U.S. patent application number 17/576698 was filed with the patent office on 2022-09-08 for transaction log index generation in an enterprise backup system.
The applicant listed for this patent is Commvault Systems, Inc.. Invention is credited to Pavan Kumar Reddy BEDADALA, Hemant MISHRA, Manoj Kumar PRADHAN, Gopikannan VENUGOPALSAMY.
Application Number | 20220283989 17/576698 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 1000006351593 |
Filed Date | 2022-09-08 |
United States Patent
Application |
20220283989 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
BEDADALA; Pavan Kumar Reddy ;
et al. |
September 8, 2022 |
TRANSACTION LOG INDEX GENERATION IN AN ENTERPRISE BACKUP SYSTEM
Abstract
Certain embodiments disclosed herein reduce or eliminate a
communication bottleneck at the storage manager by reducing
communication with the storage manager while maintaining
functionality of an information management system. In some
implementations, operations performed as part of a backup process
may be stored in transaction logs. These transaction logs may
include information about a transaction performed between the
client computing system and the network storage that hosts the
backup of the client computing system. The transaction logs may be
provided to a secondary storage system that can be used to form a
backup index. The backup index may be used to facilitate accessing
the data stored at the network storage. Advantageously, generating
the transaction logs and separating the generation of the backup
index from the backup process can reduce resource usage during
performance of the backup and speed up the backup process while
further reducing interaction with the storage manager.
Inventors: |
BEDADALA; Pavan Kumar Reddy;
(Piscataway, NJ) ; PRADHAN; Manoj Kumar; (East
Brunswick, NJ) ; MISHRA; Hemant; (Englishtown,
NJ) ; VENUGOPALSAMY; Gopikannan; (Sunnyvale,
CA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Commvault Systems, Inc. |
Tinton Falls |
NJ |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
1000006351593 |
Appl. No.: |
17/576698 |
Filed: |
January 14, 2022 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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16526699 |
Jul 30, 2019 |
11263173 |
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17576698 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 16/1865 20190101;
G06F 11/1474 20130101; G06F 11/1456 20130101; G06F 16/172 20190101;
G06F 16/2379 20190101; G06F 16/27 20190101; G06F 21/6227 20130101;
G06F 16/134 20190101 |
International
Class: |
G06F 16/13 20060101
G06F016/13; G06F 16/18 20060101 G06F016/18; G06F 16/23 20060101
G06F016/23; G06F 11/14 20060101 G06F011/14; G06F 16/27 20060101
G06F016/27; G06F 21/62 20060101 G06F021/62; G06F 16/172 20060101
G06F016/172 |
Claims
1. (canceled)
2. A computer-implemented method, comprising: as implemented by one
or more hardware processors of an information management system,
the one or more hardware processors configured with specific
computer-executable instructions, accessing first metadata
associated with a first data protection copy of data associated
with a first client computing system of an information management
system, the first data protection copy stored on one or more
storage devices of a network storage system as part of a data
protection operation; providing a first transaction log file
generated based on the first metadata to a first media agent of a
plurality of media agents of the information management system, the
first media agent associated with the first client computing
system; and replicating the first transaction log file to at least
a second media agent of the plurality of media agents, wherein the
second media agent is selected from the plurality of media agents
based at least in part on an identity of the first client computing
system or a job identifier associated with the first transaction
log file.
3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising
updating an index based on a set of transaction log files, the set
of transaction log files including the first transaction log
file.
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, further comprising
deleting the set of transaction log files
5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, further comprising,
prior to said deleting the set of transaction log files,
replicating the index within a distributed index storage
system.
6. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, further comprising
determining occurrence of a trigger to update the index, wherein
the trigger comprises one or more of: an elapse of a period of
time, an indication of completion of a backup job, a number of
transaction log files added to the set of transaction log files
satisfying a threshold; or receipt of a command to update the
index.
7. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein said
updating the index comprises generating a new index.
8. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein said
generating the first transaction log file is performed by a third
media agent at the first client computing system that is separate
from the first media agent.
9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein a second
transaction log file associated with a second data protection
operation associated with a second client computing system is
provided to the second media agent, and wherein the second
transaction log file is replicated to the first media agent.
10. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the first
data protection operation performed using a cached job identifier
associated with the first client computing system.
11. A system comprising: one or more computing systems of an
information management system, the one or more computing systems
comprising one or more hardware processors configured to: at a
first media agent of a plurality of media agents of the information
management system and associated with a first client computing
system of the information management system, receive a first
transaction log file generated based on first metadata associated
with the first client computing system, the first metadata
associated with a first data protection copy of data associated
with a first client computing system of the information management
system, the first data protection copy stored on one or more
storage devices of a network storage system as part of a data
protection operation; and replicate the first transaction log file
to at least a second media agent of the plurality of media agents
of the information management system, wherein the second media
agent is selected from the plurality of media agents based at least
in part on an identity of the first client computing system or a
job identifier associated with the first transaction log file.
12. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more hardware
processors are further configured to update an index at the network
storage system based on a set of transaction log files including
the first transaction log file.
13. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more hardware
processors are further configured to determine the set of
transaction log files to access based at least in part on the job
identifier associated with the client computing system.
14. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more hardware
processors are further configured to delete the set of transaction
log files.
15. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more hardware
processors are further configured to, prior to the deletion of the
set of transaction log files, replicate the index within a
distributed index storage system.
16. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more hardware
processors are further configured to determine occurrence of a
trigger to update the index, wherein the trigger comprises one or
more of: an elapse of a period of time, an indication of completion
of a backup job, a number of transaction log files added to the set
of transaction log files satisfying a threshold; or receipt of a
command to update the index.
17. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more hardware
processors update the index by generating a new index.
18. The system of claim 11, wherein the first transaction log file
is generated by a third media agent at the first client computing
system that is separate from the first media agent.
19. The system of claim 11, wherein a second transaction log file
associated with a second data protection operation associated with
a second client computing system is provided to the second media
agent, and wherein the second transaction log file is replicated to
the first media agent.
20. The system of claim 11, wherein the first data protection
operation performed using a cached job identifier associated with
the first client computing system.
Description
INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE TO ANY PRIORITY APPLICATIONS
[0001] Any and all applications, if any, for which a foreign or
domestic priority claim is identified in the Application Data Sheet
of the present application are hereby incorporated by reference in
their entireties under 37 CFR 1.57.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
[0002] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains
material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright
owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of
the patent document and/or the patent disclosure as it appears in
the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent file and/or
records, but otherwise reserves all copyrights whatsoever.
BACKGROUND
[0003] Businesses 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, file servers, web servers, virtual machines, and
so on as part of a daily, weekly, or monthly maintenance schedule.
The company may similarly protect computing systems used by its
employees, such as those used by an accounting department,
marketing department, engineering department, and so forth. Given
the rapidly expanding volume of data under management, companies
also continue to seek innovative techniques for managing data
growth, for example by migrating data to lower-cost storage over
time, reducing redundant data, pruning lower priority data, etc.
Enterprises also increasingly view their stored data as a valuable
asset and look for solutions that leverage their data. For
instance, data analysis capabilities, information management,
improved data presentation and access features, and the like, are
in increasing demand.
SUMMARY
[0004] In some cases, a bottleneck may be created in an information
management system by components or systems of the information
management system that help regulate the processing of data across
the information management system. As the number of client devices
supported by the information management system increases, the
bottleneck can worsen, which can reduce the availability of
computing resources within an information management system. This
reduction in resource availability can include a reduction in
hardware processor availability and/or storage availability. In
some cases, it is not possible to scale the number of supported
client devices to a desired level or amount because of the
constraint on available resources at the information management
system.
[0005] One example where users may notice the reduction in resource
availability due to communication bottlenecks in the information
management system is in the backup or restore context. A storage
manager may trigger a backup process for a client computing system,
such as a laptop, desktop, or tablet. Each time the backup process
is to be performed, the storage manager may alert the client and
provide metadata to the client that, among other features,
instructs the client regarding the availability of resources to
perform the backup process. The client may then communicate data
for backup to a media agent along with metadata to facilitate
indexing the data at a backup location, such as a network storage
site or a secondary storage disk. Further, the storage manager may
provide metadata to the media agent instructing the media agent
regarding resources to use to complete the backup, the type of
backup to perform, and other backup related features or decisions.
When the information management system includes a large number of
clients (such as 10,000, 20,000, 100,000, or 200,000 clients), the
communication with the storage manager during the backup process
can cause a bottleneck in the backup process when a large number or
percentage of the clients are to be backed up simultaneously or
substantially in parallel. Similar problems may occur in the
restore context.
[0006] Certain embodiments disclosed herein reduce or eliminate the
bottleneck by reducing communication with the storage manager. In
some implementations, a client obtains information for enabling a
secondary storage job (e.g., a backup or restore) from a storage
manager and stores the information (which may be referred to as job
metadata) in a local cache. The client may then reuse the job
metadata for multiple storage jobs reducing the frequency of
communication with the storage manager. When a configuration of the
information management system changes, or the availability of
resources changes, the storage manager can push updates to the job
metadata to the clients. Further, a client can periodically request
updated job metadata from the storage manager ensuring that the
client does not rely on out-of-date job metadata.
[0007] Further, certain embodiments disclosed herein enable a
client of the information management system to communicate data
directly with a cloud or network storage system while providing
index data or backup metadata to the media agent. Advantageously,
in certain embodiments, by separating the data and the backup
metadata, the burden on computing resources of the media agent can
be reduced. In certain embodiments, by distributing backup
management, at least in part, to the client systems, communications
with the storage manager and the media agent during backup and
restore operations can be reduced. Further, the distributed backup
management enables the information management system to be scaled
to support a greater number of client devices while utilizing the
same amount or fewer computing resources compared to
non-distributed backup management systems.
[0008] In addition, certain embodiments disclosed herein may
present backup index information in transaction logs. These
transaction logs may include information about a transaction
performed between the client computing system and the network
storage that hosts the backup of the client computing system. The
transaction typically, but not necessarily, may relate to the
modification of data stored at the backup via, for example,
performing a backup, deleting data from a backup, consolidating
backups, or any other process that may modify the data stored at
the network storage system. The transaction logs may be provided to
a secondary storage system that can be used to form a backup index.
The backup index may be used to facilitate accessing the data
stored at the network storage. Advantageously, in certain
embodiments, by separately generating the transaction logs and
providing the transaction logs to the secondary storage system, the
backup index can be generated in a separate process from the
backup, thereby reducing resource usage during performance of the
backup and speeding up the backup process.
[0009] Further, in certain embodiments disclosed herein, a client
computing device interacting with the network storage system during
a backup process can monitor commit cycles of chunks being stored
at the network storage system. Chunks, in some cases, may be larger
units than files, smaller than certain files, or include portions
of files with other portions of files being stored in other chunks.
By monitoring the commit confirmation of chunks, the client
computing device can restart an interrupted backup process at a
particular point without scanning a backup or primary store to
determine where the backup was interrupted, thereby reducing the
time to restart a backup and the resources used during restart of
the backup process.
[0010] Moreover, certain embodiments disclosed herein reduce or
eliminate the communication bottleneck that may occur in the backup
context (and in other data management contexts) by reducing the
number of queries to the storage manager. In some cases, a client
computing system, via, for example, a data agent or a media agent
may communicate with the storage manager numerous times during a
single backup process. For example, the data agent may communicate
with the storage manager between 10 and 15 times, or more, during a
single backup process. In some cases, poor software development or
poor configuration management may result in a number of unnecessary
queries to the storage manager. These queries may be unnecessary
because, for example, they are duplicative of queries previously
requested as part of the job, or as part of an earlier job.
[0011] For an information management system that includes a 1,000
client computers that are backed up once every hour with 10 to 15
queries per backup process, there may be between 240,000 and
360,000 queries to the storage manager in a single day. Certain
embodiments disclosed herein reduce or eliminate queries to the
storage manager by caching previous storage manager queries at a
local cache. In addition, communications with the storage manager
may be further reduced by aggregating related queries. In certain
cases, the number of communications in the previous example, can be
reduced from between 240,000 and 360,000 queries down to 24,000
queries or even 1,000 queries (e.g., 1 per client computer per
hour, or one per client computer per day). Moreover, as many of the
queries may be redundant because, for example, each backup uses
similar configuration information or because changes in the
information management system may be relatively rare (e.g., once a
month, 2-3 times a quarter, once a year, etc.), using the local
cache may enable queries to be reduced significantly further (e.g.,
from 24,000 a day to a 1,000 or less a day). It should be
understood that the numbers in the above examples are for
illustration purposes only. It is possible that more or less
queries may occur for a particular entity's configuration of the
information management system. Advantageously, in certain
embodiments, by reducing the number of queries to the storage
manager, the storage manager can support a greater number of client
computer systems. Moreover, an information management system can
reduce the number of storage manager systems while supporting a
larger number of client computer systems.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0012] FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary
information management system.
[0013] 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.
[0014] 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.
[0015] FIG. 1D is a block diagram illustrating a scalable
information management system.
[0016] FIG. 1E illustrates certain secondary copy operations
according to an exemplary storage policy.
[0017] FIGS. 1F-1H are block diagrams illustrating suitable data
structures that may be employed by the information management
system.
[0018] FIG. 2A illustrates a system and technique for synchronizing
primary data to a destination such as a failover site using
secondary copy data.
[0019] FIG. 2B illustrates an information management system
architecture incorporating use of a network file system (NFS)
protocol for communicating between the primary and secondary
storage subsystems.
