., to reduce the amount of traffic between the media agents 144
and the client computing device(s) 102 and/or reduce redundant data
stored in the primary storage devices 104. According to various
implementations, one or more of the storage devices of the
target-side and/or source-side of an operation can be cloud-based
storage devices. Thus, the target-side and/or source-side
deduplication can be cloud-based deduplication. In particular, as
discussed previously, the storage manager 140 may communicate with
other components within the information management system 100 via
network protocols and cloud service provider APIs to facilitate
cloud-based deduplication/single instancing. Examples of such
deduplication techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. Pub. No.
2012/0150818, which is incorporated by reference herein. Some other
compatible deduplication/single instancing techniques are described
in U.S. Pat. Pub. Nos. 2006/0224846 and 2009/0319534, which are
incorporated by reference herein.
[0177] Information Lifecycle Management and Hierarchical Storage
Management Operations
[0178] In some embodiments, files and other data over their
lifetime move from more expensive, quick access storage to less
expensive, slower access storage. Operations associated with moving
data through various tiers of storage are sometimes referred to as
information lifecycle management (ILM) operations.
[0179] One type of ILM operation is a hierarchical storage
management (HSM) operation. A HSM operation is generally an
operation for automatically moving data between classes of storage
devices, such as between high-cost and low-cost storage devices.
For instance, an HSM operation may involve movement of data from
primary storage devices 104 to secondary storage devices 108, or
between tiers of secondary storage devices 108. With each tier, the
storage devices may be progressively relatively cheaper, have
relatively slower access/restore times, etc. For example, movement
of data between tiers may occur as data becomes less important over
time.
[0180] In some embodiments, an HSM operation is similar to an
archive operation in that creating an HSM copy may (though not
always) involve deleting some of the source data, e.g., according
to one or more criteria related to the source data. For example, an
HSM copy may include data from primary data 112 or a secondary copy
116 that is larger than a given size threshold or older than a
given age threshold and that is stored in a backup format.
[0181] Often, and unlike some types of archive copies, HSM data
that is removed or aged from the source is replaced by a logical
reference pointer or stub. The reference pointer or stub can be
stored in the primary storage device 104 (or other source storage
device, such as a secondary storage device 108) to replace the
deleted source data and to point to or otherwise indicate the new
location in a secondary storage device 108.
[0182] According to one example, files are generally moved between
higher and lower cost storage depending on how often the files are
accessed. When a user requests access to the HSM data that has been
removed or migrated, the information management system 100 uses the
stub to locate the data and may make recovery of the data appear
transparent, even though the HSM data may be stored at a location
different from other source data. In this manner, the data appears
to the user (e.g., in file system browsing windows and the like) as
if it still resides in the source location (e.g., in a primary
storage device 104). The stub may also include some metadata
associated with the corresponding data, so that a file system
and/or application can provide some information about the data
object and/or a limited-functionality version (e.g., a preview) of
the data object.
[0183] An HSM copy may be stored in a format other than the native
application format (e.g., where the data is compressed, encrypted,
deduplicated, and/or otherwise modified from the original native
application format). In some cases, copies which involve the
removal of data from source storage and the maintenance of stub or
other logical reference information on source storage may be
referred to generally as "on-line archive copies". On the other
hand, copies which involve the removal of data from source storage
without the maintenance of stub or other logical reference
information on source storage may be referred to as "off-line
archive copies". Examples of HSM and ILM techniques are provided in
U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference
herein.
[0184] Auxiliary Copy and Disaster Recovery Operations
[0185] An auxiliary copy is generally a copy operation in which a
copy is created of an existing secondary copy 116. For instance, an
initial secondary copy 116 may be generated using or otherwise be
derived from primary data 112 (or other data residing in the
secondary storage subsystem 118), whereas an auxiliary copy is
generated from the initial secondary copy 116. Auxiliary copies can
be used to create additional standby copies of data and may reside
on different secondary storage devices 108 than the initial
secondary copies 116. Thus, auxiliary copies can be used for
recovery purposes if initial secondary copies 116 become
unavailable. Exemplary compatible auxiliary copy techniques are
described in further detail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, which is
incorporated by reference herein.
[0186] The information management system 100 may also perform
disaster recovery operations that make or retain disaster recovery
copies, often as secondary, high-availability disk copies. The
information management system 100 may create secondary disk copies
and store the copies at disaster recovery locations using auxiliary
copy or replication operations, such as continuous data replication
technologies. Depending on the particular data protection goals,
disaster recovery locations can be remote from the client computing
devices 102 and primary storage devices 104, remote from some or
all of the secondary storage devices 108, or both.
[0187] Data Analysis, Reporting, and Management Operations
[0188] Data analysis, reporting, and management operations can be
different than data movement operations in that they do not
necessarily involve the copying, migration or other transfer of
data (e.g., primary data 112 or secondary copies 116) between
different locations in the system. For instance, data analysis
operations may involve processing (e.g., offline processing) or
modification of already stored primary data 112 and/or secondary
copies 116. However, in some embodiments data analysis operations
are performed in conjunction with data movement operations. Some
data analysis operations include content indexing operations and
classification operations which can be useful in leveraging the
data under management to provide enhanced search and other
features. Other data analysis operations such as compression and
encryption can provide data reduction and security benefits,
respectively.
[0189] Classification Operations/Content Indexing
[0190] In some embodiments, the information management system 100
analyzes and indexes characteristics, content, and metadata
associated with the primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116.
The content indexing can be used to identify files or other data
objects having pre-defined content (e.g., user-defined keywords or
phrases, other keywords/phrases that are not defined by a user,
etc.), and/or metadata (e.g., email metadata such as "to", "from",
"cc", "bcc", attachment name, received time, etc.).
[0191] The information management system 100 generally organizes
and catalogues the results in a content index, which may be stored
within the media agent database 152, for example. The content index
can also include the storage locations of (or pointer references
to) the indexed data in the primary data 112 or secondary copies
116, as appropriate. The results may also be stored, in the form of
a content index database or otherwise, elsewhere in the information
management system 100 (e.g., in the primary storage devices 104, or
in the secondary storage device 108). Such index data provides the
storage manager 140 or another component with an efficient
mechanism for locating primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116
of data objects that match particular criteria.
[0192] For instance, search criteria can be specified by a user
through user interface 158 of the storage manager 140. In some
cases, the information management system 100 analyzes data and/or
metadata in secondary copies 116 to create an "off-line" content
index, without significantly impacting the performance of the
client computing devices 102. Depending on the embodiment, the
system can also implement "on-line" content indexing, e.g., of
primary data 112. Examples of compatible content indexing
techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, which is
incorporated by reference herein.
[0193] One or more components can be configured to scan data and/or
associated metadata for classification purposes to populate a
database (or other data structure) of information, which can be
referred to as a "data classification database" or a "metabase".
Depending on the embodiment, the data classification database(s)
can be organized in a variety of different ways, including
centralization, logical sub-divisions, and/or physical
sub-divisions. For instance, one or more centralized data
classification databases may be associated with different
subsystems or tiers within the information management system 100.
As an example, there may be a first centralized metabase associated
with the primary storage subsystem 117 and a second centralized
metabase associated with the secondary storage subsystem 118. In
other cases, there may be one or more metabases associated with
individual components, e.g., client computing devices 102 and/or
media agents 144. In some embodiments, a data classification
database (metabase) may reside as one or more data structures
within management database 146, or may be otherwise associated with
storage manager 140.
[0194] In some cases, the metabase(s) may be included in separate
database(s) and/or on separate storage device(s) from primary data
112 and/or secondary copies 116, such that operations related to
the metabase do not significantly impact performance on other
components in the information management system 100. In other
cases, the metabase(s) may be stored along with primary data 112
and/or secondary copies 116. Files or other data objects can be
associated with identifiers (e.g., tag entries, etc.) in the media
agent 144 (or other indices) to facilitate searches of stored data
objects. Among a number of other benefits, the metabase can also
allow efficient, automatic identification of files or other data
objects to associate with secondary copy or other information
management operations (e.g., in lieu of scanning an entire file
system). Examples of compatible metabases and data classification
operations are provided in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,229,954 and 7,747,579,
which are incorporated by reference herein.
[0195] Encryption Operations
[0196] The information management system 100 in some cases is
configured to process data (e.g., files or other data objects,
secondary copies 116, etc.), according to an appropriate encryption
algorithm (e.g., Blowfish, Advanced Encryption Standard [AES],
Triple Data Encryption Standard [3-DES], etc.) to limit access and
provide data security in the information management system 100. The
information management system 100 in some cases encrypts the data
at the client level, such that the client computing devices 102
(e.g., the data agents 142) encrypt the data prior to forwarding
the data to other components, e.g., before sending the data to
media agents 144 during a secondary copy operation. In such cases,
the client computing device 102 may maintain or have access to an
encryption key or passphrase for decrypting the data upon restore.
Encryption can also occur when creating copies of secondary copies,
e.g., when creating auxiliary copies or archive copies. In yet
further embodiments, the secondary storage devices 108 can
implement built-in, high performance hardware encryption.
[0197] Management and Reporting Operations
[0198] Certain embodiments leverage the integrated, ubiquitous
nature of the information management system 100 to provide useful
system-wide management and reporting functions. Examples of some
compatible management and reporting techniques are provided in U.S.
Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0199] Operations management can generally include monitoring and
managing the health and performance of information management
system 100 by, without limitation, performing error tracking,
generating granular storage/performance metrics (e.g., job
success/failure information, deduplication efficiency, etc.),
generating storage modeling and costing information, and the like.
As an example, a storage manager 140 or other component in the
information management system 100 may analyze traffic patterns and
suggest and/or automatically route data via a particular route to
minimize congestion. In some embodiments, the system can generate
predictions relating to storage operations or storage operation
information. Such predictions, which may be based on a trending
analysis, may predict various network operations or resource usage,
such as network traffic levels, storage media use, use of bandwidth
of communication links, use of media agent components, etc. Further
examples of traffic analysis, trend analysis, prediction
generation, and the like are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453,
which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0200] In some configurations, a master storage manager 140 may
track the status of storage operation cells in a hierarchy, such as
the status of jobs, system components, system resources, and other
items, by communicating with storage managers 140 (or other
components) in the respective storage operation cells. Moreover,
the master storage manager 140 may track the status of its
associated storage operation cells and information management
operations by receiving periodic status updates from the storage
managers 140 (or other components) in the respective cells
regarding jobs, system components, system resources, and other
items. In some embodiments, a master storage manager 140 may store
status information and other information regarding its associated
storage operation cells and other system information in its index
150 (or other location).
[0201] The master storage manager 140 or other component may also
determine whether certain storage-related criteria or other
criteria are satisfied, and perform an action or trigger event
(e.g., data migration) in response to the criteria being satisfied,
such as where a storage threshold is met for a particular volume,
or where inadequate protection exists for certain data. For
instance, in some embodiments, data from one or more storage
operation cells is used to dynamically and automatically mitigate
recognized risks, and/or to advise users of risks or suggest
actions to mitigate these risks. For example, an information
management policy may specify certain requirements (e.g., that a
storage device should maintain a certain amount of free space, that
secondary copies should occur at a particular interval, that data
should be aged and migrated to other storage after a particular
period, that data on a secondary volume should always have a
certain level of availability and be restorable within a given time
period, that data on a secondary volume may be mirrored or
otherwise migrated to a specified number of other volumes, etc.).
If a risk condition or other criterion is triggered, the system may
notify the user of these conditions and may suggest (or
automatically implement) an action to mitigate or otherwise address
the risk. For example, the system may indicate that data from a
primary copy 112 should be migrated to a secondary storage device
108 to free space on the primary storage device 104. Examples of
the use of risk factors and other triggering criteria are described
in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference
herein.