[0020] FIG. 2C is a block diagram of an example of a highly
scalable managed data pool architecture.
[0021] FIG. 3 presents one example of a dataflow diagram
illustrating the flow of data and metadata within an information
management system.
[0022] FIG. 4 presents an alternative example of a dataflow diagram
illustrating the flow of data and metadata within an information
management system that reduces overhead compared to the dataflow of
FIG. 3 enabling an increase in scale for the information management
system.
[0023] FIG. 5A is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
500 for reducing a management burden on a storage manager enabling
an increase in scale of clients supported by an information
management system, according to an embodiment.
[0024] FIG. 5B is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
575 for reducing a management burden on a storage manager enabling
an increase in scale of clients supported by an information
management system, according to an embodiment.
[0025] FIG. 6 depicts operations of a client managed job process
600 according to an embodiment.
[0026] FIG. 7 depicts operations of a job metadata update process
700 according to an embodiment.
[0027] FIG. 8 depicts operations of a backup process 800 according
to an embodiment.
[0028] FIG. 9 depicts operations of an indexing process 900
according to an embodiment.
[0029] FIG. 10 depicts operations of a media agent restoration
process 1000 according to an embodiment.
[0030] FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
1100 for reducing a management burden on a storage manager enabling
an increase in the number of clients supported by an information
management system, according to an embodiment.
[0031] FIG. 12 depicts operations of a storage manager query
process 1200 according to an embodiment.
[0032] FIG. 13 depicts operations of a cache invalidation process
1300 according to an embodiment.
[0033] FIG. 14 depicts operations of a partial cache invalidation
process 1400 according to an embodiment.
[0034] FIG. 15 is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
1500 using transaction log files to reduce a management burden on a
storage manager enabling an increase in the number of clients
supported by an information management system, according to an
embodiment.
[0035] FIG. 16 depicts operations of a transaction log based
indexing process 1600 according to an embodiment.
[0036] FIG. 17 depicts operations of a media agent restoration
process 1700 according to an embodiment.
[0037] FIG. 18 depicts operations of a secondary storage access
process 1800 according to an embodiment.
[0038] FIG. 19 is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
1900 using a commit process to restore an interrupted backup
without interacting with a storage manager enabling an increase in
the number of clients supported by an information management
system, according to an embodiment.
[0039] FIG. 20 depicts operations of a backup tracking process 2000
according to an embodiment.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0040] Detailed descriptions and examples of systems and methods
according to one or more embodiments may be found in the section
titled Transaction Log Based Indexing, as well as in the section
titled Example Embodiments, and also in FIGS. 15-20 herein.
Furthermore, components and functionality for storage manager query
caching may be configured and/or incorporated into information
management systems such as those described herein in FIGS. 1A-1H
and 2A-2C. Moreover, embodiments of storage manager query caching
can be utilized with and/or combined with embodiments of
distributing backup management described herein with respect to
FIG. 3-14. A "cloud computing environment" as used herein can
include a collection (or suite) of resources provided as a service
by the cloud service provider to a cloud services account. Such a
cloud computing environment can be accessed via the cloud service
account that entitles the subscriber to a suite of services in a
given cloud service supplied by a cloud service provider. Cloud
computing environments can vary among cloud services, among cloud
availability zones, and even among cloud service accounts from the
same cloud service provider. A cloud computing environment as used
herein need not comprise data processing (computing) resources and
can be limited to data storage and retrieval features. Certain
embodiments described herein can be implemented in a cloud
computing environment, for example, including those shown and
described with respect to FIGS. 5A-20.
[0041] Various embodiments described herein are intimately tied to,
enabled by, and would not exist except for, computer technology.
For example, storage manager query caching an distributing backup
management as described herein in reference to various embodiments
cannot reasonably be performed by humans alone, without the
computer technology upon which they are implemented.
Information Management System Overview
[0042] With the increasing importance of protecting and leveraging
data, organizations simply cannot risk losing critical data.
Moreover, runaway data growth and other modern realities make
protecting and managing data increasingly difficult. There is
therefore a need for efficient, powerful, and user-friendly
solutions for protecting and managing data and for smart and
efficient management of data storage. Depending on the size of the
organization, there may be many data production sources which are
under the purview of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of
individuals. In the past, individuals were sometimes responsible
for managing and protecting their own data, and a patchwork of
hardware and software point solutions may have been used in any
given organization. These solutions were often provided by
different vendors and had limited or no interoperability. Certain
embodiments described herein address these and other shortcomings
of prior approaches by implementing scalable, unified,
organization-wide information management, including data storage
management.
[0043] FIG. 1A shows one such information management system 100 (or
"system 100"), which generally includes combinations of hardware
and software configured to protect and manage data and metadata
that are generated and used by computing devices in system 100.
System 100 may be referred to in some embodiments as a "storage
management system" or a "data storage management system." System
100 performs information management operations, some of which may
be referred to as "storage operations" or "data storage
operations," to protect and manage the data residing in and/or
managed by system 100. The organization that employs system 100 may
be a corporation or other business entity, non-profit organization,
educational institution, household, governmental agency, or the
like.
[0044] 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/publications and
patent applications assigned to Commvault Systems, Inc., each of
which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety herein:
[0045] U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,880, entitled "Modular Backup and
Retrieval System Used in Conjunction With a Storage Area Network";
[0046] U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298, entitled "System And Method For
Archiving Objects In An Information Store"; [0047] U.S. Pat. No.
7,246,207, entitled "System and Method for Dynamically Performing
Storage Operations in a Computer Network"; [0048] U.S. Pat. No.
7,315,923, entitled "System And Method For Combining Data Streams
In Pipelined Storage Operations In A Storage Network"; [0049] U.S.
Pat. No. 7,343,453, entitled "Hierarchical Systems and Methods for
Providing a Unified View of Storage Information"; [0050] U.S. Pat.
No. 7,395,282, entitled "Hierarchical Backup and Retrieval System";
[0051] U.S. Pat. No. 7,529,782, entitled "System and Methods for
Performing a Snapshot and for Restoring Data"; [0052] U.S. Pat. No.
7,617,262, entitled "System and Methods for Monitoring Application
Data in a Data Replication System"; [0053] U.S. Pat. No. 7,734,669,
entitled "Managing Copies Of Data"; [0054] U.S. Pat. No. 7,747,579,
entitled "Metabase for Facilitating Data Classification"; [0055]
U.S. Pat. No. 8,156,086, entitled "Systems And Methods For Stored
Data Verification"; [0056] U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, entitled
"Method and System for Offline Indexing of Content and Classifying
Stored Data"; [0057] U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, entitled "System And
Method For Performing Auxiliary Storage Operations"; [0058] 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"; [0059] U.S. Pat.
No. 8,307,177, entitled "Systems And Methods For Management Of
Virtualization Data"; [0060] U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652, entitled
"Content-Aligned, Block-Based Deduplication"; [0061] U.S. Pat. No.
8,578,120, entitled "Block-Level Single Instancing"; [0062] U.S.
Pat. No. 8,954,446, entitled "Client-Side Repository in a Networked
Deduplicated Storage System"; [0063] U.S. Pat. No. 9,020,900,
entitled "Distributed Deduplicated Storage System"; [0064] U.S.
Pat. No. 9,098,495, entitled "Application-Aware and Remote Single
Instance Data Management"; [0065] U.S. Pat. No. 9,239,687, entitled
"Systems and Methods for Retaining and Using Data Block Signatures
in Data Protection Operations"; [0066] U.S. Pat. Pub. No.
2006/0224846, entitled "System and Method to Support Single
Instance Storage Operations"; [0067] U.S. Pat. Pub. No.
2014/0201170, entitled "High Availability Distributed Deduplicated
Storage System"; [0068] U.S. patent application Ser. No.
14/721,971, entitled "Replication Using Deduplicated Secondary Copy
Data" (applicant docket no. 100.422.US1.145; attorney docket no.
COMMV.252A); [0069] U.S. Patent Application No. 62/265,339 entitled
"Live Synchronization and Management of Virtual Machines across
Computing and Virtualization Platforms and Using Live
Synchronization to Support Disaster Recovery" (applicant docket no.
100.487.USP1.160; attorney docket no. COMMV.277PR); [0070] U.S.
Patent Application No. 62/273,286 entitled "Redundant and Robust
Distributed Deduplication Data Storage System" (applicant docket
no. 100.489.USP1.135; attorney docket no. COMMV.279PR); [0071] U.S.
Patent Application No. 62/294,920, entitled "Data Protection
Operations Based on Network Path Information" (applicant docket no.
100.497.USP1.105; attorney docket no. COMMV.283PR); [0072] U.S.
Patent Application No. 62/297,057, entitled "Data Restoration
Operations Based on Network Path Information" (applicant docket no.
100.498.USP1.105; attorney docket no. COMMV.284PR); and [0073] U.S.
Patent Application No. 62/387,384, entitled "Application-Level Live
Synchronization Across Computing Platforms Including Synchronizing
Co-Resident Applications To Disparate Standby Destinations And
Selectively Synchronizing Some Applications And Not Others"
(applicant docket no. 100.500.USP1.105; attorney docket no.
COMMV.286PR).
[0074] System 100 includes computing devices and computing
technologies. For instance, system 100 can include one or more
client computing devices 102 and secondary storage computing
devices 106, as well as storage manager 140 or a host computing
device for it. 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, servers, 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. Servers can
include mail servers, file servers, database servers, virtual
machine servers, and web servers. Any given computing device
comprises one or more processors (e.g., CPU and/or single-core or
multi-core processors), as well as corresponding non-transitory
computer memory (e.g., random-access memory (RAM)) for storing
computer programs which are to be executed by the one or more
processors. Other computer memory for mass storage of data may be
packaged/configured with the computing device (e.g., an internal
hard disk) and/or may be external and accessible by the computing
device (e.g., network-attached storage, a storage array, etc.). In
some cases, a computing device includes cloud computing resources,
which may be implemented as virtual machines. For instance, one or
more virtual machines may be provided to the organization by a
third-party cloud service vendor.
[0075] 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. A Virtual machine ("VM") is a
software implementation of a computer that does not physically
exist and is instead instantiated in an operating system of a
physical computer (or host machine) to enable applications to
execute within the VM's environment, i.e., a VM emulates a physical
computer. A VM includes an operating system and associated virtual
resources, such as computer memory and processor(s). A hypervisor
operates between the VM and the hardware of the physical host
machine and is generally responsible for creating and running the
VMs. Hypervisors are also known in the art as virtual machine
monitors or a virtual machine managers or "VMMs", and may be
implemented in software, firmware, and/or specialized hardware
installed on the host machine. Examples of hypervisors include ESX
Server, by VMware, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.; Microsoft Virtual
Server and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V, both by Microsoft
Corporation of Redmond, Wash.; Sun xVM by Oracle America Inc. of
Santa Clara, Calif.; and Xen by Citrix Systems, Santa Clara, Calif.
The hypervisor provides resources to each virtual operating system
such as a virtual processor, virtual memory, a virtual network
device, and a virtual disk. Each virtual machine has one or more
associated 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 ("VMDK" in VMware lingo)
or virtual hard disk image files (in Microsoft lingo). 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 way
that a physical machine reads data from and writes data to a
physical disk. Examples of techniques for implementing information
management in a cloud computing environment are described in U.S.
Pat. No. 8,285,681. Examples of techniques for implementing
information management in a virtualized computing environment are
described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,307,177.
[0076] Information management system 100 can also include
electronic data storage devices, generally used for mass storage of
data, including, e.g., primary storage devices 104 and secondary
storage devices 108. Storage devices can generally be of any
suitable type including, without limitation, disk drives, storage
arrays (e.g., storage-area network (SAN) and/or network-attached
storage (NAS) technology), 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, etc. In some embodiments, storage devices
form part of a distributed file system. In some cases, storage
devices are provided in a cloud storage environment (e.g., a
private cloud or one operated by a third-party vendor), whether for
primary data or secondary copies or both.
[0077] Depending on context, the term "information management
system" can refer to generally all of the illustrated hardware and
software components in FIG. 1C, or the term may refer to only a
subset of the illustrated components. For instance, in some cases,
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 client computing
devices 102. However, system 100 in some cases does not include the
underlying components that generate and/or store primary data 112,
such as the client computing devices 102 themselves, and the
primary storage devices 104. Likewise secondary storage devices 108
(e.g., a third-party provided cloud storage environment) may not be
part of system 100. As an example, "information management system"
or "storage management system" may sometimes refer to one or more
of the following components, which will be described in further
detail below: storage manager, data agent, and media agent.
[0078] One or more client computing devices 102 may be part of
system 100, each client computing device 102 having an operating
system and at least one application 110 and one or more
accompanying data agents executing thereon; and associated with one
or more primary storage devices 104 storing primary data 112.
Client computing device(s) 102 and primary storage devices 104 may
generally be referred to in some cases as primary storage subsystem
117.
Client Computing Devices, Clients, and Subclients
[0079] Typically, a variety of sources in an organization 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
system 100, data generation sources include one or more client
computing devices 102. A computing device that has a data agent 142
installed and operating on it is generally referred to as a "client
computing device" 102, and may include any type of computing
device, without limitation. A client computing device 102 may be
associated with one or more users and/or user accounts.
[0080] A "client" is a logical component of information management
system 100, which may represent a logical grouping of one or more
data agents installed on a client computing device 102. Storage
manager 140 recognizes a client as a component of system 100, and
in some embodiments, may automatically create a client component
the first time a data agent 142 is installed on a client computing
device 102. Because data generated by executable component(s) 110
is tracked by the associated data agent 142 so that it may be
properly protected in system 100, a client may be said to generate
data and to store the generated data to primary storage, such as
primary storage device 104. However, the terms "client" and "client
computing device" as used herein do not imply that a client
computing device 102 is necessarily configured in the client/server
sense relative to another computing device such as a mail server,
or that a client computing device 102 cannot be a server in its own
right. As just a few examples, a client computing device 102 can be
and/or include mail servers, file servers, database servers,
virtual machine servers, and/or web servers.
[0081] Each client computing device 102 may have application(s) 110
executing thereon which generate and manipulate the data that is to
be protected from loss and managed in system 100. Applications 110
generally facilitate the operations of an organization, and can
include, without limitation, mail server applications (e.g.,
Microsoft Exchange Server), file system applications, mail client
applications (e.g., Microsoft Exchange Client), database
applications or database management systems (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. Each application 110 may be accompanied by
an application-specific data agent 142, though not all data agents
142 are application-specific or associated with only application. A
file system, e.g., Microsoft Windows Explorer, may be considered an
application 110 and may be accompanied by its own data agent 142.
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. In some embodiments, a virtual machine that executes on a host
client computing device 102 may be considered an application 110
and may be accompanied by a specific data agent 142 (e.g., virtual
server data agent).
[0082] Client computing devices 102 and other components in system
100 can be connected to one another via one or more electronic
communication pathways 114. For example, a first communication
pathway 114 may communicatively couple client computing device 102
and secondary storage computing device 106; a second communication
pathway 114 may communicatively couple storage manager 140 and
client computing device 102; and a third communication pathway 114
may communicatively couple storage manager 140 and secondary
storage computing device 106, etc. (see, e.g., FIG. 1A and FIG.
1C). A communication pathway 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 (FC) 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 computer or
telecommunications networks, combinations of the same or the like.
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 pathways 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.
[0083] A "subclient" is a logical grouping of all or part of a
client's primary data 112. In general, a subclient may be defined
according to how the subclient data is to be protected as a unit in
system 100. For example, a subclient may be associated with a
certain storage policy. A given client may thus comprise several
subclients, each subclient associated with a different storage
policy. For example, some files may form a first subclient that
requires compression and deduplication and is associated with a
first storage policy. Other files of the client may form a second
subclient that requires a different retention schedule as well as
encryption, and may be associated with a different, second storage
policy. As a result, though the primary data may be generated by
the same application 110 and may belong to one given client,
portions of the data may be assigned to different subclients for
distinct treatment by system 100. More detail on subclients is
given in regard to storage policies below.
Primary Data and Exemplary Primary Storage Devices
[0084] Primary data 112 is generally production data or "live" data
generated by the operating system and/or applications 110 executing
on client computing device 102. Primary data 112 is generally
stored on primary storage device(s) 104 and is organized via a file
system operating on the client computing device 102. Thus, client
computing device(s) 102 and corresponding applications 110 may
create, access, modify, write, delete, and otherwise use primary
data 112. Primary data 112 is generally in the native format of the
source application 110. Primary data 112 is an initial or first
stored body 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 application 110. It
can be useful in performing certain tasks to organize 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 (i) 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/or to (ii) a subset of such a file (e.g., a data block, an
extent, etc.). Primary data 112 may include structured data (e.g.,
database files), unstructured data (e.g., documents), and/or
semi-structured data. See, e.g., FIG. 1B.
[0085] It can also be useful in performing certain functions of
system 100 to access and modify metadata within primary data 112.
Metadata generally includes information about data objects and/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 metadata
generally do not include the primary data. 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 e-mail 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. In addition to metadata generated by or related to file
systems and operating systems, some applications 110 and/or other
components of system 100 maintain indices of metadata for data
objects, e.g., metadata associated with individual email messages.
The use of metadata to perform classification and other functions
is described in greater detail below.
[0086] Primary storage devices 104 storing primary data 112 may be
relatively fast and/or expensive technology (e.g., flash storage, a
disk drive, a hard-disk storage array, solid state memory, etc.),
typically to support high-performance live production environments.
Primary data 112 may be highly changeable and/or may be intended
for relatively short term retention (e.g., hours, days, or weeks).
According to some embodiments, client computing device 102 can
access primary data 112 stored in primary storage device 104 by
making conventional file system calls via the operating system.
Each client computing device 102 is generally associated with
and/or in communication with one or more primary storage devices
104 storing corresponding primary data 112. A client computing
device 102 is said to be associated with or in communication with a
particular 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 primary storage device 104, coordinating the routing and/or
storing of data to the primary storage device 104, retrieving data
from the primary storage device 104, coordinating the retrieval of
data from the primary storage device 104, and modifying and/or
deleting data in the primary storage device 104. Thus, a client
computing device 102 may be said to access data stored in an
associated storage device 104.
[0087] 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, e.g., a local disk drive.
In other cases, one or more primary storage devices 104 can be
shared by multiple client computing devices 102, e.g., via a local
network, in a cloud storage implementation, etc. As one example,
primary storage device 104 can be a storage array shared by a group
of client computing devices 102, such as EMC Clariion, EMC
Symmetrix, EMC Celerra, Dell EqualLogic, IBM XIV, NetApp FAS, HP
EVA, and HP 3PAR.
[0088] 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 system 100. For
instance, the hosted services may be provided by online service
providers. Such service providers can provide social networking
services, hosted email services, or hosted productivity
applications or other hosted applications such as
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
services users, each hosted service may generate additional data
and metadata, which may be managed by 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.
Secondary Copies and Exemplary Secondary Storage Devices
[0089] Primary data 112 stored on primary storage devices 104 may
be compromised in some cases, such as when an employee deliberately
or accidentally deletes or overwrites primary data 112. Or primary
storage devices 104 can be damaged, lost, or otherwise corrupted.
For recovery and/or regulatory compliance purposes, it is therefore
useful to generate and maintain copies of primary data 112.
Accordingly, 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
primary data 112 including its associated metadata. The secondary
storage computing devices 106 and the secondary storage devices 108
may be referred to as secondary storage subsystem 118.
[0090] Secondary copies 116 can help in search and analysis efforts
and meet other information management goals as well, such as:
restoring data and/or metadata if an original version 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 in the production system and/or in
secondary storage; facilitating organization and search of data;
improving user access to data files across multiple computing
devices and/or hosted services; and implementing data retention and
pruning policies.
[0091] A secondary copy 116 can comprise a separate stored copy of
data that is derived from one or more earlier-created stored copies
(e.g., derived from primary data 112 or from another secondary copy
116). Secondary copies 116 can include point-in-time data, and may
be intended for relatively long-term retention before some or all
of the data is moved to other storage or discarded. In some cases,
a secondary copy 116 may be in a different storage device than
other previously stored copies; and/or may be remote from other
previously stored copies. Secondary copies 116 can be stored in the
same storage device as primary data 112. For example, 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 lower 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 from the native source application
format or other format of primary data 112.
[0092] Secondary storage computing devices 106 may index secondary
copies 116 (e.g., using a media agent 144), enabling users to
browse and restore at a later time and further enabling the
lifecycle management of the indexed data. After creation of a
secondary copy 116 that represents 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 of a particular secondary copy
116. Since an instance of a data object or metadata in primary data
112 may change over time as it is modified by application 110 (or
hosted service or the operating system), system 100 may create and
manage multiple secondary copies 116 of a particular data object or
metadata, each copy 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 primary storage device 104 and the file system, 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. For virtual machines, the operating system and other
applications 110 of 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. 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).
[0093] Secondary copies 116 are distinguishable from corresponding
primary data 112. First, secondary copies 116 can be stored in a
different format from primary data 112 (e.g., backup, archive, or
other non-native format). For this or other reasons, secondary
copies 116 may not be directly usable by applications 110 or client
computing device 102 (e.g., via standard system calls or otherwise)
without modification, processing, or other intervention by system
100 which may be referred to as "restore" operations. Secondary
copies 116 may have been processed by data agent 142 and/or media
agent 144 in the course of being created (e.g., compression,
deduplication, encryption, integrity markers, indexing, formatting,
application-aware metadata, etc.), and thus secondary copy 116 may
represent source primary data 112 without necessarily being exactly
identical to the source.
[0094] Second, secondary copies 116 may be stored on a secondary
storage device 108 that is inaccessible to application 110 running
on client computing device 102 and/or hosted service. 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 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
system 100 can access only with some human intervention (e.g.,
tapes located at an offsite storage site).
Using Intermediate Devices for Creating Secondary Copies--Secondary
Storage Computing Devices
[0095] Creating secondary copies can be challenging when hundreds
or thousands of client computing devices 102 continually generate
large volumes of primary data 112 to be protected. Also, there can
be significant overhead involved in the creation of secondary
copies 116. Moreover, specialized programmed intelligence and/or
hardware capability is generally needed for accessing and
interacting with secondary storage devices 108. Client computing
devices 102 may interact directly with a secondary storage device
108 to create secondary copies 116, but in view of the factors
described above, this approach can negatively impact the ability of
client computing device 102 to serve/service application 110 and
produce primary data 112. Further, any given client computing
device 102 may not be optimized for interaction with certain
secondary storage devices 108.
[0096] Thus, system 100 may include one or more software and/or
hardware components which generally act as intermediaries between
client computing devices 102 (that generate primary data 112) and
secondary storage devices 108 (that store secondary copies 116). In
addition to off-loading certain responsibilities from client
computing devices 102, these intermediate components 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 and improve system
performance. For instance, using specialized secondary storage
computing devices 106 and media agents 144 for interfacing with
secondary storage devices 108 and/or for performing certain data
processing operations can greatly improve the speed with which
system 100 performs information management operations and can also
improve the capacity of the system to handle large numbers of such
operations, while reducing the computational load on the production
environment of client computing devices 102. 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
144. Media agents are discussed further below (e.g., with respect
to FIGS. 1C-1E). These special-purpose components of system 100
comprise specialized programmed intelligence and/or hardware
capability for writing to, reading from, instructing, communicating
with, or otherwise interacting with secondary storage devices
108.
[0097] Secondary storage computing device(s) 106 can comprise any
of the computing devices described above, without limitation. In
some cases, secondary storage computing device(s) 106 also include
specialized hardware componentry and/or software intelligence
(e.g., specialized interfaces) for interacting with certain
secondary storage device(s) 108 with which they may be specially
associated.
[0098] To create a secondary copy 116 involving the copying of data
from primary storage subsystem 117 to secondary storage subsystem
118, client computing device 102 may communicate the primary data
112 to be copied (or a processed version thereof generated by a
data agent 142) to the designated secondary storage computing
device 106, via a communication pathway 114. Secondary storage
computing device 106 in turn may further process and convey the
data or a processed version thereof to secondary storage device
108. One or more secondary copies 116 may be created from existing
secondary copies 116, such as in the case of an auxiliary copy
operation, described further below.
Exemplary Primary Data and an Exemplary Secondary Copy
[0099] FIG. 1B is a detailed view of some specific examples of
primary data stored on primary storage device(s) 104 and secondary
copy data stored on secondary storage device(s) 108, with other
components of the system removed for the purposes of illustration.
Stored on primary storage device(s) 104 are primary data 112
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. Some
or all primary data 112 objects are associated with corresponding
metadata (e.g., "Meta1-11"), which may include file system metadata
and/or application-specific metadata. Stored on the secondary
storage device(s) 108 are secondary copy 116 data objects 134A-C
which may include copies of or may otherwise represent
corresponding primary data 112.
[0100] 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 corresponding metadata Meta1,
Meta3, and Meta8, respectively). Moreover, as indicated by the
prime mark ('), secondary storage computing devices 106 or other
components in secondary storage subsystem 118 may process the data
received from primary storage subsystem 117 and store a secondary
copy including a transformed and/or supplemented representation of
a primary data object and/or metadata that is different from the
original format, e.g., in a compressed, encrypted, deduplicated, or
other modified format. For instance, secondary storage computing
devices 106 can generate new metadata or other information based on
said processing, and store the newly generated information along
with the secondary copies. Secondary copy data object 134B
represents primary data objects 120, 133B, and 119A as 120', 133B',
and 119A', respectively, accompanied by corresponding metadata
Meta2, Meta10, and Meta1, respectively. Also, secondary copy data
object 134C represents primary data objects 133A, 119B, and 129A as
133A', 119B', and 129A', respectively, accompanied by corresponding
metadata Meta9, Meta5, and Meta6, respectively.
Exemplary Information Management System Architecture
[0101] 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 system 100. Such design choices can
impact how system 100 performs and adapts to data growth and other
changing circumstances. FIG. 1C shows a system 100 designed
according to these considerations and includes: storage manager
140, one or more data agents 142 executing on client computing
device(s) 102 and configured to process primary data 112, and one
or more media agents 144 executing on one or more secondary storage
computing devices 106 for performing tasks involving secondary
storage devices 108.
[0102] Storage Manager
[0103] Storage manager 140 is a centralized storage and/or
information manager that is configured to perform certain control
functions and also to store certain critical information about
system 100--hence storage manager 140 is said to manage system 100.