[0202] In some embodiments, the system 100 may also determine
whether a metric or other indication satisfies particular storage
criteria and, if so, perform an action. For example, as previously
described, a storage policy or other definition might indicate that
a storage manager 140 should initiate a particular action if a
storage metric or other indication drops below or otherwise fails
to satisfy specified criteria such as a threshold of data
protection. Examples of such metrics are described in U.S. Pat. No.
7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0203] In some embodiments, risk factors may be quantified into
certain measurable service or risk levels for ease of
comprehension. For example, certain applications and associated
data may be considered to be more important by an enterprise than
other data and services. Financial compliance data, for example,
may be of greater importance than marketing materials, etc. Network
administrators may assign priority values or "weights" to certain
data and/or applications, corresponding to the relative importance.
The level of compliance of storage operations specified for these
applications may also be assigned a certain value. Thus, the
health, impact, and overall importance of a service may be
determined, such as by measuring the compliance value and
calculating the product of the priority value and the compliance
value to determine the "service level" and comparing it to certain
operational thresholds to determine whether it is acceptable.
Further examples of the service level determination are provided in
U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference
herein.
[0204] The system 100 may additionally calculate data costing and
data availability associated with information management operation
cells according to an embodiment of the invention. For instance,
data received from the cell may be used in conjunction with
hardware-related information and other information about system
elements to determine the cost of storage and/or the availability
of particular data in the system. Exemplary information generated
could include how fast a particular department is using up
available storage space, how long data would take to recover over a
particular system pathway from a particular secondary storage
device, costs over time, etc. Moreover, in some embodiments, such
information may be used to determine or predict the overall cost
associated with the storage of certain information. The cost
associated with hosting a certain application may be based, at
least in part, on the type of media on which the data resides, for
example. Storage devices may be assigned to a particular cost
categories, for example. Further examples of costing techniques are
described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by
reference herein.
[0205] Any of the above types of information (e.g., information
related to trending, predictions, job, cell or component status,
risk, service level, costing, etc.) can generally be provided to
users via the user interface 158 in a single, integrated view or
console (not shown). The console may support a reporting capability
that allows for the generation of a variety of reports, which may
be tailored to a particular aspect of information management.
Report types may include: scheduling, event management, media
management and data aging. Available reports may also include
backup history, data aging history, auxiliary copy history, job
history, library and drive, media in library, restore history, and
storage policy, etc., without limitation. Such reports may be
specified and created at a certain point in time as a system
analysis, forecasting, or provisioning tool. Integrated reports may
also be generated that illustrate storage and performance metrics,
risks and storage costing information. Moreover, users may create
their own reports based on specific needs.
[0206] The integrated user interface 158 can include an option to
show a "virtual view" of the system that graphically depicts the
various components in the system using appropriate icons. As one
example, the user interface 158 may provide a graphical depiction
of one or more primary storage devices 104, the secondary storage
devices 108, data agents 142 and/or media agents 144, and their
relationship to one another in the information management system
100. The operations management functionality can facilitate
planning and decision-making. For example, in some embodiments, a
user may view the status of some or all jobs as well as the status
of each component of the information management system 100. Users
may then plan and make decisions based on this data. For instance,
a user may view high-level information regarding storage operations
for the information management system 100, such as job status,
component status, resource status (e.g., communication pathways,
etc.), and other information. The user may also drill down or use
other means to obtain more detailed information regarding a
particular component, job, or the like. Further examples of some
reporting techniques and associated interfaces providing an
integrated view of an information management system are provided in
U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference
herein.
[0207] The information management system 100 can also be configured
to perform system-wide e-discovery operations in some embodiments.
In general, e-discovery operations provide a unified collection and
search capability for data in the system, such as data stored in
the secondary storage devices 108 (e.g., backups, archives, or
other secondary copies 116). For example, the information
management system 100 may construct and maintain a virtual
repository for data stored in the information management system 100
that is integrated across source applications 110, different
storage device types, etc. According to some embodiments,
e-discovery utilizes other techniques described herein, such as
data classification and/or content indexing.
Information Management Policies
[0208] As indicated previously, an information management policy
148 can include a data structure or other information source that
specifies a set of parameters (e.g., criteria and rules) associated
with secondary copy and/or other information management
operations.
[0209] One type of information management policy 148 is a storage
policy. According to certain embodiments, a storage policy
generally comprises a data structure or other information source
that defines (or includes information sufficient to determine) a
set of preferences or other criteria for performing information
management operations. Storage policies can include one or more of
the following items: (1) what data will be associated with the
storage policy; (2) a destination to which the data will be stored;
(3) datapath information specifying how the data will be
communicated to the destination; (4) the type of storage operation
to be performed; and (5) retention information specifying how long
the data will be retained at the destination (see, e.g., FIG.
1E).
[0210] As an illustrative example, data associated with a storage
policy can be logically organized into groups. In some cases, these
logical groupings can be referred to as "sub-clients". A sub-client
may represent static or dynamic associations of portions of a data
volume. Sub-clients may represent mutually exclusive portions.
Thus, in certain embodiments, a portion of data may be given a
label and the association is stored as a static entity in an index,
database or other storage location. Sub-clients may also be used as
an effective administrative scheme of organizing data according to
data type, department within the enterprise, storage preferences,
or the like. Depending on the configuration, sub-clients can
correspond to files, folders, virtual machines, databases, etc. In
one exemplary scenario, an administrator may find it preferable to
separate e-mail data from financial data using two different
sub-clients.
[0211] A storage policy can define where data is stored by
specifying a target or destination storage device (or group of
storage devices). For instance, where the secondary storage device
108 includes a group of disk libraries, the storage policy may
specify a particular disk library for storing the sub-clients
associated with the policy. As another example, where the secondary
storage devices 108 include one or more tape libraries, the storage
policy may specify a particular tape library for storing the
sub-clients associated with the storage policy, and may also
specify a drive pool and a tape pool defining a group of tape
drives and a group of tapes, respectively, for use in storing the
sub-client data. While information in the storage policy can be
statically assigned in some cases, some or all of the information
in the storage policy can also be dynamically determined based on
criteria, which can be set forth in the storage policy. For
instance, based on such criteria, a particular destination storage
device(s) (or other parameter of the storage policy) may be
determined based on characteristics associated with the data
involved in a particular storage operation, device availability
(e.g., availability of a secondary storage device 108 or a media
agent 144), network status and conditions (e.g., identified
bottlenecks), user credentials, and the like).
[0212] Datapath information can also be included in the storage
policy. For instance, the storage policy may specify network
pathways and components to utilize when moving the data to the
destination storage device(s). In some embodiments, the storage
policy specifies one or more media agents 144 for conveying data
associated with the storage policy between the source (e.g., one or
more host client computing devices 102) and destination (e.g., a
particular target secondary storage device 108).
[0213] A storage policy can also specify the type(s) of operations
associated with the storage policy, such as a backup, archive,
snapshot, auxiliary copy, or the like. Retention information can
specify how long the data will be kept, depending on organizational
needs (e.g., a number of days, months, years, etc.)
[0214] Another type of information management policy 148 is a
scheduling policy, which specifies when and how often to perform
operations. Scheduling parameters may specify with what frequency
(e.g., hourly, weekly, daily, event-based, etc.) or under what
triggering conditions secondary copy or other information
management operations will take place. Scheduling policies in some
cases are associated with particular components, such as particular
logical groupings of data associated with a storage policy (e.g., a
sub-client), client computing device 102, and the like. In one
configuration, a separate scheduling policy is maintained for
particular logical groupings of data on a client computing device
102. The scheduling policy specifies that those logical groupings
are to be moved to secondary storage devices 108 every hour
according to storage policies associated with the respective
sub-clients.
[0215] When adding a new client computing device 102,
administrators can manually configure information management
policies 148 and/or other settings, e.g., via the user interface
158. However, this can be an involved process resulting in delays,
and it may be desirable to begin data protection operations
quickly, without awaiting human intervention. Thus, in some
embodiments, the information management system 100 automatically
applies a default configuration to client computing device 102. As
one example, when one or more data agent(s) 142 are installed on
one or more client computing devices 102, the installation script
may register the client computing device 102 with the storage
manager 140, which in turn applies the default configuration to the
new client computing device 102. In this manner, data protection
operations can begin substantially immediately. The default
configuration can include a default storage policy, for example,
and can specify any appropriate information sufficient to begin
data protection operations. This can include a type of data
protection operation, scheduling information, a target secondary
storage device 108, data path information (e.g., a particular media
agent 144), and the like.
[0216] Other types of information management policies 148 are
possible, including one or more audit (or security) policies. An
audit policy is a set of preferences, rules and/or criteria that
protect sensitive data in the information management system 100.
For example, an audit policy may define "sensitive objects" as
files or objects that contain particular keywords (e.g.,
"confidential," or "privileged") and/or are associated with
particular keywords (e.g., in metadata) or particular flags (e.g.,
in metadata identifying a document or email as personal,
confidential, etc.). An audit policy may further specify rules for
handling sensitive objects. As an example, an audit policy may
require that a reviewer approve the transfer of any sensitive
objects to a cloud storage site, and that if approval is denied for
a particular sensitive object, the sensitive object should be
transferred to a local primary storage device 104 instead. To
facilitate this approval, the audit policy may further specify how
a secondary storage computing device 106 or other system component
should notify a reviewer that a sensitive object is slated for
transfer.
[0217] Another type of information management policy 148 is a
provisioning policy. A provisioning policy can include a set of
preferences, priorities, rules, and/or criteria that specify how
client computing devices 102 (or groups thereof) may utilize system
resources, such as available storage on cloud storage and/or
network bandwidth. A provisioning policy specifies, for example,
data quotas for particular client computing devices 102 (e.g., a
number of gigabytes that can be stored monthly, quarterly or
annually). The storage manager 140 or other components may enforce
the provisioning policy. For instance, the media agents 144 may
enforce the policy when transferring data to secondary storage
devices 108. If a client computing device 102 exceeds a quota, a
budget for the client computing device 102 (or associated
department) is adjusted accordingly or an alert may trigger.
[0218] While the above types of information management policies 148
have been described as separate policies, one or more of these can
be generally combined into a single information management policy
148. For instance, a storage policy may also include or otherwise
be associated with one or more scheduling, audit, or provisioning
policies or operational parameters thereof. Moreover, while storage
policies are typically associated with moving and storing data,
other policies may be associated with other types of information
management operations. The following is a non-exhaustive list of
items the information management policies 148 may specify: [0219]
schedules or other timing information, e.g., specifying when and/or
how often to perform information management operations; [0220] the
type of copy 116 (e.g., type of secondary copy) and/or copy format
(e.g., snapshot, backup, archive, HSM, etc.); [0221] a location or
a class or quality of storage for storing secondary copies 116
(e.g., one or more particular secondary storage devices 108);
[0222] preferences regarding whether and how to encrypt, compress,
deduplicate, or otherwise modify or transform secondary copies 116;
[0223] which system components and/or network pathways (e.g.,
preferred media agents 144) should be used to perform secondary
storage operations; [0224] resource allocation among different
computing devices or other system components used in performing
information management operations (e.g., bandwidth allocation,
available storage capacity, etc.); [0225] whether and how to
synchronize or otherwise distribute files or other data objects
across multiple computing devices or hosted services; and [0226]
retention information specifying the length of time primary data
112 and/or secondary copies 116 should be retained, e.g., in a
particular class or tier of storage devices, or within the
information management system 100.