As noted, the number of components in system 100 and the amount of
data under management can be large. Managing the components and
data is therefore a significant task, which can grow unpredictably
as the number of components and data scale to meet the needs of the
organization. For these and other reasons, according to certain
embodiments, responsibility for controlling system 100, or at least
a significant portion of that responsibility, is allocated to
storage manager 140. Storage manager 140 can be adapted
independently according to changing circumstances, without having
to replace or re-design the remainder of the system. Moreover, a
computing device for hosting and/or operating as storage manager
140 can be selected to best suit the functions and networking needs
of storage manager 140. These and other advantages are described in
further detail below and with respect to FIG. 1D.
[0104] Storage manager 140 may be a software module or other
application hosted by a suitable computing device. In some
embodiments, storage manager 140 is itself a computing device that
performs the functions described herein. Storage manager 140
comprises or operates in conjunction with one or more associated
data structures such as a dedicated database (e.g., management
database 146), depending on the configuration. The storage manager
140 generally initiates, performs, coordinates, and/or controls
storage and other information management operations performed by
system 100, e.g., to protect and control primary data 112 and
secondary copies 116. In general, storage manager 140 is said to
manage system 100, which includes communicating with, instructing,
and controlling in some circumstances components such as data
agents 142 and media agents 144, etc.
[0105] As shown by the dashed arrowed lines 114 in FIG. 1C, storage
manager 140 may communicate with, instruct, and/or control some or
all elements of system 100, such as data agents 142 and media
agents 144. In this manner, storage manager 140 manages the
operation of various hardware and software components in system
100. In certain embodiments, control information originates from
storage manager 140 and status as well as index reporting is
transmitted to storage manager 140 by the managed components,
whereas payload data and metadata are generally communicated
between data agents 142 and media agents 144 (or otherwise between
client computing device(s) 102 and secondary storage computing
device(s) 106), e.g., at the direction of and under the management
of 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, data path information specifying what
components to communicate with or access in carrying out an
operation, and the like. In other embodiments, some information
management operations are controlled or initiated by other
components of system 100 (e.g., by media agents 144 or data agents
142), instead of or in combination with storage manager 140.
[0106] According to certain embodiments, storage manager 140
provides one or more of the following functions: [0107]
communicating with data agents 142 and media agents 144, including
transmitting instructions, messages, and/or queries, as well as
receiving status reports, index information, messages, and/or
queries, and responding to same; [0108] initiating execution of
information management operations; [0109] initiating restore and
recovery operations; [0110] managing secondary storage devices 108
and inventory/capacity of the same; [0111] allocating secondary
storage devices 108 for secondary copy operations; [0112]
reporting, searching, and/or classification of data in system 100;
[0113] monitoring completion of and status reporting related to
information management operations and jobs; [0114] tracking
movement of data within system 100; [0115] tracking age information
relating to secondary copies 116, secondary storage devices 108,
comparing the age information against retention guidelines, and
initiating data pruning when appropriate; [0116] tracking logical
associations between components in system 100; [0117] protecting
metadata associated with system 100, e.g., in management database
146; [0118] implementing job management, schedule management, event
management, alert management, reporting, job history maintenance,
user security management, disaster recovery management, and/or user
interfacing for system administrators and/or end users of system
100; [0119] sending, searching, and/or viewing of log files; and
[0120] implementing operations management functionality.
[0121] Storage manager 140 may maintain an associated database 146
(or "storage manager database 146" or "management database 146") of
management-related data and information management policies 148.
Database 146 is stored in computer memory accessible by storage
manager 140. Database 146 may include a management index 150 (or
"index 150") or other data structure(s) that may store: logical
associations between components of the system; user preferences
and/or profiles (e.g., preferences regarding encryption,
compression, or deduplication of primary data or secondary copies;
preferences regarding the scheduling, type, or other aspects of
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; other useful data; and/or any combination
thereof. For example, storage manager 140 may use index 150 to
track logical associations between media agents 144 and secondary
storage devices 108 and/or movement of data to/from secondary
storage devices 108. For instance, 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.
[0122] Administrators and others may configure and initiate certain
information management operations on an individual basis. But while
this may be acceptable for some recovery operations or other
infrequent tasks, it is often not workable for implementing
on-going organization-wide data protection and management. Thus,
system 100 may utilize information management policies 148 for
specifying and executing information management operations on an
automated basis. Generally, an information management policy 148
can include a stored data structure or other information source
that specifies parameters (e.g., criteria and rules) associated
with storage management or other information management operations.
Storage manager 140 can process an information management policy
148 and/or index 150 and, based on the results, identify an
information management operation to perform, identify the
appropriate components in system 100 to be involved in the
operation (e.g., client computing devices 102 and corresponding
data agents 142, secondary storage computing devices 106 and
corresponding media agents 144, etc.), establish connections to
those components and/or between those components, and/or instruct
and control those components to carry out the operation. In this
manner, system 100 can translate stored information into
coordinated activity among the various computing devices in system
100.
[0123] Management database 146 may maintain information management
policies 148 and associated data, although information management
policies 148 can be stored in computer memory at any appropriate
location outside management database 146. 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 or
other information management operations, depending on the
embodiment. Information management policies 148 are described
further below. According to certain embodiments, management
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 subclient data were protected and where the
secondary copies are stored and which media agent 144 performed the
storage operation(s)). This and other metadata may additionally be
stored in other locations, such as at secondary storage computing
device 106 or on the secondary storage device 108, allowing data
recovery without the use of storage manager 140 in some cases.
Thus, management database 146 may comprise data needed to kick off
secondary copy operations (e.g., storage policies, schedule
policies, etc.), status and reporting information about completed
jobs (e.g., status and error reports on yesterday's backup jobs),
and additional information sufficient to enable restore and
disaster recovery operations (e.g., media agent associations,
location indexing, content indexing, etc.).
[0124] 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. These are described further below.
[0125] Jobs agent 156 in some embodiments initiates, controls,
and/or monitors the status of some or all information management
operations previously performed, currently being performed, or
scheduled to be performed by system 100. A job is a logical
grouping of information management operations such as daily storage
operations scheduled for a certain set of subclients (e.g.,
generating incremental block-level backup copies 116 at a certain
time every day for database files in a certain geographical
location). Thus, jobs agent 156 may access information management
policies 148 (e.g., in management database 146) to determine when,
where, and how to initiate/control jobs in system 100.
[0126] Storage Manager User Interfaces
[0127] User interface 158 may include information processing and
display software, such as a graphical user interface (GUI), an
application program interface (API), and/or other interactive
interface(s) through which users and system processes can retrieve
information about the status of information management operations
or issue instructions to storage manager 140 and other components.
Via user interface 158, users may issue instructions to the
components in system 100 regarding performance of secondary copy
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 secondary copy jobs or to monitor the status of certain
components in system 100 (e.g., the amount of capacity left in a
storage device). Storage manager 140 may 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 by interacting with user interface
158.
[0128] Various embodiments of information management system 100 may
be configured and/or designed to generate user interface data
usable for rendering the various interactive user interfaces
described. The user interface data may be used by system 100 and/or
by another system, device, and/or software program (for example, a
browser program), to render the interactive user interfaces. The
interactive user interfaces may be displayed on, for example,
electronic displays (including, for example, touch-enabled
displays), consoles, etc., whether direct-connected to storage
manager 140 or communicatively coupled remotely, e.g., via an
internet connection. The present disclosure describes various
embodiments of interactive and dynamic user interfaces, some of
which may be generated by user interface agent 158, and which are
the result of significant technological development. The user
interfaces described herein may provide improved human-computer
interactions, allowing for significant cognitive and ergonomic
efficiencies and advantages over previous systems, including
reduced mental workloads, improved decision-making, and the like.
User interface 158 may operate in a single integrated view or
console (not shown). The console may support a reporting capability
for generating a variety of reports, which may be tailored to a
particular aspect of information management.
[0129] User interfaces are not exclusive to storage manager 140 and
in some embodiments a user may access information locally from a
computing device component of system 100. For example, some
information pertaining to installed data agents 142 and associated
data streams may be available from client computing device 102.
Likewise, some information pertaining to media agents 144 and
associated data streams may be available from secondary storage
computing device 106.
[0130] Storage Manager Management Agent
[0131] Management agent 154 can provide storage manager 140 with
the ability to communicate with other components within system 100
and/or with other information management cells 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, without
limitation. Management agent 154 also allows multiple information
management cells to communicate with one another. For example,
system 100 in some cases may be one information management cell in
a network of multiple cells adjacent to one another or otherwise
logically related, e.g., in a WAN or LAN. With this arrangement,
the cells may communicate with one another through respective
management agents 154. Inter-cell communications and hierarchy is
described in greater detail in e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453.
[0132] Information Management Cell
[0133] 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
data agent 142 (executing on a client computing device 102) and at
least one media agent 144 (executing on a secondary storage
computing device 106). For instance, the components shown in FIG.
1C may together form an information management cell. Thus, in some
configurations, a system 100 may be referred to as an information
management cell or a storage operation cell. A given cell may be
identified by the identity of its storage manager 140, which is
generally responsible for managing the cell.
[0134] Multiple cells may be organized hierarchically, so that
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 operational parameters, or
other properties or characteristics according to their relative
position in a hierarchy of cells. Cells may also be organized
hierarchically according to function, geography, architectural
considerations, or other factors useful or desirable in performing
information management operations. For example, 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 City office. Other cells may represent
departments within a particular office, e.g., human resources,
finance, engineering, etc. 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 copies at a
certain frequency), and a second cell may perform one or more
second types of information management operations (e.g., one or
more second types of secondary copies at a different frequency and
under different retention rules). In general, the hierarchical
information is maintained by one or more storage managers 140 that
manage the respective cells (e.g., in corresponding management
database(s) 146).
[0135] Data Agents
[0136] A variety of different applications 110 can operate on a
given client computing device 102, including operating systems,
file 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 device 102 may be tasked with processing and preparing
the primary data 112 generated by these various applications 110.
Moreover, the nature of the processing/preparation can differ
across application types, e.g., due to inherent structural, state,
and formatting differences among applications 110 and/or the
operating system of client computing device 102. Each data agent
142 is 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.
[0137] Data agent 142 is a component of information system 100 and
is generally directed by storage manager 140 to participate in
creating or restoring secondary copies 116. Data agent 142 may be a
software program (e.g., in the form of a set of executable binary
files) that executes on the same client computing device 102 as the
associated application 110 that data agent 142 is configured to
protect. Data agent 142 is generally responsible for managing,
initiating, or otherwise assisting in the performance of
information management operations in reference to its associated
application(s) 110 and corresponding primary data 112 which is
generated/accessed by the particular application(s) 110. For
instance, data agent 142 may take part in copying, archiving,
migrating, and/or replicating of certain primary data 112 stored in
the primary storage device(s) 104. Data agent 142 may receive
control information from storage manager 140, such as commands to
transfer copies of data objects and/or metadata to one or more
media agents 144. Data agent 142 also may compress, deduplicate,
and encrypt certain primary data 112, as well as capture
application-related metadata before transmitting the processed data
to media agent 144. Data agent 142 also may receive instructions
from storage manager 140 to restore (or assist in restoring) a
secondary copy 116 from secondary storage device 108 to primary
storage 104, such that the restored data may be properly accessed
by application 110 in a suitable format as though it were primary
data 112.
[0138] Each data agent 142 may be specialized for a particular
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. 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 112, a specialized data agent 142 may be used for each data
type. For example, to backup, migrate, and/or restore all of the
data on a Microsoft Exchange server, the client computing device
102 may use: (1) a Microsoft Exchange Mailbox data agent 142 to
back up the Exchange mailboxes; (2) a Microsoft Exchange Database
data agent 142 to back up the Exchange databases; (3) a Microsoft
Exchange Public Folder data agent 142 to back up the Exchange
Public Folders; and (4) a Microsoft Windows File System data agent
142 to back up the file system of client computing device 102. In
this example, these specialized data agents 142 are treated as four
separate data agents 142 even though they operate on the same
client computing device 102. Other examples may include archive
management data agents such as a migration archiver or a compliance
archiver, Quick Recovery.RTM. agents, and continuous data
replication agents. Application-specific data agents 142 can
provide improved performance as compared to generic agents. For
instance, because application-specific data agents 142 may only
handle data for a single software application, the design,
operation, and performance of the data agent 142 can be
streamlined. The data agent 142 may therefore execute faster and
consume less persistent storage and/or operating memory than data
agents designed to generically accommodate multiple different
software applications 110.
[0139] Each data agent 142 may be configured to access data and/or
metadata stored in the primary storage device(s) 104 associated
with data agent 142 and its host client computing device 102, and
process the data appropriately. For example, during a secondary
copy operation, 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. In some embodiments, a
data agent 142 may be distributed between 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 media agent 144. 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.
[0140] Media Agents
[0141] As noted, off-loading certain responsibilities from client
computing devices 102 to intermediate components such as secondary
storage computing device(s) 106 and corresponding media agent(s)
144 can provide a number of benefits including improved performance
of client computing device 102, faster and more reliable
information management operations, and enhanced scalability. In one
example which will be discussed further below, media agent 144 can
act as a local cache of recently-copied data and/or metadata stored
to secondary storage device(s) 108, thus improving restore
capabilities and performance for the cached data.
[0142] Media agent 144 is a component of system 100 and is
generally directed by storage manager 140 in creating and restoring
secondary copies 116. Whereas storage manager 140 generally manages
system 100 as a whole, media agent 144 provides a portal to certain
secondary storage devices 108, such as by having specialized
features for communicating with and accessing certain associated
secondary storage device 108. Media agent 144 may be a software
program (e.g., in the form of a set of executable binary files)
that executes on a secondary storage computing device 106. Media
agent 144 generally manages, coordinates, and facilitates the
transmission of data between a data agent 142 (executing on client
computing device 102) and secondary storage device(s) 108
associated with media agent 144. For instance, other components in
the system may interact with media agent 144 to gain access to data
stored on associated secondary storage device(s) 108, (e.g., to
browse, read, write, modify, delete, or restore data). Moreover,
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--generally referred to as indexing of the stored secondary
copies 116. Each media agent 144 may operate on a dedicated
secondary storage computing device 106, while in other embodiments
a plurality of media agents 144 may operate on the same secondary
storage computing device 106.
[0143] A media agent 144 may 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 the particular secondary
storage device 108; and modifying and/or deleting data retrieved
from the particular secondary storage device 108. Media agent 144
in certain embodiments is physically separate from the associated
secondary storage device 108. For instance, a media agent 144 may
operate on a secondary storage computing device 106 in a distinct
housing, package, and/or location from the associated secondary
storage device 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.
[0144] A media agent 144 associated with a particular secondary
storage device 108 may instruct secondary storage device 108 to
perform an information management task. 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 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 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 secondary copy operation. Media agent 144 may
communicate with a secondary storage device 108 via a suitable
communications link, such as a SCSI or Fibre Channel link.
[0145] Each media agent 144 may maintain an associated media agent
database 152. Media agent database 152 may be stored to a disk or
other storage device (not shown) that is local to the secondary
storage computing device 106 on which media agent 144 executes. In
other cases, media agent database 152 is stored separately from the
host secondary storage computing device 106. Media agent database
152 can include, among other things, a media agent index 153 (see,
e.g., FIG. 1C). In some cases, media agent index 153 does not form
a part of and is instead separate from media agent database
152.
[0146] Media agent index 153 (or "index 153") may be a data
structure associated with the particular media agent 144 that
includes information about the stored data associated with the
particular media agent and which may be generated in the course of
performing a secondary copy operation or a restore. Index 153
provides a fast and efficient mechanism for locating/browsing
secondary copies 116 or other data stored in secondary storage
devices 108 without having to access secondary storage device 108
to retrieve the information from there. For instance, for each
secondary copy 116, index 153 may include metadata such as a list
of the data objects (e.g., files/subdirectories, database objects,
mailbox objects, etc.), a logical path to the secondary copy 116 on
the corresponding secondary storage device 108, location
information (e.g., offsets) indicating where the data objects are
stored in the secondary storage device 108, when the data objects
were created or modified, etc. Thus, index 153 includes metadata
associated with the secondary copies 116 that is readily available
for use from media agent 144. In some embodiments, some or all of
the information in index 153 may instead or additionally be stored
along with secondary copies 116 in secondary storage device 108. In
some embodiments, a secondary storage device 108 can include
sufficient information to enable a "bare metal restore," where the
operating system and/or software applications of a failed client
computing device 102 or another target may be automatically
restored without manually reinstalling individual software packages
(including operating systems).
[0147] Because index 153 may operate as a cache, it can also be
referred to as an "index cache." In such cases, information stored
in index cache 153 typically comprises data that reflects certain
particulars about relatively recent secondary copy operations.
After some triggering event, such as after some time elapses or
index cache 153 reaches a particular size, certain portions of
index cache 153 may be copied or migrated to secondary storage
device 108, e.g., on a least-recently-used basis. This information
may be retrieved and uploaded back into index cache 153 or
otherwise restored to 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 storage
device(s) 108.
[0148] In some alternative embodiments media agent 144 generally
acts as a coordinator or facilitator of secondary copy operations
between client computing devices 102 and secondary storage devices
108, but does not actually write the data to secondary storage
device 108. For instance, storage manager 140 (or 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, client computing device 102 transmits data directly or via
one or more intermediary components to secondary storage device 108
according to the received instructions, and vice versa. Media agent
144 may still receive, process, and/or maintain metadata related to
the secondary copy operations, i.e., may continue to build and
maintain index 153. In these embodiments, payload data can flow
through media agent 144 for the purposes of populating index 153,
but not for writing to secondary storage device 108. Media agent
144 and/or other components such as 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
[0149] As described, certain functions of system 100 can be
distributed amongst various physical and/or logical components. For
instance, one or more of 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. 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
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, client
computing device(s) 102 can be selected to effectively service
applications 110 in order to efficiently produce and store primary
data 112.
[0150] Moreover, in some cases, one or more of the individual
components of 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 management database
146 is relatively large, database 146 may be migrated to or may
otherwise reside on a specialized database server (e.g., an SQL
server) separate from a server that implements the other functions
of storage manager 140. This distributed configuration can provide
added protection because database 146 can be protected with
standard database utilities (e.g., SQL log shipping or database
replication) independent from other functions of storage manager
140. 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 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
computing device can no longer service the needs of a growing
system 100.
[0151] The distributed architecture also provides scalability and
efficient component utilization. FIG. 1D shows an embodiment of
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. Additional components can be added or subtracted
based on the evolving needs of system 100. For instance, depending
on where bottlenecks are identified, administrators can add
additional client computing devices 102, secondary storage
computing devices 106, 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, 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 media agents 144 and/or secondary storage devices 108,
respectively.
[0152] Where 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 to provide load
balancing. Each client computing device 102 can communicate with,
among other components, any of the media agents 144, e.g., as
directed by storage manager 140. And each media agent 144 may
communicate with, among other components, any of secondary storage
devices 108, e.g., as directed by storage manager 140. Thus,
operations can be routed to secondary storage devices 108 in a
dynamic and highly flexible manner, to provide load balancing,
failover, etc. Further examples of scalable systems capable of
dynamic storage operations, load balancing, and failover are
provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207.
[0153] 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. In alternative configurations, certain components may
reside and execute on the same computing device. As such, in other
embodiments, one or more of the components shown in FIG. 1C may be
implemented on the same computing device. In one configuration, a
storage manager 140, one or more data agents 142, and/or one or
more media agents 144 are all implemented on the same computing
device. In other embodiments, one or more data agents 142 and one
or more media agents 144 are implemented on the same computing
device, while storage manager 140 is implemented on a separate
computing device, etc. without limitation.
Exemplary Types of Information Management Operations, Including
Storage Operations
[0154] In order to protect and leverage stored data, system 100 can
be configured to perform a variety of information management
operations, which may also be referred to in some cases as storage
management operations or storage operations. These operations can
generally include (i) data movement operations, (ii) processing and
data manipulation operations, and (iii) analysis, reporting, and
management operations.
[0155] Data Movement Operations, Including Secondary Copy
Operations
[0156] Data movement operations are generally storage operations
that involve the copying or migration of data between different
locations in system 100. 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, or in some cases within the same primary storage
device 104 such as within a storage array.
[0157] 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), snapshot operations, deduplication or
single-instancing operations, auxiliary copy operations,
disaster-recovery copy operations, and the like. As will be
discussed, some of these operations do not necessarily create
distinct copies. Nonetheless, some or all of these operations are
generally referred to as "secondary copy operations" for
simplicity, because they involve secondary copies. Data movement
also comprises restoring secondary copies.
[0158] Backup Operations
[0159] A backup operation creates a copy of a version of primary
data 112 at a particular point in time (e.g., one or more files or
other data units). Each subsequent backup copy 116 (which is a form
of secondary copy 116) may be maintained independently of the
first. A backup generally involves maintaining a version of the
copied primary data 112 as well as backup copies 116. Further, a
backup copy in some embodiments is generally stored in a form that
is different from the native format, e.g., a backup format. This
contrasts to the version in primary data 112 which may instead be
stored in a format native to 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 native application format. For example,
a backup copy may be stored in a compressed backup format that
facilitates efficient long-term storage. Backup copies 116 can have
relatively long retention periods as compared to primary data 112,
which is generally highly changeable. Backup copies 116 may be
stored on media with slower retrieval times than primary storage
device 104. Some backup copies may have shorter retention periods
than some other types of secondary copies 116, such as archive
copies (described below). Backups may be stored at an offsite
location.
[0160] 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 afterwards.
[0161] A differential backup operation (or cumulative incremental
backup operation) tracks and stores changes that occurred since the
last full backup. Differential backups can grow quickly in size,
but can restore relatively efficiently because a restore can be
completed in some cases using only the full backup copy and the
latest differential copy.
[0162] 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,
restoring can be lengthy compared to full or differential backups
because completing a restore operation may involve accessing a full
backup in addition to multiple incremental backups.
[0163] 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, however, a synthetic full
backup does not actually transfer data from primary storage 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 (e.g., bitmaps), one
for each subclient. The new backup images consolidate the index and
user data stored in the related incremental, differential, and
previous full backups into a synthetic backup file that fully
represents the subclient (e.g., via pointers) but does not comprise
all its constituent data.
[0164] 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 copying of a data volume (e.g., a
logical disk or partition) as a whole. In a file-level backup,
information management system 100 generally tracks changes to
individual files and includes copies of files in the backup copy.
For block-level backups, files are broken into constituent blocks,
and changes are tracked at the block level. Upon restore, system
100 reassembles the blocks into files in a transparent fashion. Far
less data may actually be transferred and copied to secondary
storage devices 108 during a file-level copy than a volume-level
copy. Likewise, a block-level copy may transfer less data than a
file-level copy, resulting in faster execution. 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 and retrieving constituent blocks can sometimes take
longer than restoring file-level backups.
[0165] 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 system 100.
[0166] Archive Operations
[0167] Because backup operations generally involve maintaining a
version of the copied primary data 112 and also maintaining backup
copies in secondary storage device(s) 108, they can consume
significant storage capacity. To reduce storage consumption, an
archive operation according to certain embodiments creates an
archive 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. In certain embodiments, archive copies may be made and
kept for extended periods in order to meet compliance
regulations.
[0168] Archiving can also serve the purpose of freeing up space in
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 archive copy can
therefore serve the purpose of freeing up space in the source
secondary storage device(s) 108. Examples of data archiving
operations are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298.
[0169] Snapshot Operations
[0170] 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
primary data 112 at a given point in time, and may include state
and/or status information relative to an application 110 that
creates/manages 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.
[0171] A "hardware snapshot" (or "hardware-based snapshot")
operation occurs 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
perform snapshot operations generally without intervention or
oversight from any of the other components of the system 100, e.g.,
a storage array may generate an "array-created" hardware snapshot
and may also manage its storage, integrity, versioning, etc. In
this manner, hardware snapshots can off-load other components of
system 100 from snapshot processing. An array may receive a request
from another component to take a snapshot and then proceed to
execute the "hardware snapshot" operations autonomously, preferably
reporting success to the requesting component.
[0172] A "software snapshot" (or "software-based snapshot")
operation, on the other hand, occurs where a component in system
100 (e.g., client computing device 102, etc.) implements 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. One example of a software snapshot product is Microsoft
Volume Snapshot Service (VSS), which is part of the Microsoft
Windows operating system.
[0173] 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 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 the point in time when the snapshot copy was
created.
[0174] 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 change later on.
Furthermore, when files change, typically only the pointers which
map to blocks are copied, not the blocks themselves. For example
for "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. 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.
[0175] Replication Operations
[0176] Replication is another type of secondary copy operation.
Some types of secondary copies 116 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 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.
[0177] According to some embodiments, secondary copy 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,
back up, or otherwise manipulate the replication copies as if they
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, system 100
can replicate sections of application data that represent a
recoverable state rather than rote copying of blocks of data.
Examples of replication operations (e.g., continuous data
replication) are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,617,262.
[0178] Deduplication/Single-Instancing Operations
[0179] Deduplication or single-instance storage is useful to reduce
the amount of non-primary data. For instance, some or all of the
above-described secondary copy operations can involve deduplication
in some fashion. New data is read, broken down into data portions
of a selected granularity (e.g., sub-file level blocks, files,
etc.), compared with corresponding portions that are already in
secondary storage, and only new/changed portions are stored.
Portions that already exist are represented as pointers to the
already-stored data. Thus, a deduplicated secondary copy 116 may
comprise actual data portions copied from primary data 112 and may
further comprise pointers to already-stored data, which is
generally more storage-efficient than a full copy.
[0180] In order to streamline the comparison process, system 100
may calculate and/or store signatures (e.g., hashes or
cryptographically unique IDs) corresponding to the individual
source data portions and compare the signatures to already-stored
data signatures, instead of comparing entire data portions. In some
cases, only a single instance of each data portion is stored, and
deduplication operations may therefore be referred to
interchangeably as "single-instancing" operations. Depending on the
implementation, however, deduplication operations can store more
than one instance of certain data portions, yet still significantly
reduce stored-data redundancy. Depending on the embodiment,
deduplication portions such as data blocks can be of fixed or
variable length. Using variable length blocks can enhance
deduplication by responding to changes in the data stream, but can
involve more complex processing. In some cases, system 100 utilizes
a technique for dynamically aligning deduplication blocks based on
changing content in the data stream, as described in U.S. Pat. No.
8,364,652.
[0181] System 100 can deduplicate in a variety of manners at a
variety of locations. For instance, in some embodiments, system 100
implements "target-side" deduplication by deduplicating data at the
media agent 144 after being received from data agent 142. In some
such cases, 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. No.
9,020,900. Instead of or in combination with "target-side"
deduplication, "source-side" (or "client-side") deduplication can
also be performed, e.g., to reduce the amount of data to be
transmitted by data agent 142 to media agent 144. Storage manager
140 may communicate with other components within system 100 via
network protocols and cloud service provider APIs to facilitate
cloud-based deduplication/single instancing, as exemplified in U.S.