[0227] Policies can additionally specify or depend on a variety of
historical or current criteria that may be used to determine which
rules to apply to a particular data object, system component, or
information management operation, such as: [0228] frequency with
which primary data 112 or a secondary copy 116 of a data object or
metadata has been or is predicted to be used, accessed, or
modified; [0229] time-related factors (e.g., aging information such
as time since the creation or modification of a data object);
[0230] deduplication information (e.g., hashes, data blocks,
deduplication block size, deduplication efficiency or other
metrics); [0231] an estimated or historic usage or cost associated
with different components (e.g., with secondary storage devices
108); [0232] the identity of users, applications 110, client
computing devices 102 and/or other computing devices that created,
accessed, modified, or otherwise utilized primary data 112 or
secondary copies 116; [0233] a relative sensitivity (e.g.,
confidentiality, importance) of a data object, e.g., as determined
by its content and/or metadata; [0234] the current or historical
storage capacity of various storage devices; [0235] the current or
historical network capacity of network pathways connecting various
components within the storage operation cell; [0236] access control
lists or other security information; and [0237] the content of a
particular data object (e.g., its textual content) or of metadata
associated with the data object.
Exemplary Storage Policy and Secondary Storage Operations
[0238] FIG. 1E includes a data flow diagram depicting performance
of storage operations by an embodiment of an information management
system 100, according to an exemplary storage policy 148A. The
information management system 100 includes a storage manger 140, a
client computing device 102 having a file system data agent 142A
and an email data agent 142B operating thereon, a primary storage
device 104, two media agents 144A, 144B, and two secondary storage
devices 108A, 108B: a disk library 108A and a tape library 108B. As
shown, the primary storage device 104 includes primary data 112A,
which is associated with a logical grouping of data associated with
a file system, and primary data 112B, which is associated with a
logical grouping of data associated with email. Although for
simplicity the logical grouping of data associated with the file
system is referred to as a file system sub-client, and the logical
grouping of data associated with the email is referred to as an
email sub-client, the techniques described with respect to FIG. 1E
can be utilized in conjunction with data that is organized in a
variety of other manners.
[0239] As indicated by the dashed box, the second media agent 144B
and the tape library 108B are "off-site", and may therefore be
remotely located from the other components in the information
management system 100 (e.g., in a different city, office building,
etc.). Indeed, "off-site" may refer to a magnetic tape located in
storage, which must be manually retrieved and loaded into a tape
drive to be read. In this manner, information stored on the tape
library 108B may provide protection in the event of a disaster or
other failure.
[0240] The file system sub-client and its associated primary data
112A in certain embodiments generally comprise information
generated by the file system and/or operating system of the client
computing device 102, and can include, for example, file system
data (e.g., regular files, file tables, mount points, etc.),
operating system data (e.g., registries, event logs, etc.), and the
like. The e-mail sub-client, on the other hand, and its associated
primary data 112B, include data generated by an e-mail application
operating on the client computing device 102, and can include
mailbox information, folder information, emails, attachments,
associated database information, and the like. As described above,
the sub-clients can be logical containers, and the data included in
the corresponding primary data 112A, 1126 may or may not be stored
contiguously.
[0241] The exemplary storage policy 148A includes backup copy
preferences (or rule set) 160, disaster recovery copy preferences
rule set 162, and compliance copy preferences or rule set 164. The
backup copy rule set 160 specifies that it is associated with a
file system sub-client 166 and an email sub-client 168. Each of
these sub-clients 166, 168 are associated with the particular
client computing device 102. The backup copy rule set 160 further
specifies that the backup operation will be written to the disk
library 108A, and designates a particular media agent 144A to
convey the data to the disk library 108A. Finally, the backup copy
rule set 160 specifies that backup copies created according to the
rule set 160 are scheduled to be generated on an hourly basis and
to be retained for 30 days. In some other embodiments, scheduling
information is not included in the storage policy 148A, and is
instead specified by a separate scheduling policy.
[0242] The disaster recovery copy rule set 162 is associated with
the same two sub-clients 166, 168. However, the disaster recovery
copy rule set 162 is associated with the tape library 108B, unlike
the backup copy rule set 160. Moreover, the disaster recovery copy
rule set 162 specifies that a different media agent, namely 144B,
will be used to convey the data to the tape library 1086. As
indicated, disaster recovery copies created according to the rule
set 162 will be retained for 60 days, and will be generated on a
daily basis. Disaster recovery copies generated according to the
disaster recovery copy rule set 162 can provide protection in the
event of a disaster or other catastrophic data loss that would
affect the backup copy 116A maintained on the disk library
108A.
[0243] The compliance copy rule set 164 is only associated with the
email sub-client 168, and not the file system sub-client 166.
Compliance copies generated according to the compliance copy rule
set 164 will therefore not include primary data 112A from the file
system sub-client 166. For instance, the organization may be under
an obligation to store and maintain copies of email data for a
particular period of time (e.g., 10 years) to comply with state or
federal regulations, while similar regulations do not apply to the
file system data. The compliance copy rule set 164 is associated
with the same tape library 108B and media agent 144B as the
disaster recovery copy rule set 162, although a different storage
device or media agent could be used in other embodiments. Finally,
the compliance copy rule set 164 specifies that copies generated
under the compliance copy rule set 164 will be retained for 10
years, and will be generated on a quarterly basis.
[0244] At step 1, the storage manager 140 initiates a backup
operation according to the backup copy rule set 160. For instance,
a scheduling service running on the storage manager 140 accesses
scheduling information from the backup copy rule set 160 or a
separate scheduling policy associated with the client computing
device 102, and initiates a backup copy operation on an hourly
basis. Thus, at the scheduled time slot the storage manager 140
sends instructions to the client computing device 102 (i.e., to
both data agent 142A and data agent 142B) to begin the backup
operation.
[0245] At step 2, the file system data agent 142A and the email
data agent 142B operating on the client computing device 102
respond to the instructions received from the storage manager 140
by accessing and processing the primary data 112A, 112B involved in
the copy operation, which can be found in primary storage device
104. Because the operation is a backup copy operation, the data
agent(s) 142A, 142B may format the data into a backup format or
otherwise process the data.
[0246] At step 3, the client computing device 102 communicates the
retrieved, processed data to the first media agent 144A, as
directed by the storage manager 140, according to the backup copy
rule set 160. In some other embodiments, the information management
system 100 may implement a load-balancing, availability-based, or
other appropriate algorithm to select from the available set of
media agents 144A, 144B. Regardless of the manner the media agent
144A is selected, the storage manager 140 may further keep a record
in the storage manager database 146 of the association between the
selected media agent 144A and the client computing device 102
and/or between the selected media agent 144A and the backup copy
116A.
[0247] The target media agent 144A receives the data from the
client computing device 102, and at step 4 conveys the data to the
disk library 108A to create the backup copy 116A, again at the
direction of the storage manager 140 and according to the backup
copy rule set 160. The secondary storage device 108A can be
selected in other ways. For instance, the media agent 144A may have
a dedicated association with a particular secondary storage
device(s), or the storage manager 140 or media agent 144A may
select from a plurality of secondary storage devices, e.g.,
according to availability, using one of the techniques described in
U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, which is incorporated by reference
herein.
[0248] The media agent 144A can also update its index 153 to
include data and/or metadata related to the backup copy 116A, such
as information indicating where the backup copy 116A resides on the
disk library 108A, data and metadata for cache retrieval, etc. The
storage manager 140 may similarly update its index 150 to include
information relating to the storage operation, such as information
relating to the type of storage operation, a physical location
associated with one or more copies created by the storage
operation, the time the storage operation was performed, status
information relating to the storage operation, the components
involved in the storage operation, and the like. In some cases, the
storage manager 140 may update its index 150 to include some or all
of the information stored in the index 153 of the media agent 144A.
After the 30 day retention period expires, the storage manager 140
instructs the media agent 144A to delete the backup copy 116A from
the disk library 108A. Indexes 150 and/or 153 are updated
accordingly.
[0249] At step 5, the storage manager 140 initiates the creation of
a disaster recovery copy 1166 according to the disaster recovery
copy rule set 162.
[0250] At step 6, illustratively based on the instructions received
from the storage manager 140 at step 5, the specified media agent
144B retrieves the most recent backup copy 116A from the disk
library 108A.
[0251] At step 7, again at the direction of the storage manager 140
and as specified in the disaster recovery copy rule set 162, the
media agent 144B uses the retrieved data to create a disaster
recovery copy 116B on the tape library 108B. In some cases, the
disaster recovery copy 116B is a direct, mirror copy of the backup
copy 116A, and remains in the backup format. In other embodiments,
the disaster recovery copy 1166 may be generated in some other
manner, such as by using the primary data 112A, 112B from the
primary storage device 104 as source data. The disaster recovery
copy operation is initiated once a day and the disaster recovery
copies 1166 are deleted after 60 days; indexes are updated
accordingly when/after each information management operation is
executed/completed.
[0252] At step 8, the storage manager 140 initiates the creation of
a compliance copy 116C, according to the compliance copy rule set
164. For instance, the storage manager 140 instructs the media
agent 144B to create the compliance copy 116C on the tape library
108B at step 9, as specified in the compliance copy rule set 164.
In the example, the compliance copy 116C is generated using the
disaster recovery copy 116B. In other embodiments, the compliance
copy 116C is instead generated using either the primary data 112B
corresponding to the email sub-client or using the backup copy 116A
from the disk library 108A as source data. As specified, in the
illustrated example, compliance copies 116C are created quarterly,
and are deleted after ten years, and indexes are kept up-to-date
accordingly.
[0253] While not shown in FIG. 1E, at some later point in time, a
restore operation can be initiated involving one or more of the
secondary copies 116A, 116B, 116C. As one example, a user may
manually initiate a restore of the backup copy 116A by interacting
with the user interface 158 of the storage manager 140. The storage
manager 140 then accesses data in its index 150 (and/or the
respective storage policy 148A) associated with the selected backup
copy 116A to identify the appropriate media agent 144A and/or
secondary storage device 108A.
[0254] In other cases, a media agent may be selected for use in the
restore operation based on a load balancing algorithm, an
availability based algorithm, or other criteria. The selected media
agent 144A retrieves the data from the disk library 108A. For
instance, the media agent 144A may access its index 153 to identify
a location of the backup copy 116A on the disk library 108A, or may
access location information residing on the disk 108A itself.
[0255] When the backup copy 116A was recently created or accessed,
the media agent 144A accesses a cached version of the backup copy
116A residing in the index 153, without having to access the disk
library 108A for some or all of the data. Once it has retrieved the
backup copy 116A, the media agent 144A communicates the data to the
source client computing device 102. Upon receipt, the file system
data agent 142A and the email data agent 142B may unpackage (e.g.,
restore from a backup format to the native application format) the
data in the backup copy 116A and restore the unpackaged data to the
primary storage device 104.
[0256] Exemplary Applications of Storage Policies
[0257] The storage manager 140 may permit a user to specify aspects
of the storage policy 148A. For example, the storage policy can be
modified to include information governance policies to define how
data should be managed in order to comply with a certain regulation
or business objective. The various policies may be stored, for
example, in the management database 146. An information governance
policy may comprise a classification policy, which is described
herein. An information governance policy may align with one or more
compliance tasks that are imposed by regulations or business
requirements. Examples of information governance policies might
include a Sarbanes-Oxley policy, a HIPAA policy, an electronic
discovery (E-Discovery) policy, and so on.