Pat. No. 8,954,446. Some other deduplication/single instancing
techniques are described in U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2006/0224846 and in
U.S. Pat. No. 9,098,495.
[0182] Information Lifecycle Management and Hierarchical Storage
Management
[0183] 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.
[0184] One type of ILM operation is a hierarchical storage
management (HSM) operation, which generally automatically moves
data between classes of storage devices, such as from high-cost to
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 cheaper, have relatively slower access/restore times,
etc. For example, movement of data between tiers may occur as data
becomes less important over time. In some embodiments, an HSM
operation is similar to archiving 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 primary data 112 or a secondary
copy 116 that exceeds a given size threshold or a given age
threshold. 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 (another) secondary storage device 108.
[0185] For 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 HSM data that has been removed or
migrated, 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
include 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.
[0186] An HSM copy may be stored in a format other than the native
application format (e.g., compressed, encrypted, deduplicated,
and/or otherwise modified). 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.
[0187] Auxiliary Copy Operations
[0188] An auxiliary copy is generally a copy of an existing
secondary copy 116. For instance, an initial secondary copy 116 may
be derived from primary data 112 or from data residing in secondary
storage subsystem 118, whereas an auxiliary copy is generated from
the initial secondary copy 116. Auxiliary copies provide 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 auxiliary copy
techniques are described in further detail in U.S. Pat. No.
8,230,195.
[0189] Disaster-Recovery Copy Operations
[0190] System 100 may also make and retain disaster recovery
copies, often as secondary, high-availability disk copies. System
100 may create secondary copies and store them 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.
[0191] Data Manipulation, Including Encryption and Compression
[0192] Data manipulation and processing may include encryption and
compression as well as integrity marking and checking, formatting
for transmission, formatting for storage, etc. Data may be
manipulated "client-side" by data agent 142 as well as
"target-side" by media agent 144 in the course of creating
secondary copy 116, or conversely in the course of restoring data
from secondary to primary.
[0193] Encryption Operations
[0194] System 100 in some cases is configured to process data
(e.g., files or other data objects, primary data 112, 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. System 100 in some cases encrypts the data at the client
level, such that client computing devices 102 (e.g., data agents
142) encrypt the data prior to transferring it to other components,
e.g., before sending the data to media agents 144 during a
secondary copy operation. In such cases, 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 media agent 144 creates auxiliary copies or archive copies.
Encryption may be applied in creating a secondary copy 116 of a
previously unencrypted secondary copy 116, without limitation. In
further embodiments, secondary storage devices 108 can implement
built-in, high performance hardware-based encryption.
[0195] Compression Operations
[0196] Similar to encryption, system 100 may also or alternatively
compress data in the course of generating a secondary copy 116.
Compression encodes information such that fewer bits are needed to
represent the information as compared to the original
representation. Compression techniques are well known in the art.
Compression operations may apply one or more data compression
algorithms. Compression may be applied in creating a secondary copy
116 of a previously uncompressed secondary copy, e.g., when making
archive copies or disaster recovery copies. The use of compression
may result in metadata that specifies the nature of the
compression, so that data may be uncompressed on restore if
appropriate.
[0197] Data Analysis, Reporting, and Management Operations
[0198] Data analysis, reporting, and management operations can
differ from data movement operations in that they do not
necessarily involve copying, migration or other transfer of data
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 data under management to enhance search and other
features.
[0199] Classification Operations/Content Indexing
[0200] In some embodiments, information management system 100
analyzes and indexes characteristics, content, and metadata
associated with primary data 112 ("online content indexing") and/or
secondary copies 116 ("off-line content indexing"). Content
indexing can identify files or other data objects based on 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.). Content indexes may be searched and search
results may be restored.
[0201] System 100 generally organizes and catalogues the results
into a content index, which may be stored within media agent
database 152, for example. The content index can also include the
storage locations of or pointer references to indexed data in
primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116. Results may also be
stored elsewhere in system 100 (e.g., in primary storage device 104
or in secondary storage device 108). Such content index data
provides storage manager 140 or other components with an efficient
mechanism for locating primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116
of data objects that match particular criteria, thus greatly
increasing the search speed capability of system 100. For instance,
search criteria can be specified by a user through user interface
158 of storage manager 140. Moreover, when system 100 analyzes data
and/or metadata in secondary copies 116 to create an "off-line
content index," this operation has no significant impact on the
performance of client computing devices 102 and thus does not take
a toll on the production environment. Examples of content indexing
techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995.
[0202] One or more components, such as a content index engine, 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 data classification databases may be associated with different
subsystems or tiers within system 100. As an example, there may be
a first metabase associated with primary storage subsystem 117 and
a second metabase associated with secondary storage subsystem 118.
In other cases, metabase(s) may be associated with individual
components, e.g., client computing devices 102 and/or media agents
144. In some embodiments, a data classification database may reside
as one or more data structures within management database 146, may
be otherwise associated with storage manager 140, and/or may reside
as a separate component. In some cases, 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(s) do not significantly impact performance
on other components of system 100. In other cases, 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.) 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. For instance, a metabase can dramatically
improve the speed with which system 100 can search through and
identify data as compared to other approaches that involve scanning
an entire file system. Examples of metabases and data
classification operations are provided in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,734,669
and 7,747,579.
[0203] Management and Reporting Operations
[0204] Certain embodiments leverage the integrated ubiquitous
nature of system 100 to provide useful system-wide management and
reporting. Operations management can generally include monitoring
and managing the health and performance of 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, storage manager
140 or another component in system 100 may analyze traffic patterns
and suggest and/or automatically route data 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.
[0205] In some configurations having a hierarchy of storage
operation cells, a master storage manager 140 may track the status
of subordinate cells, 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 also track status 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
management database 146 and/or index 150 (or in another location).
The master storage manager 140 or other component may also
determine whether certain storage-related or other criteria are
satisfied, and may 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, 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) a mitigation action to
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 up space on 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.
[0206] In some embodiments, system 100 may also determine whether a
metric or other indication satisfies particular storage criteria
sufficient to perform an action. For example, 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. In some
embodiments, risk factors may be quantified into certain measurable
service or risk levels. For example, certain applications and
associated data may be considered to be more important relative to
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 secondary copy 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.
[0207] System 100 may additionally calculate data costing and data
availability associated with information management operation
cells. For instance, data received from a 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. 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 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.
[0208] 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 user interface 158 in a single integrated view or console
(not shown). 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. User interface 158 can
include an option to graphically depict the various components in
the system using appropriate icons. As one example, user interface
158 may provide a graphical depiction of primary storage devices
104, secondary storage devices 108, data agents 142 and/or media
agents 144, and their relationship to one another in system
100.
[0209] In general, the operations management functionality of
system 100 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 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 secondary copy operations for 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 are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453.
[0210] 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 secondary storage
devices 108 (e.g., backups, archives, or other secondary copies
116). For example, system 100 may construct and maintain a virtual
repository for data stored in 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
[0211] 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.
[0212] 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: (1) what data will be associated with the storage
policy, e.g., subclient; (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 secondary copy
operation to be performed; and (5) retention information specifying
how long the data will be retained at the destination (see, e.g.,
FIG. 1E). Data associated with a storage policy can be logically
organized into subclients, which may represent primary data 112
and/or secondary copies 116. A subclient may represent static or
dynamic associations of portions of a data volume. Subclients 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. Subclients 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, subclients 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 subclients.
[0213] 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 subclients
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
subclients 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 subclient
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
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
secondary copy 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.
[0214] 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 and
destination. A storage policy can also specify the type(s) of
associated operations, such as backup, archive, snapshot, auxiliary
copy, or the like. Furthermore, retention parameters can specify
how long the resulting secondary copies 116 will be kept (e.g., a
number of days, months, years, etc.), perhaps depending on
organizational needs and/or compliance criteria.
[0215] When adding a new client computing device 102,
administrators can manually configure information management
policies 148 and/or other settings, e.g., via 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,
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 a client computing device 102, the
installation script may register the client computing device 102
with 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] 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 are to take place. Scheduling policies in
some cases are associated with particular components, such as a
subclient, client computing device 102, and the like.
[0217] Another type of information management policy 148 is an
"audit policy" (or "security policy"), which comprises preferences,
rules and/or criteria that protect sensitive data in system 100.
For example, an audit policy may define "sensitive objects" which
are files or data 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.
[0218] Another type of information management policy 148 is a
"provisioning policy," which can include 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).
Storage manager 140 or other components may enforce the
provisioning policy. For instance, 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) may be
adjusted accordingly or an alert may trigger.
[0219] While the above types of information management policies 148
are 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 that information management policies 148 may specify: [0220]
schedules or other timing information, e.g., specifying when and/or
how often to perform information management operations; [0221] the
type of secondary copy 116 and/or copy format (e.g., snapshot,
backup, archive, HSM, etc.); [0222] a location or a class or
quality of storage for storing secondary copies 116 (e.g., one or
more particular secondary storage devices 108); [0223] preferences
regarding whether and how to encrypt, compress, deduplicate, or
otherwise modify or transform secondary copies 116; [0224] which
system components and/or network pathways (e.g., preferred media
agents 144) should be used to perform secondary storage operations;
[0225] resource allocation among different computing devices or
other system components used in performing information management
operations (e.g., bandwidth allocation, available storage capacity,
etc.); [0226] whether and how to synchronize or otherwise
distribute files or other data objects across multiple computing
devices or hosted services; and [0227] 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 system 100.
[0228] Information management policies 148 can additionally specify
or depend on 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: [0229]
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; [0230] time-related factors (e.g., aging
information such as time since the creation or modification of a
data object); [0231] deduplication information (e.g., hashes, data
blocks, deduplication block size, deduplication efficiency or other
metrics); [0232] an estimated or historic usage or cost associated
with different components (e.g., with secondary storage devices
108); [0233] 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; [0234] a relative sensitivity (e.g.,
confidentiality, importance) of a data object, e.g., as determined
by its content and/or metadata; [0235] the current or historical
storage capacity of various storage devices; [0236] the current or
historical network capacity of network pathways connecting various
components within the storage operation cell; [0237] access control
lists or other security information; and [0238] the content of a
particular data object (e.g., its textual content) or of metadata
associated with the data object.
[0239] Exemplary Storage Policy and Secondary Copy Operations
[0240] FIG. 1E includes a data flow diagram depicting performance
of secondary copy operations by an embodiment of information
management system 100, according to an exemplary storage policy
148A. System 100 includes a storage manager 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 108: a
disk library 108A and a tape library 108B. As shown, primary
storage device 104 includes primary data 112A, which is associated
with a logical grouping of data associated with a file system
("file system subclient"), and primary data 112B, which is a
logical grouping of data associated with email ("email subclient").
The techniques described with respect to FIG. 1E can be utilized in
conjunction with data that is otherwise organized as well.
[0241] As indicated by the dashed box, the second media agent 144B
and tape library 1088 are "off-site," and may be remotely located
from the other components in system 100 (e.g., in a different city,
office building, etc.). Indeed, "off-site" may refer to a magnetic
tape located in remote 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 at the main site(s)
where data is stored.
[0242] The file system subclient 112A in certain embodiments
generally comprises information generated by the file system and/or
operating system of 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 subclient 1128 can include
data generated by an e-mail application operating on client
computing device 102, e.g., mailbox information, folder
information, emails, attachments, associated database information,
and the like. As described above, the subclients can be logical
containers, and the data included in the corresponding primary data
112A and 1128 may or may not be stored contiguously.
[0243] The exemplary storage policy 148A includes backup copy
preferences or rule set 160, disaster recovery copy preferences or
rule set 162, and compliance copy preferences or rule set 164.
Backup copy rule set 160 specifies that it is associated with file
system subclient 166 and email subclient 168. Each of subclients
166 and 168 are associated with the particular client computing
device 102. Backup copy rule set 160 further specifies that the
backup operation will be written to disk library 108A and
designates a particular media agent 144A to convey the data to disk
library 108A. Finally, backup copy rule set 160 specifies that
backup copies created according to rule set 160 are scheduled to be
generated hourly and are to be retained for 30 days. In some other
embodiments, scheduling information is not included in storage
policy 148A and is instead specified by a separate scheduling
policy.
[0244] Disaster recovery copy rule set 162 is associated with the
same two subclients 166 and 168. However, disaster recovery copy
rule set 162 is associated with tape library 108B, unlike backup
copy rule set 160. Moreover, disaster recovery copy rule set 162
specifies that a different media agent, namely 144B, will convey
data to tape library 108B. Disaster recovery copies created
according to rule set 162 will be retained for 60 days and will be
generated daily. Disaster recovery copies generated according to
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 disk library 108A.
[0245] Compliance copy rule set 164 is only associated with the
email subclient 168, and not the file system subclient 166.
Compliance copies generated according to compliance copy rule set
164 will therefore not include primary data 112A from the file
system subclient 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 file
system data. Compliance copy rule set 164 is associated with the
same tape library 108B and media agent 144B as disaster recovery
copy rule set 162, although a different storage device or media
agent could be used in other embodiments. Finally, compliance copy
rule set 164 specifies that the copies it governs will be generated
quarterly and retained for 10 years.
[0246] Secondary Copy Jobs
[0247] A logical grouping of secondary copy operations governed by
a rule set and being initiated at a point in time may be referred
to as a "secondary copy job" (and sometimes may be called a "backup
job," even though it is not necessarily limited to creating only
backup copies). Secondary copy jobs may be initiated on demand as
well. Steps 1-9 below illustrate three secondary copy jobs based on
storage policy 148A.