[0258] Information governance policies allow administrators to
obtain different perspectives on all of an organization's online
and offline data, without the need for a dedicated data silo
created solely for each different viewpoint. As described
previously, the data storage systems herein build a centralized
index that reflects the contents of a distributed data set that
spans numerous clients and storage devices, including both primary
and secondary copies, and online and offline copies. An
organization may apply multiple information governance policies in
a top-down manner over that unified data set and indexing schema in
order to permit an organization to view and manipulate the single
data set through different lenses, each of which is adapted to a
particular compliance or business goal. Thus, for example, by
applying an E-discovery policy and a Sarbanes-Oxley policy, two
different groups of users in an organization can conduct two very
different analyses of the same underlying physical set of data
copies, which may be distributed throughout the organization and
information management system.
[0259] A classification policy defines a taxonomy of classification
terms or tags relevant to a compliance task and/or business
objective. A classification policy may also associate a defined tag
with a classification rule. A classification rule defines a
particular combination of criteria, such as users who have created,
accessed or modified a document or data object; file or application
types; content or metadata keywords; clients or storage locations;
dates of data creation and/or access; review status or other status
within a workflow (e.g., reviewed or un-reviewed); modification
times or types of modifications; and/or any other data attributes
in any combination, without limitation. A classification rule may
also be defined using other classification tags in the taxonomy.
The various criteria used to define a classification rule may be
combined in any suitable fashion, for example, via Boolean
operators, to define a complex classification rule. As an example,
an E-discovery classification policy might define a classification
tag "privileged" that is associated with documents or data objects
that (1) were created or modified by legal department staff, or (2)
were sent to or received from outside counsel via email, or (3)
contain one of the following keywords: "privileged" or "attorney"
or "counsel", or other like terms.
[0260] One specific type of classification tag, which may be added
to an index at the time of indexing, is an entity tag. An entity
tag may be, for example, any content that matches a defined data
mask format. Examples of entity tags might include, e.g., social
security numbers (e.g., any numerical content matching the
formatting mask XXX-XX-XXXX), credit card numbers (e.g., content
having a 13-16 digit string of numbers), SKU numbers, product
numbers, etc.
[0261] A user may define a classification policy by indicating
criteria, parameters or descriptors of the policy via a graphical
user interface, such as a form or page with fields to be filled in,
pull-down menus or entries allowing one or more of several options
to be selected, buttons, sliders, hypertext links or other known
user interface tools for receiving user input, etc. For example, a
user may define certain entity tags, such as a particular product
number or project ID code that is relevant in the organization. In
some implementations, the classification policy can be implemented
using cloud-based techniques. For example, the storage devices may
be cloud storage devices, and the storage manager 140 may execute
cloud service provider API over a network to classify data stored
on cloud storage devices.
Exemplary Secondary Copy Formatting
[0262] The formatting and structure of secondary copies 116 can
vary, depending on the embodiment. In some cases, secondary copies
116 are formatted as a series of logical data units or "chunks"
(e.g., 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, or 8 GB chunks). This can
facilitate efficient communication and writing to secondary storage
devices 108, e.g., according to resource availability. For example,
a single secondary copy 116 may be written on a chunk-by-chunk
basis to a single secondary storage device 108 or across multiple
secondary storage devices 108. In some cases, users can select
different chunk sizes, e.g., to improve throughput to tape storage
devices.
[0263] Generally, each chunk can include a header and a payload.
The payload can include files (or other data units) or subsets
thereof included in the chunk, whereas the chunk header generally
includes metadata relating to the chunk, some or all of which may
be derived from the payload. For example, during a secondary copy
operation, the media agent 144, storage manager 140, or other
component may divide the associated files into chunks and generate
headers for each chunk by processing the constituent files. The
headers can include a variety of information such as file
identifier(s), volume(s), offset(s), or other information
associated with the payload data items, a chunk sequence number,
etc. Importantly, in addition to being stored with the secondary
copy 116 on the secondary storage device 108, the chunk headers can
also be stored to the index 153 of the associated media agent(s)
144 and/or the index 150. This is useful in some cases for
providing faster processing of secondary copies 116 during restores
or other operations. In some cases, once a chunk is successfully
transferred to a secondary storage device 108, the secondary
storage device 108 returns an indication of receipt, e.g., to the
media agent 144 and/or storage manager 140, which may update their
respective indexes 153, 150 accordingly. During restore, chunks may
be processed (e.g., by the media agent 144) according to the
information in the chunk header to reassemble the files.
[0264] Data can also be communicated within the information
management system 100 in data channels that connect the client
computing devices 102 to the secondary storage devices 108. These
data channels can be referred to as "data streams", and multiple
data streams can be employed to parallelize an information
management operation, improving data transfer rate, among providing
other advantages. Example data formatting techniques including
techniques involving data streaming, chunking, and the use of other
data structures in creating copies (e.g., secondary copies) are
described in U.S. Patent Nos. 7,315,923 and 8,156,086, and
8,578,120, each of which is incorporated by reference herein.
[0265] FIGS. 1F and 1G are diagrams of example data streams 170 and
171, respectively, which may be employed for performing data
storage operations. Referring to FIG. 1F, the data agent 142 forms
the data stream 170 from the data associated with a client
computing device 102 (e.g., primary data 112). The data stream 170
is composed of multiple pairs of stream header 172 and stream data
(or stream payload) 174. The data streams 170 and 171 shown in the
illustrated example are for a single-instanced storage operation,
and a stream payload 174 therefore may include both single-instance
("SI") data and/or non-SI data. A stream header 172 includes
metadata about the stream payload 174. This metadata may include,
for example, a length of the stream payload 174, an indication of
whether the stream payload 174 is encrypted, an indication of
whether the stream payload 174 is compressed, an archive file
identifier (ID), an indication of whether the stream payload 174 is
single instanceable, and an indication of whether the stream
payload 174 is a start of a block of data.
[0266] Referring to FIG. 1G, the data stream 171 has the stream
header 172 and stream payload 174 aligned into multiple data
blocks. In this example, the data blocks are of size 64 KB. The
first two stream header 172 and stream payload 174 pairs comprise a
first data block of size 64 KB. The first stream header 172
indicates that the length of the succeeding stream payload 174 is
63 KB and that it is the start of a data block. The next stream
header 172 indicates that the succeeding stream payload 174 has a
length of 1 KB and that it is not the start of a new data block.
Immediately following stream payload 174 is a pair comprising an
identifier header 176 and identifier data 178. The identifier
header 176 includes an indication that the succeeding identifier
data 178 includes the identifier for the immediately previous data
block. The identifier data 178 includes the identifier that the
data agent 142 generated for the data block. The data stream 171
also includes other stream header 172 and stream payload 174 pairs,
which may be for SI data and/or for non-SI data.
[0267] FIG. 1H is a diagram illustrating the data structures 180
that may be used to store blocks of SI data and non-SI data on the
storage device (e.g., secondary storage device 108). According to
certain embodiments, the data structures 180 do not form part of a
native file system of the storage device. The data structures 180
include one or more volume folders 182, one or more chunk folders
184/185 within the volume folder 182, and multiple files within the
chunk folder 184. Each chunk folder 184/185 includes a metadata
file 186/187, a metadata index file 188/189, one or more container
files 190/191/193, and a container index file 192/194. The metadata
file 186/187 stores non-SI data blocks as well as links to SI data
blocks stored in container files. The metadata index file 188/189
stores an index to the data in the metadata file 186/187. The
container files 190/191/193 store SI data blocks. The container
index file 192/194 stores an index to the container files
190/191/193. Among other things, the container index file 192/194
stores an indication of whether a corresponding block in a
container file 190/191/193 is referred to by a link in a metadata
file 186/187. For example, data block B2 in the container file 190
is referred to by a link in the metadata file 187 in the chunk
folder 185. Accordingly, the corresponding index entry in the
container index file 192 indicates that the data block B2 in the
container file 190 is referred to. As another example, data block
B1 in the container file 191 is referred to by a link in the
metadata file 187, and so the corresponding index entry in the
container index file 192 indicates that this data block is referred
to.
[0268] As an example, the data structures 180 illustrated in FIG.
1H may have been created as a result of two storage operations
involving two client computing devices 102. For example, a first
storage operation on a first client computing device 102 could
result in the creation of the first chunk folder 184, and a second
storage operation on a second client computing device 102 could
result in the creation of the second chunk folder 185. The
container files 190/191 in the first chunk folder 184 would contain
the blocks of SI data of the first client computing device 102. If
the two client computing devices 102 have substantially similar
data, the second storage operation on the data of the second client
computing device 102 would result in the media agent 144 storing
primarily links to the data blocks of the first client computing
device 102 that are already stored in the container files 190/191.
Accordingly, while a first storage operation may result in storing
nearly all of the data subject to the storage operation, subsequent
storage operations involving similar data may result in substantial
data storage space savings, because links to already stored data
blocks can be stored instead of additional instances of data
blocks.
[0269] If the operating system of the secondary storage computing
device 106 on which the media agent 144 operates supports sparse
files, then when the media agent 144 creates container files
190/191/193, it can create them as sparse files. A sparse file is
type of file that may include empty space (e.g., a sparse file may
have real data within it, such as at the beginning of the file
and/or at the end of the file, but may also have empty space in it
that is not storing actual data, such as a contiguous range of
bytes all having a value of zero). Having the container files
190/191/193 be sparse files allows the media agent 144 to free up
space in the container files 190/191/193 when blocks of data in the
container files 190/191/193 no longer need to be stored on the
storage devices. In some examples, the media agent 144 creates a
new container file 190/191/193 when a container file 190/191/193
either includes 100 blocks of data or when the size of the
container file 190 exceeds 50 MB. In other examples, the media
agent 144 creates a new container file 190/191/193 when a container
file 190/191/193 satisfies other criteria (e.g., it contains from
approximately 100 to approximately 1000 blocks or when its size
exceeds approximately 50 MB to 1 GB).
[0270] In some cases, a file on which a storage operation is
performed may comprise a large number of data blocks. For example,
a 100 MB file may comprise 400 data blocks of size 256 KB. If such
a file is to be stored, its data blocks may span more than one
container file, or even more than one chunk folder. As another
example, a database file of 20 GB may comprise over 40,000 data
blocks of size 512 KB. If such a database file is to be stored, its
data blocks will likely span multiple container files, multiple
chunk folders, and potentially multiple volume folders. Restoring
such files may require accessing multiple container files, chunk
folders, and/or volume folders to obtain the requisite data
blocks.
Synchronizing Selected Portions of Data in a Storage Management
System
[0271] FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating some salient portions
of a storage management system 200 for partially synchronizing
primary data files based on synchronizing portions thereof via
auto-restore operations from backup data, according to an
illustrative embodiment of the present invention. Storage
management system 200, which may be an embodiment of an enhanced
information management system, illustratively comprises: primary
storage device 104-1, which is in communication with client
computing device 202-1, and comprises a primary data file 212A,
which comprises a non-synchronization portion 213A and a
synchronization portion 214A; primary storage device 104-2, which
is in communication with client computing device 202-2, and
comprises a primary data file 212B, which comprises a
non-synchronization portion 213B and a synchronization portion
214B; secondary storage computing device 106 comprising media agent
144; secondary storage device 108, which comprises secondary copy
216, and which is in communication with secondary storage computing
device 106; client computing device 202-1 comprising enhanced data
agent 242A; client computing device 202-2 comprising enhanced data
agent 242B; enhanced storage manager 240; and console 291 in
communication with enhanced storage manager 240. The components may
be interconnected as shown by the solid arrows. The physical
communications infrastructure required to support these connections
is well known in the art and may be any suitable electronic
communications infrastructure, such as that described in regard to
communication pathways 114 above. Components 104, 106, 108, and 144
were described in detail above.