[0248] Referring to FIG. 1E, at step 1, storage manager 140
initiates a backup job according to the backup copy rule set 160,
which logically comprises all the secondary copy operations
necessary to effectuate rules 160 in storage policy 148A every
hour, including steps 1-4 occurring hourly. For instance, a
scheduling service running on storage manager 140 accesses backup
copy rule set 160 or a separate scheduling policy associated with
client computing device 102 and initiates a backup job on an hourly
basis. Thus, at the scheduled time, storage manager 140 sends
instructions to client computing device 102 (i.e., to both data
agent 142A and data agent 142B) to begin the backup job.
[0249] At step 2, file system data agent 142A and email data agent
142B on client computing device 102 respond to instructions from
storage manager 140 by accessing and processing the respective
subclient primary data 112A and 112B involved in the backup copy
operation, which can be found in primary storage device 104.
Because the secondary copy 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 suitable for a backup
copy.
[0250] At step 3, client computing device 102 communicates the
processed file system data (e.g., using file system data agent
142A) and the processed email data (e.g., using email data agent
142B) to the first media agent 144A according to backup copy rule
set 160, as directed by storage manager 140. Storage manager 140
may further keep a record in management database 146 of the
association between media agent 144A and one or more of: client
computing device 102, file system subclient 112A, file system data
agent 142A, email subclient 112B, email data agent 142B, and/or
backup copy 116A.
[0251] The target media agent 144A receives the
data-agent-processed data from client computing device 102, and at
step 4 generates and conveys backup copy 116A to disk library 108A
to be stored as backup copy 116A, again at the direction of storage
manager 140 and according to backup copy rule set 160. Media agent
144A can also update its index 153 to include data and/or metadata
related to backup copy 116A, such as information indicating where
the backup copy 116A resides on disk library 108A, where the email
copy resides, where the file system copy resides, data and metadata
for cache retrieval, etc. Storage manager 140 may similarly update
its index 150 to include information relating to the secondary copy
operation, such as information relating to the type of operation, a
physical location associated with one or more copies created by the
operation, the time the operation was performed, status information
relating to the operation, the components involved in the
operation, and the like. In some cases, storage manager 140 may
update its index 150 to include some or all of the information
stored in index 153 of media agent 144A. At this point, the backup
job may be considered complete. After the 30-day retention period
expires, storage manager 140 instructs media agent 144A to delete
backup copy 116A from disk library 108A and indexes 150 and/or 153
are updated accordingly.
[0252] At step 5, storage manager 140 initiates another backup job
for a disaster recovery copy according to the disaster recovery
rule set 162. Illustratively this includes steps 5-7 occurring
daily for creating disaster recovery copy 1168. Illustratively, and
by way of illustrating the scalable aspects and off-loading
principles embedded in system 100, disaster recovery copy 1168 is
based on backup copy 116A and not on primary data 112A and
112B.
[0253] At step 6, illustratively based on instructions received
from storage manager 140 at step 5, the specified media agent 1448
retrieves the most recent backup copy 116A from disk library
108A.
[0254] At step 7, again at the direction of storage manager 140 and
as specified in disaster recovery copy rule set 162, media agent
144B uses the retrieved data to create a disaster recovery copy
1168 and store it to tape library 1088. In some cases, disaster
recovery copy 1168 is a direct, mirror copy of backup copy 116A,
and remains in the backup format. In other embodiments, disaster
recovery copy 1168 may be further compressed or encrypted, or may
be generated in some other manner, such as by using primary data
112A and 1128 from primary storage device 104 as sources. The
disaster recovery copy operation is initiated once a day and
disaster recovery copies 1168 are deleted after 60 days; indexes
153 and/or 150 are updated accordingly when/after each information
management operation is executed and/or completed. The present
backup job may be considered completed.
[0255] At step 8, storage manager 140 initiates another backup job
according to compliance rule set 164, which performs steps 8-9
quarterly to create compliance copy 116C. For instance, storage
manager 140 instructs media agent 1448 to create compliance copy
116C on tape library 1088, as specified in the compliance copy rule
set 164.
[0256] At step 9 in the example, compliance copy 116C is generated
using disaster recovery copy 1168 as the source. This is efficient,
because disaster recovery copy resides on the same secondary
storage device and thus no network resources are required to move
the data. In other embodiments, compliance copy 116C is instead
generated using primary data 1128 corresponding to the email
subclient or using backup copy 116A from 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 153 and/or 150 are kept up-to-date accordingly.
[0257] Exemplary Applications of Storage Policies--Information
Governance Policies and Classification
[0258] Again referring to FIG. 1E, storage manager 140 may permit a
user to specify aspects of 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 management database 146. 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.
[0259] Information governance policies allow administrators to
obtain different perspectives on 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 an index that reflects the
contents of a distributed data set that spans numerous clients and
storage devices, including both primary data 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 view and
manipulate the 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
information management system.
[0260] An information governance policy may comprise a
classification policy, which 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. Accordingly, all these documents
or data objects will be classified as "privileged."
[0261] 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. 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. 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.
Restore Operations from Secondary Copies
[0262] While not shown in FIG. 1E, at some later point in time, a
restore operation can be initiated involving one or more of
secondary copies 116A, 116B, and 116C. A restore operation
logically takes a selected secondary copy 116, reverses the effects
of the secondary copy operation that created it, and stores the
restored data to primary storage where a client computing device
102 may properly access it as primary data. A media agent 144 and
an appropriate data agent 142 (e.g., executing on the client
computing device 102) perform the tasks needed to complete a
restore operation. For example, data that was encrypted,
compressed, and/or deduplicated in the creation of secondary copy
116 will be correspondingly rehydrated (reversing deduplication),
uncompressed, and unencrypted into a format appropriate to primary
data. Metadata stored within or associated with the secondary copy
116 may be used during the restore operation. In general, restored
data should be indistinguishable from other primary data 112.
Preferably, the restored data has fully regained the native format
that may make it immediately usable by application 110.
[0263] As one example, a user may manually initiate a restore of
backup copy 116A, e.g., by interacting with user interface 158 of
storage manager 140 or with a web-based console with access to
system 100. Storage manager 140 may accesses data in its index 150
and/or management database 146 (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 where the secondary copy resides. The user may be
presented with a representation (e.g., stub, thumbnail, listing,
etc.) and metadata about the selected secondary copy, in order to
determine whether this is the appropriate copy to be restored,
e.g., date that the original primary data was created. Storage
manager 140 will then instruct media agent 144A and an appropriate
data agent 142 on the target client computing device 102 to restore
secondary copy 116A to primary storage device 104. 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, e.g., 144A, retrieves secondary
copy 116A from disk library 108A. For instance, media agent 144A
may access its index 153 to identify a location of backup copy 116A
on disk library 108A, or may access location information residing
on disk library 108A itself.
[0264] In some cases a backup copy 116A that was recently created
or accessed, may be cached to speed up the restore operation. In
such a case, media agent 144A accesses a cached version of backup
copy 116A residing in index 153, without having to access disk
library 108A for some or all of the data. Once it has retrieved
backup copy 116A, the media agent 144A communicates the data to the
requesting client computing device 102. Upon receipt, file system
data agent 142A and email data agent 142B may unpack (e.g., restore
from a backup format to the native application format) the data in
backup copy 116A and restore the unpackaged data to primary storage
device 104. In general, secondary copies 116 may be restored to the
same volume or folder in primary storage device 104 from which the
secondary copy was derived; to another storage location or client
computing device 102; to shared storage, etc. In some cases, the
data may be restored so that it may be used by an application 110
of a different version/vintage from the application that created
the original primary data 112.
Exemplary Secondary Copy Formatting
[0265] 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 one or more secondary storage devices 108. In some cases,
users can select different chunk sizes, e.g., to improve throughput
to tape storage devices. 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, media agent 144, storage manager 140, or
other component may divide files into chunks and generate headers
for each chunk by processing the files. Headers can include a
variety of information such as file and/or volume identifier(s),
offset(s), and/or other information associated with the payload
data items, a chunk sequence number, etc. Importantly, in addition
to being stored with secondary copy 116 on secondary storage device
108, chunk headers can also be stored to index 153 of the
associated media agent(s) 144 and/or to index 150 associated with
storage manager 140. This can be useful for providing faster
processing of secondary copies 116 during browsing, 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 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 media agent 144) according to the
information in the chunk header to reassemble the files.
[0266] Data can also be communicated within system 100 in data
channels that connect client computing devices 102 to 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 other advantages. Example data formatting
techniques including techniques involving data streaming, chunking,
and the use of other data structures in creating secondary copies
are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,315,923, 8,156,086, and
8,578,120.
[0267] FIGS. 1F and 1G are diagrams of example data streams 170 and
171, respectively, which may be employed for performing information
management operations. Referring to FIG. 1F, data agent 142 forms
data stream 170 from source data associated with a client computing
device 102 (e.g., primary data 112). Data stream 170 is composed of
multiple pairs of stream header 172 and stream data (or stream
payload) 174. 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.
[0268] Referring to FIG. 1G, 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 non-SI data.
[0269] FIG. 1H is a diagram illustrating data structures 180 that
may be used to store blocks of SI data and non-SI data on a storage
device (e.g., secondary storage device 108). According to certain
embodiments, data structures 180 do not form part of a native file
system of the storage device. 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 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. Metadata file
186/187 stores non-SI data blocks as well as links to SI data
blocks stored in container files. Metadata index file 188/189
stores an index to the data in the metadata file 186/187. Container
files 190/191/193 store SI data blocks. Container index file
192/194 stores an index to container files 190/191/193. Among other
things, 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
metadata file 187 in chunk folder 185. Accordingly, the
corresponding index entry in container index file 192 indicates
that data block B2 in container file 190 is referred to. As another
example, data block B1 in container file 191 is referred to by a
link in metadata file 187, and so the corresponding index entry in
container index file 192 indicates that this data block is referred
to.
[0270] As an example, data structures 180 illustrated in FIG. 1H
may have been created as a result of separate secondary copy
operations involving two client computing devices 102. For example,
a first secondary copy operation on a first client computing device
102 could result in the creation of the first chunk folder 184, and
a second secondary copy operation on a second client computing
device 102 could result in the creation of the second chunk folder
185. 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 secondary copy operation on the data of
the second client computing device 102 would result in 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 secondary copy operation may
result in storing nearly all of the data subject to the operation,
subsequent secondary 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.
[0271] If the operating system of the secondary storage computing
device 106 on which media agent 144 operates supports sparse files,
then when media agent 144 creates container files 190/191/193, it
can create them as sparse files. A sparse file is a 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 container files 190/191/193 be sparse
files allows media agent 144 to free up space in container files
190/191/193 when blocks of data in container files 190/191/193 no
longer need to be stored on the storage devices. In some examples,
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, 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 approx. 100 to approx. 1000 blocks or when its
size exceeds approximately 50 MB to 1 GB). In some cases, a file on
which a secondary copy 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.
Using Backup Data for Replication and Disaster Recovery ("Live
Synchronization")
[0272] There is an increased demand to off-load resource intensive
information management tasks (e.g., data replication tasks) away
from production devices (e.g., physical or virtual client computing
devices) in order to maximize production efficiency. At the same
time, enterprises expect access to readily-available up-to-date
recovery copies in the event of failure, with little or no
production downtime.
[0273] FIG. 2A illustrates a system 200 configured to address these
and other issues by using backup or other secondary copy data to
synchronize a source subsystem 201 (e.g., a production site) with a
destination subsystem 203 (e.g., a failover site). Such a technique
can be referred to as "live synchronization" and/or "live
synchronization replication." In the illustrated embodiment, the
source client computing devices 202a include one or more virtual
machines (or "VMs") executing on one or more corresponding VM host
computers 205a, though the source need not be virtualized. The
destination site 203 may be at a location that is remote from the
production site 201, or may be located in the same data center,
without limitation. One or more of the production site 201 and
destination site 203 may reside at data centers at known geographic
locations, or alternatively may operate "in the cloud."
[0274] The synchronization can be achieved by generally applying an
ongoing stream of incremental backups from the source subsystem 201
to the destination subsystem 203, such as according to what can be
referred to as an "incremental forever" approach. FIG. 2A
illustrates an embodiment of a data flow which may be orchestrated
at the direction of one or more storage managers (not shown). At
step 1, the source data agent(s) 242a and source media agent(s)
244a work together to write backup or other secondary copies of the
primary data generated by the source client computing devices 202a
into the source secondary storage device(s) 208a. At step 2, the
backup/secondary copies are retrieved by the source media agent(s)
244a from secondary storage. At step 3, source media agent(s) 244a
communicate the backup/secondary copies across a network to the
destination media agent(s) 244b in destination subsystem 203.
[0275] As shown, the data can be copied from source to destination
in an incremental fashion, such that only changed blocks are
transmitted, and in some cases multiple incremental backups are
consolidated at the source so that only the most current changed
blocks are transmitted to and applied at the destination. An
example of live synchronization of virtual machines using the
"incremental forever" approach is found in U.S. Patent Application
No. 62/265,339 entitled "Live Synchronization and Management of
Virtual Machines across Computing and Virtualization Platforms and
Using Live Synchronization to Support Disaster Recovery." Moreover,
a deduplicated copy can be employed to further reduce network
traffic from source to destination. For instance, the system can
utilize the deduplicated copy techniques described in U.S. Pat. No.