[0272] FIG. 2 also illustrates (in the balloon emanating from
console 291) an initial administrative operation in which
synchronization portions 214 (e.g., 214A and 214B) are identified
as the subject portions of their respective parent files 212 to
cross-synchronize according to the illustrative embodiment. These
selected portions may be referred to herein as "synchronization
portions" or "sync portions." Because only selected sync portions
synchronize, the respective parent data files comprising these
selected sync portions may be said to "partially synchronize." This
partial-synchronization approach means that parent data files are
not fully synchronized, which is in marked contrast to prior art
approaches that keep files synchronized in their entirety. The
present approach may be particularly advantageous when parent data
files are very large and synchronization would use up a great deal
of bandwidth and processing resources. Instead, partial
synchronization allows for smaller amounts of data to traverse the
various networks and components of system 200. One exemplary use
case for partial synchronization is for source code in a large
base; when a number of different developers are working off a large
base of source code that may change frequently, it may be
advantageous for them to synchronize certain relevant portions to
the source code base and to each other (but not the entirety of the
base). The illustrative embodiment enables such a scenario to
occur.
[0273] FIG. 2 also depicts an illustrative partial-synchronization
operation, according to the illustrative embodiment, using the
dotted arrows. The "BACKUP" arrow represents a backup operation in
which the primary data that is to be synchronized, e.g., sync
portion 214A, is backed up to secondary storage by generating a
secondary copy 216 which is stored to secondary storage device 108.
The "RESTORE" arrow represents a restore operation that may
immediately and automatically follow the backup; accordingly,
secondary copy 216 may be restored to sync portion 214B, which is
in primary storage. The result is that primary data files 212A and
212B partially synchronize to capture the change to the sync
portion 214A by synchronizing their respective sync portions 214A
and 214B. More details on these operations are provided in
subsequent figures.
[0274] Although not shown in the present figure, synchronization
between sync portions 214A and 214B may also occur in the opposite
direction, i.e., detecting a change in sync portion 214B, backing
up sync portion 214B, and restoring from backup to portion 214A.
This scenario is described in more detail in reference to FIG. 5.
Thus, partial synchronization according to the illustrative
embodiment may initiate at any synchronization portion that
undergoes a change and may then propagate to other one or more
associated sync portions; this mutual process may be referred to
herein as "cross-synchronization."
[0275] In regard to non-synchronization portions 213A and 213B,
there is no limitation to the differences therebetween, e.g.,
respective type, size, format, associated application, storage
device, etc. Moreover, there is no limitation in regard to the
location and/or placement of a sync portion 214 within a respective
parent file 212 and/or relative to another sync portion within
another parent file 212.
[0276] Client computing devices 202 (e.g., 202-1 and 202-2) are
analogous to client computing device 102 described in further
detail above and may comprise additional features for operating in
storage management system 200, e.g., a respective enhanced data
agent 242. Like client computing device 102, client computing
device 202 also comprises one or more applications 110, which
execute thereon (not shown in the present figure). Each application
110 may generate primary data, such as primary data files 212A and
212B.
[0277] Primary data files 212 (e.g., 212A and 212B) comprise
primary or "production" data generated by a client computing device
202, e.g., executing an application 110 such as a database
management system or a file manager, etc. without limitation.
Primary data is described in more detail in regard to element 112
above. Illustratively, a primary data file 212 comprises at least
one non-synchronization portion 213 and at least one
synchronization portion 214. For simplicity, primary data files
212A and 212B are illustrated with only one sync portion 214 and
only one non-sync portion 213, but no such limitation is required
for the present invention.
[0278] Non-synchronization portions 213 (e.g., portion 213A and
portion 213B) comprise data that is not synchronized by components
of the illustrative embodiment. Thus, non-sync portion 213A and
non-sync portion 213B may diverge or converge over time whether in
content, size, type of data, data format, etc. For example,
non-sync portion 213A may represent a smaller fraction of parent
primary file 212A than non-sync portion 213B relative to parent
primary file 212B.
[0279] Synchronization portions 214 (e.g., 214A and 214B) comprise
data is synchronized across the parent primary data files 212,
according to the illustrative embodiment. Sync portion 214A may
represent a smaller fraction of parent primary file 212A than sync
portion 214B relative to parent primary file 212B. More details on
how storage management system manages the cross-synchronization of
portions 214 are provided below and in the accompanying
figures.
[0280] Secondary copy 216 comprises a copy of primary data, i.e.,
it is not itself primary "production" data. Secondary copies are
described in detail in regard to element 116 above. In the example
depicted in the present figure, secondary copy 216 comprises a copy
of a sync portion 214, e.g., sync portion 214A, and is generated in
a partial-sync operation; furthermore, secondary copy 216 is
restored to sync portion 214B, thus keeping sync portion 214A and
214B synchronized with each other. Sync portions 214 may
cross-synchronize bi-directionally. An alternative embodiment that
also enables bi-directional synchronization among sync portions 214
may utilize a first secondary copy 216 for backing up sync portion
214A and a second secondary copy 166 for backing up sync portion
214B. A corresponding restore operation may follow the backup
operation, thus keeping sync portions 214A and 214B synchronized
with each other.
[0281] Enhanced storage manager 240 is analogous to storage manager
140 described in detail above, and additionally comprises enhanced
functionality for operating in storage management system 200 (e.g.,
partial synchronization manager module 347 described in FIG. 3).
More details are given below and in regard to the accompanying
figures.
[0282] Enhanced data agents 242 (e.g., 242A, 242B) are analogous to
data agent 142 described in detail above and further comprise
additional functionality for operating in storage management system
200 (e.g., a respective change monitor module 324 described in FIG.
3). More details are given below and in regard to the accompanying
figures.
[0283] Console 291 is a component well known in the art, which,
according to the illustrative embodiment, displays to a human user
an interface provided by enhanced storage manager 240. In some
alternative embodiments, the user interface may provide web-console
access to storage manager 240.
[0284] FIG. 3 depicts some salient details of system 200 according
to the illustrative embodiment. In addition to the components
depicted in the preceding figure, storage management system 200
further comprises: operating-system change log 302-1 in client
computing device 202-1; operating-system change log 302-2 in client
computing device 202-2; change monitor 342A in enhanced data agent
242A; change monitor 342B in enhanced data agent 242B;
synchronization database 346 in enhanced storage manager 240;
partial-synchronization manager 347 and jobs agent 356 in enhanced
storage manager 240. The arrows in FIG. 3 depict a number of
non-exclusive logical interconnections between some of the
illustrative components of system 200. More details about the
operations supported by these illustrative interconnections are
described below and in regard to the accompanying figures.
[0285] Operating-system change log 302-1, which resides and
operates in client computing device 202-1, is well known in the
art. Operating-system change log 302-1, which is a utility provided
by the operating system in client computing device 202-1, tracks
changes to data associated with client computing device 202-1 that
are occurring as a result of application(s) or any computing
operations executing on client computing device 202-1. Thus,
according to the illustrative configuration of system 200,
operating-system change log 302-1 may track changes in data stored
in primary storage device 104-1, which data includes file 212A. For
example, when an application writes a changed block to file 212A,
operating-system change log 302-1 creates a corresponding entry
indicating that the respective data block has changed.
[0286] Operating-system change log 302-2 in client computing device
202-2 is analogous to change log 302-1, and operates in reference
to computing device 202-2 and its associated data in primary
storage device 104-2, including data file 212B.
[0287] Change monitor 342 (e.g., 342A, 342B) is a functional
component of enhanced data agent 242, and may be implemented as
executable software and/or firmware, which executes on the
underlying client computing device 202 that hosts the enhanced data
agent 242. When it executes according to the illustrative
embodiment, change monitor 342 is largely responsible for detecting
that a change has occurred in a monitored sync portion of a data
file, e.g., 214A, 214B, etc. Accordingly, change monitor 342 may
receive metadata from enhanced storage manager 240, identifying
which sync portions 214 to monitor relative to the client computing
device 202 on which change monitor 342 executes. When it detects a
change to a sync portion 214, change monitor 342 may notify storage
manager 240. More details regarding the functionality of change
monitor 342 are given below and in the accompanying figures.
[0288] Change monitor 342 is shown herein as a distinct component
within enhanced data agent 342 to ease understanding of the present
disclosure, however, alternative embodiments are also possible
within the scope of the present invention. Change monitor 342 may
be layered on existing data agent code, or may be a logical
construct whose functionality is distributed through one or more
other functional modules of the data agent--and in any combination
thereof.
[0289] Synchronization database 346 resides in (or is associated
with) enhanced storage manager 240. Synchronization database 346
may comprise metadata for managing partial synchronization in
system 200. Examples of metadata stored in synchronization database
346 may include identification markers (e.g., block identifiers,
offsets, etc.) for sync portions 214 in respective data files 212;
associations between a sync portion 214 in a given primary data
file (e.g., 214A) and other sync portions 214 in other primary data
files (e.g., 214B) that are to be synchronized; and other metadata
without limitation. For example, synchronization database 346 may
store partial-synchronization selections supplied by
administrator(s) and/or user(s) (see, e.g., depicted balloon). For
example, an administrator may have selected sync portions 214A and
214B for partial synchronization; accordingly an association
between them as well as their respective identities/locations may
be stored in synchronization database 346.
[0290] Notably, there may be a plurality of different groupings of
associated sync portions that are to be kept mutually synchronized
in system 200, such that each grouping may comprise sync portions
that are distinct from those in other groupings. Synchronization
database 346 may be part of management database 146, which is
described in detail elsewhere herein. In some embodiments,
synchronization database 346 may be configured separately from
management database 346.
[0291] Partial-synchronization manager 347 is a functional
component of enhanced storage manager 240, and may be implemented
as executable software and/or firmware, which executes on the
underlying computing device that hosts storage manager 240. When it
executes according to the illustrative embodiment, manager 347 is
largely responsible for managing partial-synchronization operations
in storage management system 200. For example, manager 347 may
perform one or more of the following operations, without
limitation: presenting a user interface to console 291 to enable
administrators/users to select and associate sync portions 214 that
they wish to keep synchronized via partial-synchronization
operations in system 200; generate and store appropriate metadata
for said selections and associations and store the metadata to
synchronization database 346 and retrieve metadata therefrom;
transmit appropriate metadata to each change monitor 342 involved
in monitoring a given sync portion 214; receive notice of change in
a given sync portion 214 (e.g., from a change monitor 342) and in
response manage a partial-sync operation relative to said changed
sync portion 214; track partial-sync operations and maintain job
status. Managing a partial-sync operation may include automatically
launching a backup of a changed sync portion 214 (hereinafter the
"source sync portion") and automatically restoring the backup sync
data to an associated sync portion (hereinafter the "target sync
portion"). Notably, the partial-sync operations are managed so that
no administrator/user intervention is required after selecting and
associating the sync portions, i.e., partial-sync operations are
automatic and managed largely by storage manager 240 (e.g., using
partial sync manager 347 and jobs agent 356). More details are
given below and in the accompanying figures.
[0292] Partial-synchronization manager 347 is shown herein as a
distinct component to ease understanding of the present disclosure,
however, alternative embodiments are also possible within the scope
of the present invention. Manager 347 may be embodied as a unified
module within storage manager 240, layered on existing storage
manager code, or may be a logical construct whose functionality is
distributed through one or more other functional modules of the
storage manager, such as management agent 154 and/or jobs agent
156--and in any combination thereof. In some alternative
embodiments, partial-synchronization manager 347 may execute on
another computing component that is physically distinct from
storage manager 240, such as on a dedicated server that operates in
conjunction with storage manager 240, but which may or may not be a
logical component of storage manager 240.
[0293] Jobs agent 356 is a functional component of enhanced storage
manager 240 and is analogous to jobs agent 156 described in detail
above and additionally comprises functionality for operating in
system 200, e.g., for interoperating with partial-sync manager 347.
Functionality for interoperating with partial-sync manager 347 may
include enhanced features, message sets, data structures, etc.,
without limitation.
[0294] FIG. 4 depicts some salient operations of a method 400 for
partially synchronizing primary data files based on synchronizing
portions thereof via auto-restore operations from backup data
(e.g., when source portion 214A changes) according to an
illustrative embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 depicts
operations performed by enhanced data agent 242A, enhanced storage
manager 240, and enhanced data agent 242B in storage management
system 200, without limitation.
[0295] At block 401, enhanced storage manager 240 may receive
identifications of sync portions 214 that are supplied by a
user/administrator (e.g., via console 291). For example, enhanced
storage manager 240 may receive user-supplied selections of sync
portions 214A and 214B, in data files 212A and 212B,
respectively.
[0296] At block 403, enhanced storage manager 240 (e.g., using
partial-sync manager 347) may generate metadata comprising
partial-sync relationships based on the user/administrator input
received in the preceding operation. For example, enhanced storage
manager 240 (e.g., using partial-sync manager 347) may generate an
association between sync portions 214A and 214B for ongoing
partial-sync operations in system 200.
[0297] At block 405, enhanced storage manager 240 (e.g., using
partial-sync manager 347) may store to sync database 346 the
metadata generated in the preceding operation and/or any other
relevant metadata for managing partial-sync operations in storage
management system 200.
[0298] At block 407, enhanced storage manager 240 (e.g., using
partial-sync manager 347) may transmit relevant partial-sync
metadata to appropriate data agents 242. For example, storage
manager 240 may transmit the identity of sync portion 214A and an
association thereof with sync portion 214B to enhanced data agent
242A; and may transmit the identity of sync portion 214B and an
association thereof with sync portion 214A to enhanced data agent
242B.
[0299] At block 409, enhanced data agent 242A (e.g., using change
monitor 342A) may receive the partial-sync metadata transmitted by
storage manager 240 in the preceding block. This may include the
identity(ies) of sync portions 214 (e.g., 214A) including the
identities of constituent data blocks, their respective location(s)
on storage device 104-1, etc. to be monitored for changes by
enhanced data agent 242A.
[0300] At block 410, which is analogous to block 409, enhanced data
agent 242B (e.g., using change monitor 342B) receives partial-sync
metadata from storage manager 240, analogous to block 409. This may
include the identity(ies) of sync portions 214 (e.g., 214B)
including the identities of constituent data blocks, their
respective location(s) on storage device 104-2, etc., to be
monitored for changes by enhanced data agent 242B.
[0301] At block 411, enhanced data agent 242A (e.g., using change
monitor 342A) monitors whether changes are occurring in its
assigned sync portion 214A. This operation may comprise enhanced
data agent 242A periodically checking operating-system change log
302-1 for any changes logged in reference to one or more data
blocks in sync portion 214A.
[0302] At block 412, which is analogous to block 411, enhanced data
agent 242B (e.g., using change monitor 342B) monitors whether
changes are occurring in its assigned sync portion 214B. This
operation may comprise enhanced data agent 242B periodically
checking operating-system change log 302-2 for any changes logged
in reference to one or more data blocks in sync portion 214B.
[0303] At block 413, enhanced data agent 242A (e.g., using change
monitor 342A) may detect one or more changed data blocks in its
assigned sync portions 214 (e.g., in 214A). Sync portion 214A is
designated a source sync portion. Based on detecting said changes
in the source sync portion, enhanced data agent 242A may notify
storage manager 240 of the change and/or the identities of any
changed blocks.
[0304] At block 415, enhanced storage manager 240 (e.g., using
partial-sync manager 347), may receive notice of changed blocks in
a source sync portion (e.g., 214A) from a data agent 242 (e.g.,
242A), which may be referred to as the "source data agent." Based
on the received notice, storage manager 240 (e.g., using
partial-sync manager 347), may launch and manage a partial-sync
operation to all affected target sync portions 214, as described in
more detail in a subsequent figure. The result of executing block
415 is that change(s) in a source sync portion may be propagated
throughout system 200 to one or more associated target sync
portions, so that the respective parent data files 212 are
partially synchronized relative to those associated sync portions.
The present illustrative example depicts only one target sync
portion 214B, but there is no limitation to the number of
associated sync portions 214 that may be managed by storage manager
240 in reference to any number of enhanced data agents 242.
[0305] At block 417, enhanced data agent 242A (e.g., using change
monitor 342A) may execute a backup operation in reference to the
changed source sync portion 214A. Thus, data agent 242A may receive
an instruction from enhanced storage manager 240 to generate a
secondary copy of sync portion 214A and interoperate with media
agent 144 to store the secondary copy to a secondary storage device
under the management of the media agent 144 (e.g., secondary copy
216). Enhanced data agent 242A may communicate status and/or
completion message(s) to storage manager 240 when the secondary
copy 216 has been successfully stored to secondary storage.
[0306] At block 419, enhanced data agent 242B (e.g., using change
monitor 342B) may execute a restore operation of the secondary copy
216 to target sync portion 214B. Thus data agent 242B may receive
an instruction from enhanced storage manager 240 to interoperate
with media agent 144 (or another media agent in communication with
media agent 144) to retrieve newly created secondary copy 216 from
secondary storage and transfer (e.g., copy, move, etc.) secondary
copy 216 to target sync portion 214B.
[0307] At block 421, enhanced storage manager 240 may receive job
completion status message(s) from the one or more target data
agents 242 (e.g., 242B) and may enter updated metadata to sync
database 346 and/or to management database 146, indicating that the
partial-sync operation begun at block 415 is complete, and the
change detected in source sync portion 214A has been propagated
successfully to target sync portion 214B (and to any other
associated sync portions 214).
[0308] From block 421, control may pass back to the monitoring
blocks, e.g., 411, 412, to detect further changes in sync portions
214 throughout system 200. A scenario in which a change is detected
in sync portion 214B is depicted in the next figure.
[0309] FIG. 5 depicts some salient operations of a method 500 for
partially synchronizing primary data files based on synchronizing
portions thereof via auto-restore operations from backup data
(e.g., when source portion 214B changes) according to the
illustrative embodiment. FIG. 5 depicts operations performed by
enhanced data agent 242A, enhanced storage manager 240, and
enhanced data agent 242B in storage management system 200, without
limitation. Blocks 401, 403, 405, 407, 409-412, and 415 were
described in a preceding figure. Block 415 is additionally
described in more detail in a subsequent figure.
[0310] At block 513, which follows block 412, enhanced data agent
242B (e.g., using change monitor 342B) may detect one or more
changed data blocks in its assigned sync portions 214 (e.g., in
214B). Sync portion 214B is designated a source sync portion. Based
on detecting said changes in the source sync portion, enhanced data
agent 242B may notify storage manager 240 of the change and/or the
identities of any changed blocks. Control passes to block 415.
[0311] At block 517, which follows block 415, enhanced data agent
242B (e.g., using change monitor 342B) may execute a backup
operation in reference to the changed source sync portion 214B.
Thus, data agent 242B may receive an instruction from enhanced
storage manager 240 to generate a secondary copy of sync portion
214B and interoperate with media agent 144 to store the secondary
copy to a secondary storage device under the management of the
media agent 144 (e.g., secondary copy 216). Enhanced data agent
242B may communicate status and/or completion message(s) to storage
manager 240 when the secondary copy 216 has been successfully
stored to secondary storage.
[0312] At block 519, which follows block 415 and block 517,
enhanced data agent 242A (e.g., using change monitor 342A) may
execute a restore operation of the secondary copy 216 to target
sync portion 214A. Thus data agent 242A may receive an instruction
from enhanced storage manager 240 to interoperate with media agent
144 (or another media agent in communication with media agent 144)
to retrieve newly created secondary copy 216 from secondary storage
and transfer (e.g., copy, move, etc.) secondary copy 216 to target
sync portion 214A.
[0313] At block 521, which follows block 519 and the completion of
the restore operation, enhanced storage manager 240 may receive job
completion status message(s) from the one or more target data
agents 242 (e.g., 242A) and may enter updated metadata to sync
database 346 and/or to management database 146, indicating that the
partial-sync operation begun at block 415 is complete, and the
change detected in source sync portion 214B has been propagated
successfully to target sync portion 214A (and to any other
associated sync portions 214).
[0314] From block 521, control may pass back to the monitoring
blocks, e.g., 411, 412, to detect further changes in sync portions
214 throughout system 200. A scenario in which a change is detected
in sync portion 214A is depicted in the preceding figure.
[0315] FIG. 6 depicts some salient sub-operations of block 415 in
method 400 and method 500. In general, block 415 is executed by
enhanced storage manager 240 (e.g., using partial-sync manager 347
and jobs agent 356) and is directed to launch and management of a
partial-sync operation to all affected target data files based on a
change detected in a source sync portion 214.
[0316] At block 601, enhanced storage manager 240 may receive, from
a source data agent 242, notice of change in a sync portion 214
(designated source sync portion) that is monitored by the source
data agent 242. In method 400, storage manager 240 illustratively
receives notice of change in sync portion 214A from data agent
242A. In method 500, storage manager 240 illustratively receives
notice of change in sync portion 214B from data agent 2426.
[0317] At block 603, enhanced storage manager 240 may manage a
backup operation based on the notice of change; thus, storage
manager 240 may instruct the source data agent 242 and a media
agent 144 to generate a secondary copy of the (changed) source sync
portion 214 and store the secondary copy (e.g., 216) to a secondary
storage device (e.g., 108); this backup operation may further
include appropriate updates to the media agent index (e.g., 153)
and storage manager metadata (e.g., 356) so that the status,
location, and other characteristics of the backup copy 216 may be
tracked. In contrast to prior art backup operations, which are
directed at whole files, whether a full backup or an incremental
one, the present backup operation is based on a distinctly defined
and identified sync portion, which is specifically identified,
monitored, and tracked in relation with corresponding associated
sync portions in other data files in system 200. Thus, the present
backup is directed only at the sync portion 214, which experienced
a change as detected by the monitoring data agent 242.
[0318] At block 605, enhanced storage manager 240 may prepare for a
restore operation based on partial-sync relationships metadata
retrieved from synchronization database 346. Accordingly, storage
manager 240 may identify other sync portions 214 (which are
designated target sync portions) associated with the source sync
portion and may further identify their respective monitoring data
agents 242 (which are designated target data agents).
[0319] At block 607, enhanced storage manager 240 may instruct each
target data agent 242 and media agent 144, which stored secondary
copy 216 to secondary storage (and may possibly instruct other
appropriate media agents deployed elsewhere in system 200), to
restore secondary copy 216 to one or more target sync portions 214,
thereby propagating the change(s) in the source sync portion to all
associated target sync portions. The restore operation(s) may
further include appropriate updates to the respective media agent
index (e.g., 153) and storage manager metadata (e.g., 356) so that
the status, location, and other characteristics of the restored
data may be tracked. In contrast to prior art restore operations,
which are directed at whole files, the present restore operation is
based on a distinctly defined and identified sync portion, which is
specifically identified, monitored, and tracked in relation with
corresponding associated sync portions in other data files in
system 200. Thus, the present restore is directed only at the sync
portion 214, which experienced a change as detected by the
monitoring source data agent 242.
[0320] In regard to the components, blocks, operations and/or
sub-operations described in reference to FIGS. 2-6, other
embodiments are possible within the scope of the present invention,
such that the above-recited components, steps, blocks, operations,
and/or messages/requests/queries/instructions are differently
arranged, sequenced, sub-divided, organized, and/or combined. In
some embodiments, a different component may initiate or execute a
given operation.
[0321] Example Embodiments
[0322] A number of example embodiments are recited below, at least
in part referencing an enhanced data agent.
[0323] An illustrative method for partially synchronizing primary
data files based on synchronizing portions thereof in a storage
management system may comprise: receiving, by a first data agent
executing on a first client computing device in a storage
management system, first metadata that identifies a first portion
of a first primary data file, wherein the first primary data file
comprises data generated by the first client computing device, and
wherein the first primary data file is associated with the first
data agent; detecting, by the first data agent, at least one change
in the first portion of the first primary data file; transmitting,
by the first data agent to a storage manager, notice of the
detected at least one change in the first portion of the first
primary data file; executing, by the first data agent, at least
part of a backup operation of the first portion of the first
primary data file, wherein the backup operation generates a
secondary copy of the first portion of the primary data file;
executing, by a second data agent, at least part of a restore
operation of the secondary copy to a second portion of a second
primary data file, wherein the second primary data file is
associated with the second data agent, which executes on a second
client computing device in the storage management system; and
wherein the first primary data file and the second primary data
file are partially synchronized relative to the first portion and
the second portion, respectively, based on the backup operation of
the first portion and further based on the restore operation of the
secondary copy of the first portion to the second portion of the
second primary data file.
[0324] The above-recited method wherein the first primary data file
and the second primary data file are partially synchronized
relative to the first portion and the second portion, respectively,
regardless of any changes to other portions of the first primary
data file that fall outside the first portion, and also regardless
of any changes to other portions of the second primary data file
that fall outside the second portion. The above-recited method
wherein the first data agent executes the at least part of the
backup operation based on an instruction received from the storage
manager. The above-recited method wherein the second data agent
executes the at least part of the restore operation based on an
instruction received from the storage manager. The above-recited
method wherein the detecting is based at least in part on an
operating-system change log residing on the first client computing
device. The above-recited method wherein the detecting is based at
least in part on the first data agent monitoring an
operating-system change log, which resides on the first client
computing device, for changes to one or more data blocks in the
first portion of the first primary data file, wherein the
monitoring is based on the received first metadata.
[0325] The above-recited method may further comprise: monitoring,
by the first data agent, based on the received first metadata, the
first portion of the first primary data file to detect whether one
or more changes occur in the first portion. The above-recited
method may further comprise: monitoring, by the first data agent,
based on the received first metadata, an operating-system change
log, which resides on the first client computing device, for
changes to one or more data blocks in the first portion of the
first primary data file. The above-recited method wherein the
detecting of the at least one change in the first portion of the
first primary data file is based at least in part on monitoring of
the first portion by the first data agent, wherein the monitoring
is based on the received first metadata. The above-recited method
wherein the detecting of the at least one change in the first
portion of the first primary data file is based at least in part on
monitoring of the first portion by the first data agent, wherein
the monitoring is based at least in part on an operating-system
change log residing on the first client computing device.
[0326] The above-recited method may further comprise: monitoring,
by the first data agent, based on the received first metadata, the
first portion of the first primary data file to detect whether one
or more changes occur in the first portion; monitoring, by the
second data agent, based on received second metadata that
identifies the second portion of the second primary data file, to
detect whether one or more changes occur in the second portion; and
when a change is detected in one of the first portion and the
second portion, synchronizing the first portion and the second
portion to include the detected change, thereby partially
synchronizing the first primary data file and the second data file,
respectively; wherein the synchronizing comprises (i) backing up
the changed one of the first portion and the second portion to a
secondary copy, and (ii) restoring the secondary copy to the other
one of the first portion and the second portion that was previously
unchanged. The above-recited method wherein the first portion of
the first primary data file and the second portion of the second
primary data file are selected by a user of the storage management
system. The above-recited method may further comprise: detecting,
by the second data agent, at least one change in the second portion
of the second primary data file; transmitting, by the second data
agent to the storage manager, notice of the detected at least one
change in the second portion of the second primary data file; based
on a third instruction received from the storage manager,
executing, by the second data agent, at least part of a backup
operation of the second portion of the second primary data file,
which results in a secondary copy of the second portion of the
primary data file; based on a fourth instruction received from the
storage manager, executing, by the first data agent, at least part
of a restore operation of the secondary copy to the first portion
of the first primary data file; and wherein the first primary data
file and the second primary data file are partially synchronized
relative to the first portion and the second portion, respectively,
based on the backup operation of the second portion and further
based on the restore operation of the secondary copy of the second
portion to the first portion of the first primary data file.
[0327] Another illustrative method for partially synchronizing
primary data files based on synchronizing portions thereof in a
storage management system may comprise: receiving, by a first data
agent executing on a first client computing device in the storage
management system, first metadata that identifies a first portion
of a first primary data file, wherein the first primary data file
comprises data generated by the first client computing device, and
wherein the first primary data file is associated with the first
data agent; receiving, by a second data agent executing on a second
client computing device in the storage management system, second
metadata that identifies a second portion of a second primary data
file, wherein the second primary data file comprises data generated
by the second client computing device, and wherein the second
primary data file is associated with the second data agent;
monitoring the first portion of the first primary data file, by the
first data agent, based on the received first metadata, to detect
whether one or more changes occur in the first portion; monitoring
the second portion of the second primary data file, by the second
data agent, based on the second received metadata, to detect
whether one or more changes occur in the second portion; and when a
change is detected in one of the first portion of the first primary
data file and the second portion of the second primary data file,
by a respective associated data agent, synchronizing the first
portion and the second portion to include the detected change,
thereby partially-synchronizing the first primary data file and the
second primary data file, respectively; wherein the synchronizing
comprises (i) backing up, at least in part by the detecting
associated data agent, the changed one of the first portion and the
second portion to a secondary copy, and (ii) restoring the
secondary copy to the other one of the first portion and the second
portion. The above-recited method wherein the synchronizing is
based on instructions received by the respective first and second
data agent from a storage manager, and further wherein the first
metadata and the second metadata also are received from the storage
manager. The above-recited method may further comprise: when the
change is detected in one of the first portion of the first primary
data file and the second portion of the second primary data file,
by a respective associated data agent, transmitting notice of the
detected change by the respective associated data agent to a
storage manager; and wherein the synchronizing is based on
instructions received by the respective first and second data agent
from the storage manager. The above-recited method wherein the
monitoring of the first portion by the first media agent comprises
monitoring an operating-system change log, which resides on the
first client computing device, for changes to one or more data
blocks in the first portion of the first primary data file. The
above-recited method wherein the change is detected in one of the
first portion of the first primary data file and the second portion
of the second primary data file, by a respective associated data
agent that monitors an operating-system change log, wherein the
operating-system change log resides on the same client computing
device that executes the respective associated data agent that
detects the change.
[0328] Another exemplary method for partially synchronizing primary
data files based on synchronizing portions thereof in a storage
management system may comprise: receiving, by a first data agent
executing on a first client computing device in the storage
management system, first metadata that identifies a first portion
of a first primary data file, wherein the first primary data file
comprises data generated by the first client computing device, and
wherein the first primary data file is associated with the first
data agent; detecting, by the first data agent, at least one change
in the first portion of the first primary data file; backing up, by
the first data agent in conjunction with a media agent, the first
portion of the first primary data file to a secondary copy of the
first portion of the primary data file, wherein the secondary copy
is stored to a secondary storage device in communication with the
media agent; restoring, by a second data agent in conjunction with
the media agent, the secondary copy of the first portion of the
primary data file to a second portion of a second primary data
file, wherein the second primary data file is associated with the
second data agent, which executes on a second client computing
device in the storage management system; and wherein the first
primary data file and the second primary data file are partially
synchronized relative to the first portion and the second portion,
respectively, based on the backing up of the first portion and
further based on the restoring of the secondary copy of the first
portion to the second portion of the second primary data file. The
above-recited method wherein the backing up is executed based on
instructions received by the first data agent and the media agent
from a storage manager that manages the storage management system.
The above-recited method wherein the backing up is executed based
on instructions received by the first data agent and the media
agent from a storage manager that manages the storage management
system, and further wherein the first metadata is also received
from the storage manager. The above-recited method wherein the
restoring is executed based on instructions received by the second
data agent and the media agent from a storage manager that manages
the storage management system. The above-recited method wherein the
restoring is executed based on instructions received by the second
data agent and the media agent from a storage manager that manages
the storage management system, and further wherein the second
metadata is also received from the storage manager.
[0329] A number of example embodiments are recited below, at least
in part referencing an enhanced storage management system and/or
enhanced storage manager.
[0330] An exemplary storage management system for partial
synchronization of primary data files based on synchronization of
portions thereof may comprise: a first client computing device
comprising a first data agent; a first primary storage device in
communication with the first client computing device, wherein the
first primary storage device comprises a first primary data file
generated by the first client computing device, and wherein the
first primary data file comprises a first portion; a second client
computing device comprising a second data agent; a second primary
storage device in communication with the second client computing
device, wherein the second primary storage device comprises a
second primary data file generated by the second client computing
device, and wherein the second primary data file comprises a second
portion; a secondary storage computing device comprising a media
agent; a secondary storage device in communication with the
secondary storage computing device; a storage manager in
communication with the first client computing device, the second
client computing device, and the secondary storage computing
device, wherein the storage manager comprises metadata for
partial-synchronization operations in the storage management
system; wherein the first data agent is configured to: receive,
from the storage manager, first metadata that identifies the first
portion of the first primary data file, detect at least one change
in the first portion of the first primary data file, and back up,
in conjunction with the media agent, the first portion of the first
primary data file to a secondary copy stored to the secondary
storage device; and wherein the second data agent is configured to:
restore, in conjunction with the media agent, the secondary copy to
the second portion of the second primary data file, thereby
synchronizing the first portion of the first primary data file and
the second portion of the second primary data file. The
above-recited storage management system wherein the storage manager
is configured to: instruct the first data agent and the media agent
to back up the first portion of the first primary data file to the
secondary copy, and instruct the second data agent and the media
agent, after the backup of the first portion is complete, to
restore the secondary copy to the second portion of the second
primary data file. The above-recited storage management system
wherein the storage manager is further configured to instruct the
first data agent and the media agent to back up the first portion
of the first primary data file based on a notice of a detected
change to the first portion of the first primary data file received
by the storage manager from the first data agent. The above-recited
storage management system wherein the storage manager is further
configured to: store first metadata that identifies the first
portion of the first primary data file, second metadata that
identifies the second portion of the second primary data file, and
an association between the first portion and the second portion,
transmit the first metadata to the first data agent, and transmit
the second metadata to the second data agent. The above-recited
storage management system wherein the storage manager is configured
to manage a partial-synchronization operation for the first primary
data file and the second primary data file, wherein the storage
manager is further configured to: instruct the first data agent and
the media agent to back up the first portion of the first primary
data file to the secondary copy, and instruct the second data agent
and the media agent, after the backup of the first portion is
complete, to restore the secondary copy to the second portion of
the second primary data file.
[0331] The above-recited storage management system wherein the
first data agent is configured to detect at least one change in the
first portion of the first primary data file based on an
operating-system change log in the first client computing device.
The above-recited storage management system wherein the first
primary data file and the second primary data file are partially
synchronized relative to the first portion and the second portion,
respectively, regardless of any changes to other portions of the
first primary data file that fall outside the first portion, and
also regardless of any changes to other portions of the second
primary data file that fall outside the second portion. The
above-recited storage management system wherein the second data
agent is further configured to: detect at least one change in the
second portion of the second primary data file, and back up, in
conjunction with the media agent, the second portion of the second
primary data file to the secondary copy stored to the secondary
storage device; and wherein the first data agent is configured to:
restore, in conjunction with the media agent, the secondary copy of
the second portion to the first portion of the first primary data
file, thereby synchronizing the first portion of the first primary
data file and the second portion of the second primary data
file.
[0332] Another exemplary storage management system for partial
synchronization of primary data files based on synchronization of
portions thereof may comprise: a first client computing device
comprising a first data agent; a first primary storage device in
communication with the first client computing device, wherein the
first primary storage device comprises a first primary data file
generated by the first client computing device, and wherein the
first primary data file comprises a first portion; a second client
computing device comprising a second data agent; a second primary
storage device in communication with the second client computing
device, wherein the second primary storage device comprises a
second primary data file generated by the second client computing
device, and wherein the second primary data file comprises a second
portion; a secondary storage computing device comprising a media
agent; a secondary storage device in communication with the
secondary storage computing device; a storage manager in
communication with the first client computing device, the second
client computing device, and the secondary storage computing
device, wherein the storage manager comprises metadata for
partial-synchronization operations in the storage management
system; wherein the storage manager is configured to manage a
partial-synchronization operation for the first primary data file
and the second primary data file, wherein the storage manager is
configured to: based on a notice of a detected change to the first
portion of the first primary data file received from the first data
agent, instruct the first data agent and the media agent to back up
the first portion of the first primary data file to a secondary
copy stored to the secondary storage device, and instruct the
second data agent and the media agent, after the backup of the
first portion is complete, to restore the secondary copy to the
second portion of the second primary data file. The above-recited
storage management system wherein the instruction to restore the
secondary copy of the first portion of the first primary data file
to the second portion of the second primary data file is based on
an association between the first portion and the second portion.
The above-recited storage management system wherein the storage
manager is further configured to: store first metadata that
identifies the first portion of the first primary data file, second
metadata that identifies the second portion of the second primary
data file, and an association between the first portion and the
second portion, transmit the first metadata to the first data
agent, and transmit the second metadata to the second data agent.
The above-recited storage management system wherein the storage
manager is further configured to: store first metadata that
identifies the first portion of the first primary data file, second
metadata that identifies the second portion of the second primary
data file, and an association between the first portion and the
second portion, transmit the first metadata to the first data
agent, and transmit the second metadata to the second data agent;
wherein the instruction to restore the secondary copy of the first
portion of the first primary data file to the second portion of the
second primary data file is based on the association between the
first portion and the second portion.
[0333] The above-recited storage management system wherein the
storage manager is further configured to: store first metadata that
identifies the first portion of the first primary data file, second
metadata that identifies the second portion of the second primary
data file, and an association between the first portion and the
second portion, transmit the first metadata to the first data
agent, instruct the first data agent to monitor changes to the
first portion of the first primary data file, transmit the second
metadata to the second data agent, and instruct the second data
agent to monitor changes to the second portion of the second
primary data file. The above-recited storage management system
wherein after the partial-synchronization operation managed by the
storage manager, the first primary data file and the second primary
data file are partially synchronized relative to the first portion
and the second portion, respectively, regardless of any changes to
other portions of the first primary data file that fall outside the
first portion, and also regardless of any changes to other portions
of the second primary data file that fall outside the second
portion.
[0334] An exemplary method for partially synchronizing primary data
files based on synchronizing portions thereof in a storage
management system may comprise: storing, by a storage manager,
first metadata that identifies a first portion of a first primary
data file, second metadata that identifies a second portion of a
second primary data file, and an association between the first
portion and the second portion; managing, by the storage manager, a
partial-synchronization operation for the first primary data file
and the second primary data file relative to the first portion and
the second portion, respectively, based at least in part on the
association between the first portion and the second portion,
wherein the managing of the partial-synchronization operation is
based on a notice of a detected change to the first portion of the
first primary data file received from a first data agent executing
in the storage management system, and wherein the managing
comprises: instructing the first data agent and a media agent
executing in the storage management system to back up the first
portion of the first primary data file to a secondary copy, wherein
the secondary copy is stored to a secondary storage device in
communication with the media agent, and after the backup of the
first portion is complete, instructing the media agent and a second
data agent that is associated with the second primary data file to
restore the secondary copy to the second portion of the second
primary data file. The above-recited method may further comprise:
transmitting, by the storage manager, the first metadata to the
first data agent; and transmitting, by the storage manager, the
second metadata to the second data agent. The above-recited method
may further comprise: transmitting, by the storage manager, the
first metadata to the first data agent; instructing, by the storage
manager, the first data agent to monitor changes to the first
portion of the first primary data file; transmitting, by the
storage manager, the second metadata to the second data agent; and
instructing, by the storage manager, the second data agent to
monitor changes to the second portion of the second primary data
file. The above-recited method wherein after the
partial-synchronization operation managed by the storage manager,
the first primary data file and the second primary data file are
partially synchronized relative to the first portion and the second
portion, respectively, regardless of any changes to other portions
of the first primary data file that fall outside the first portion,
and also regardless of any changes to other portions of the second
primary data file that fall outside the second portion. The
above-recited method may further comprise: receiving, by the first
data agent executing on a first client computing device in the
storage management system, the first metadata that identifies the
first portion of the first primary data file, wherein the first
primary data file comprises data generated by the first client
computing device; detecting, by the first data agent, at least one
change in the first portion of the first primary data file;
transmitting, by the first data agent to a storage manager, notice
of the detected at least one change in the first portion of the
first primary data file; executing, by the first data agent, at
least part of the backup operation of the first portion of the
first primary data file to the secondary copy of the first portion
of the primary data file. The above-recited method may further
comprise: executing, by the second data agent, which executes on a
second client computing device in the storage management system, at
least part of the restore operation of the secondary copy to the
second portion of a second primary data file.
Terminology
[0335] Conditional language, such as, among others, "can," "could,"
"might," or "may," unless specifically stated otherwise, or
otherwise understood within the context as used, is generally
intended to convey that certain embodiments include, while other
embodiments do not include, certain features, elements and/or
steps. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended to
imply that features, elements and/or steps are in any way required
for one or more embodiments or that one or more embodiments
necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without user input
or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or steps are
included or are to be performed in any particular embodiment.
[0336] Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout
the description and the claims, the words "comprise," "comprising,"
and the like are to be construed in an inclusive sense, as opposed
to an exclusive or exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense
of "including, but not limited to." As used herein, the terms
"connected," "coupled," or any variant thereof means any connection
or coupling, either direct or indirect, between two or more
elements; the coupling or connection between the elements can be
physical, logical, or a combination thereof. Additionally, the
words "herein," "above," "below," and words of similar import, when
used in this application, refer to this application as a whole and
not to any particular portions of this application. Where the
context permits, words in the above Detailed Description using the
singular or plural number may also include the plural or singular
number respectively. The word "or" in reference to a list of two or
more items, covers all of the following interpretations of the
word: any one of the items in the list, all of the items in the
list, and any combination of the items in the list. Likewise the
term "and/or" in reference to a list of two or more items, covers
all of the following interpretations of the word: any one of the
items in the list, all of the items in the list, and any
combination of the items in the list.
[0337] Depending on the embodiment, certain operations, acts,
events, or functions of any of the algorithms described herein can
be performed in a different sequence, can be added, merged, or left
out altogether (e.g., not all are necessary for the practice of the
algorithms). Moreover, in certain embodiments, operations, acts,
functions, or events can be performed concurrently, e.g., through
multi-threaded processing, interrupt processing, or multiple
processors or processor cores or on other parallel architectures,
rather than sequentially.
[0338] Systems and modules described herein may comprise software,
firmware, hardware, or any combination(s) of software, firmware, or
hardware suitable for the purposes described herein. Software and
other modules may reside and execute on servers, workstations,
personal computers, computerized tablets, PDAs, and other computing
devices suitable for the purposes described herein. Software and
other modules may be accessible via local memory, via a network,
via a browser, or via other means suitable for the purposes
described herein. Data structures described herein may comprise
computer files, variables, programming arrays, programming
structures, or any electronic information storage schemes or
methods, or any combinations thereof, suitable for the purposes
described herein. User interface elements described herein may
comprise elements from graphical user interfaces, interactive voice
response, command line interfaces, and other suitable
interfaces.
[0339] Further, the processing of the various components of the
illustrated systems can be distributed across multiple machines,
networks, and other computing resources. In addition, two or more
components of a system can be combined into fewer components.
Various components of the illustrated systems can be implemented in
one or more virtual machines, rather than in dedicated computer
hardware systems and/or computing devices. Likewise, the data
repositories shown can represent physical and/or logical data
storage, including, for example, storage area networks or other
distributed storage systems. Moreover, in some embodiments the
connections between the components shown represent possible paths
of data flow, rather than actual connections between hardware.
While some examples of possible connections are shown, any of the
subset of the components shown can communicate with any other
subset of components in various implementations.
[0340] Embodiments are also described above with reference to flow
chart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus
(systems) and computer program products. Each block of the flow
chart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of
blocks in the flow chart illustrations and/or block diagrams, may
be implemented by computer program instructions. Such instructions
may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer,
special purpose computer, specially-equipped computer (e.g.,
comprising a high-performance database server, a graphics
subsystem, etc.) or other programmable data processing apparatus to
produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via
the processor(s) of the computer or other programmable data
processing apparatus, create means for implementing the acts
specified in the flow chart and/or block diagram block or
blocks.
[0341] These computer program instructions may also be stored in a
non-transitory computer-readable memory that can direct a computer
or other programmable data processing apparatus to operate in a
particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the
computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture
including instruction means which implement the acts specified in
the flow chart and/or block diagram block or blocks. The computer
program instructions may also be loaded onto a computing device or
other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of
operations to be performed on the computing device or other
programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process
such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other
programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the acts
specified in the flow chart and/or block diagram block or
blocks.
[0342] Any patents and applications and other references noted
above, including any that may be listed in accompanying filing
papers, are incorporated herein by reference. Aspects of the
invention can be modified, if necessary, to employ the systems,
functions, and concepts of the various references described above
to provide yet further implementations of the invention.
[0343] These and other changes can be made to the invention in
light of the above Detailed Description. While the above
description describes certain examples of the invention, and
describes the best mode contemplated, no matter how detailed the
above appears in text, the invention can be practiced in many ways.
Details of the system may vary considerably in its specific
implementation, while still being encompassed by the invention
disclosed herein. As noted above, particular terminology used when
describing certain features or aspects of the invention should not
be taken to imply that the terminology is being redefined herein to
be restricted to any specific characteristics, features, or aspects
of the invention with which that terminology is associated. In
general, the terms used in the following claims should not be
construed to limit the invention to the specific examples disclosed
in the specification, unless the above Detailed Description section
explicitly defines such terms. Accordingly, the actual scope of the
invention encompasses not only the disclosed examples, but also all
equivalent ways of practicing or implementing the invention under
the claims.
[0344] To reduce the number of claims, certain aspects of the
invention are presented below in certain claim forms, but the
applicant contemplates the various aspects of the invention in any
number of claim forms. For example, while only one aspect of the
invention is recited as a means-plus-function claim under 35 U.S.C
sec. 112(f) (AIA), other aspects may likewise be embodied as a
means-plus-function claim, or in other forms, such as being
embodied in a computer-readable medium. Any claims intended to be
treated under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 112(f) will begin with the words
"means for", but use of the term "for" in any other context is not
intended to invoke treatment under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 112(f).
Accordingly, the applicant reserves the right to pursue additional
claims after filing this application, in either this application or
in a continuing application.
* * * * *