9,239,687, entitled "Systems and Methods for Retaining and Using
Data Block Signatures in Data Protection Operations."
[0276] At step 4, destination media agent(s) 244b write the
received backup/secondary copy data to the destination secondary
storage device(s) 208b. At step 5, the synchronization is completed
when the destination media agent(s) and destination data agent(s)
242b restore the backup/secondary copy data to the destination
client computing device(s) 202b. The destination client computing
device(s) 202b may be kept "warm" awaiting activation in case
failure is detected at the source. This synchronization/replication
process can incorporate the techniques described in U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 14/721,971, entitled "Replication Using
Deduplicated Secondary Copy Data."
[0277] Where the incremental backups are applied on a frequent,
on-going basis, the synchronized copies can be viewed as mirror or
replication copies. Moreover, by applying the incremental backups
to the destination site 203 using backup or other secondary copy
data, the production site 201 is not burdened with the
synchronization operations. Because the destination site 203 can be
maintained in a synchronized "warm" state, the downtime for
switching over from the production site 201 to the destination site
203 is substantially less than with a typical restore from
secondary storage. Thus, the production site 201 may flexibly and
efficiently fail over, with minimal downtime and with relatively
up-to-date data, to a destination site 203, such as a cloud-based
failover site. The destination site 203 can later be reverse
synchronized back to the production site 201, such as after repairs
have been implemented or after the failure has passed.
Integrating with the Cloud Using File System Protocols
[0278] Given the ubiquity of cloud computing, it can be
increasingly useful to provide data protection and other
information management services in a scalable, transparent, and
highly plug-able fashion. FIG. 2B illustrates an information
management system 200 having an architecture that provides such
advantages, and incorporates use of a standard file system protocol
between primary and secondary storage subsystems 217, 218. As
shown, the use of the network file system (NFS) protocol (or any
another appropriate file system protocol such as that of the Common
Internet File System (CIFS)) allows data agent 242 to be moved from
the primary storage subsystem 217 to the secondary storage
subsystem 218. For instance, as indicated by the dashed box 206
around data agent 242 and media agent 244, data agent 242 can
co-reside with media agent 244 on the same server (e.g., a
secondary storage computing device such as component 106), or in
some other location in secondary storage subsystem 218.
[0279] Where NFS is used, for example, secondary storage subsystem
218 allocates an NFS network path to the client computing device
202 or to one or more target applications 210 running on client
computing device 202. During a backup or other secondary copy
operation, the client computing device 202 mounts the designated
NFS path and writes data to that NFS path. The NFS path may be
obtained from NFS path data 215 stored locally at the client
computing device 202, and which may be a copy of or otherwise
derived from NFS path data 219 stored in the secondary storage
subsystem 218.
[0280] Write requests issued by client computing device(s) 202 are
received by data agent 242 in secondary storage subsystem 218,
which translates the requests and works in conjunction with media
agent 244 to process and write data to a secondary storage
device(s) 208, thereby creating a backup or other secondary copy.
Storage manager 240 can include a pseudo-client manager 217, which
coordinates the process by, among other things, communicating
information relating to client computing device 202 and application
210 (e.g., application type, client computing device identifier,
etc.) to data agent 242, obtaining appropriate NFS path data from
the data agent 242 (e.g., NFS path information), and delivering
such data to client computing device 202.
[0281] Conversely, during a restore or recovery operation client
computing device 202 reads from the designated NFS network path,
and the read request is translated by data agent 242. The data
agent 242 then works with media agent 244 to retrieve, re-process
(e.g., re-hydrate, decompress, decrypt), and forward the requested
data to client computing device 202 using NFS.
[0282] By moving specialized software associated with system 200
such as data agent 242 off the client computing devices 202, the
illustrative architecture effectively decouples the client
computing devices 202 from the installed components of system 200,
improving both scalability and plug-ability of system 200. Indeed,
the secondary storage subsystem 218 in such environments can be
treated simply as a read/write NFS target for primary storage
subsystem 217, without the need for information management software
to be installed on client computing devices 202. As one example, an
enterprise implementing a cloud production computing environment
can add VM client computing devices 202 without installing and
configuring specialized information management software on these
VMs. Rather, backups and restores are achieved transparently, where
the new VMs simply write to and read from the designated NFS path.
An example of integrating with the cloud using file system
protocols or so-called "infinite backup" using NFS share is found
in U.S. Patent Application No. 62/294,920, entitled "Data
Protection Operations Based on Network Path Information." Examples
of improved data restoration scenarios based on network-path
information, including using stored backups effectively as primary
data sources, may be found in U.S. Patent Application No.
62/297,057, entitled "Data Restoration Operations Based on Network
Path Information."
Highly Scalable Managed Data Pool Architecture
[0283] Enterprises are seeing explosive data growth in recent
years, often from various applications running in geographically
distributed locations. FIG. 2C shows a block diagram of an example
of a highly scalable, managed data pool architecture useful in
accommodating such data growth. The illustrated system 200, which
may be referred to as a "web-scale" architecture according to
certain embodiments, can be readily incorporated into both open
compute/storage and common-cloud architectures.
[0284] The illustrated system 200 includes a grid 245 of media
agents 244 logically organized into a control tier 231 and a
secondary or storage tier 233. Media agents assigned to the storage
tier 233 can be configured to manage a secondary storage pool 208
as a deduplication store, and be configured to receive client write
and read requests from the primary storage subsystem 217, and
direct those requests to the secondary tier 233 for servicing. For
instance, media agents CMA1-CMA3 in the control tier 231 maintain
and consult one or more deduplication databases 247, which can
include deduplication information (e.g., data block hashes, data
block links, file containers for deduplicated files, etc.)
sufficient to read deduplicated files from secondary storage pool
208 and write deduplicated files to secondary storage pool 208. For
instance, system 200 can incorporate any of the deduplication
systems and methods shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,020,900,
entitled "Distributed Deduplicated Storage System," and U.S. Pat.
Pub. No. 2014/0201170, entitled "High Availability Distributed
Deduplicated Storage System."
[0285] Media agents SMA1-SMA6 assigned to the secondary tier 233
receive write and read requests from media agents CMA1-CMA3 in
control tier 231, and access secondary storage pool 208 to service
those requests. Media agents CMA1-CMA3 in control tier 231 can also
communicate with secondary storage pool 208, and may execute read
and write requests themselves (e.g., in response to requests from
other control media agents CMA1-CMA3) in addition to issuing
requests to media agents in secondary tier 233. Moreover, while
shown as separate from the secondary storage pool 208,
deduplication database(s) 247 can in some cases reside in storage
devices in secondary storage pool 208.
[0286] As shown, each of the media agents 244 (e.g., CMA1-CMA3,
SMA1-SMA6, etc.) in grid 245 can be allocated a corresponding
dedicated partition 251A-251I, respectively, in secondary storage
pool 208. Each partition 251 can include a first portion 253
containing data associated with (e.g., stored by) media agent 244
corresponding to the respective partition 251. System 200 can also
implement a desired level of replication, thereby providing
redundancy in the event of a failure of a media agent 244 in grid
245. Along these lines, each partition 251 can further include a
second portion 255 storing one or more replication copies of the
data associated with one or more other media agents 244 in the
grid.
[0287] System 200 can also be configured to allow for seamless
addition of media agents 244 to grid 245 via automatic
configuration. As one illustrative example, a storage manager (not
shown) or other appropriate component may determine that it is
appropriate to add an additional node to control tier 231, and
perform some or all of the following: (i) assess the capabilities
of a newly added or otherwise available computing device as
satisfying a minimum criteria to be configured as or hosting a
media agent in control tier 231; (ii) confirm that a sufficient
amount of the appropriate type of storage exists to support an
additional node in control tier 231 (e.g., enough disk drive
capacity exists in storage pool 208 to support an additional
deduplication database 247); (iii) install appropriate media agent
software on the computing device and configure the computing device
according to a pre-determined template; (iv) establish a partition
251 in the storage pool 208 dedicated to the newly established
media agent 244; and (v) build any appropriate data structures
(e.g., an instance of deduplication database 247). An example of
highly scalable managed data pool architecture or so-called
web-scale architecture for storage and data management is found in
U.S. Patent Application No. 62/273,286 entitled "Redundant and
Robust Distributed Deduplication Data Storage System."
[0288] The embodiments and components thereof disclosed in FIGS.
2A, 2B, and 2C, as well as those in FIGS. 1A-1H, may be implemented
in any combination and permutation to satisfy data storage
management and information management needs at one or more
locations and/or data centers.
Distributed Backup Management
[0289] As previously described, in some embodiments, a storage
manager 140 may manage or control backup and/or restore operations
between computing systems of a primary storage system 117 and
computing systems of a secondary storage system 118. However, in
certain embodiments, the amount of communication with the storage
manager 140, as well as other overhead, during a backup or restore
process may limit the number of client computing devices 102 that
can be supported by the information management system 100.
[0290] FIG. 3 presents one example of a dataflow diagram 300
illustrating the flow of data and metadata within an example
embodiment of the information management 100 system. As illustrated
by the dataflow diagram 300, the storage manager 140 may provide
control messages and metadata to a client computing device 102,
such as a laptop, tablet, or desktop computing system. The control
messages may include, among other possibilities, a trigger to
initiate backup of the client computing device 102. The metadata
may include an identity of the secondary storage computing device
to which to provide data for backup, a number of communication
streams available to the client computing device 102, a type of
filter to use in selecting data for backup, a type of scanning
process (for example, a recursive scan) to identify data for
backup, and the like.
[0291] Further, the storage manager 140 may provide metadata and
control messages to the media agent at the secondary storage
computing device 106 to facilitate the backup process with the
client computing device 102. The client computing device 102 can
provide the data to be backed up to the selected secondary storage
computing device 106 along with metadata that can be used by the
media agent to facilitate creating a backup index for indexing the
backed up data. The media agent 144 may provide the data and index
information to a secondary storage device 108 at the information
management system 100 or to an external storage system 302, such as
a cloud-based or network-based storage system that is external to
the information management system 100. In some embodiments, the
network-based storage system is at least partially managed by a
separate entity or organization than the information management
system 100.
[0292] As can be ascertained from the above description of the
dataflow diagram 300, the backup process is reliant on
communication with the storage manager 140. Further, the media
agent at the secondary storage computing device 106 is also relied
upon during the backup process. For a single client computing
device 102, the overhead caused by the communication with the
storage manager 140 and the media agent at the secondary storage
computing device 106 during the backup process may be virtually
non-existent or at least undetectable by a user of the information
management system 100. However, when it is desired for the
information management system 100 to support thousands, tens of
thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even more client computing
systems, the overhead caused by communicating with the storage
manager 140 and the media agent at the secondary storage computing
device 106 can become a bottleneck that is readily noticeable by
users and reduces the ability of the information management system
100 to support all of the desired client computing systems.
[0293] FIG. 4 presents an alternative example of a dataflow diagram
400 illustrating the flow of data and metadata within an
information management system 100 that reduces overhead compared to
the dataflow of FIG. 3 enabling an increase in scale for the
information management system 100. As illustrated by the dataflow
diagram 400, the storage manager 140 may provide control messages
to a client computing device 102, such as a laptop, tablet, or
desktop computing system. Further, like with the dataflow of FIG.
3, the storage manager 140 can provide metadata to the client
computing device 102. However, in contrast to the flow illustrated
in FIG. 3, the client computing device 102 may store the metadata
in a job cache 402 for use with future jobs. The client computing
device 102 may receive a job identifier (e.g., a WorkQToken) from
the storage manager 140. This job identifier may be associated with
the metadata at the job cache 402 and can be used to perform
additional jobs without further accessing the storage manager 140.
Thus, from the perspective of the storage manager, the subsequent
jobs performed by the client computing device 102 may appear to be
one long-running job or pseudo-job.
[0294] As with the dataflow of FIG. 3, the storage manager 140 may
provide metadata and control messages to the media agent at the
secondary storage computing device 106 to facilitate the backup
process with the client computing device 102. However, in contrast
to the dataflow of FIG. 3, the client computing device 102 may
include a core media agent that provides at least partial
functionality of the media agent 144 at the secondary storage
computing device 106. In some such embodiments, the client
computing device 102 can communicate data directly to the network
storage system 302 without provided the data to the secondary
storage computing device 106. The client computing device 102 may
provide metadata to the secondary storage computing device 106 that
can be used by the media agent to facilitate creating a backup
index for indexing the backed up data. This backup index may be a
distributed index that is distributed among multiple media agents.
Alternatively, or in addition, the backup index may be replicated
among multiple media agents. Advantageously, in certain
embodiments, by reducing the frequency of communication with the
storage manager 140 and by enabling the client computing device 102
to communicate the data directly to the network storage system 302
while providing only the backup metadata to the secondary storage
computing device 106, the overhead of the information management
system 100 may be reduced enabling the information management
system 100 to support a greater number of client computing devices
102 with the same amount of computing resources.
Example Distributed Backup Management System
[0295] FIG. 5A is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
500 for reducing a management burden on a storage manager enabling
an increase in scale of clients supported by an information
management system, according to an embodiment. In some embodiments,
the system 500 can be part of an information management system 100
and may include one or more of the systems and one or more of the
embodiments previously described with respect to the information
management system 100. For ease of illustration and to simplify the
related discussion, the system 500 illustrates a single client
computing device 102 and a single secondary storage computing
device 106. However, it should be understood that generally there
are multiple client computing devices 102 and multiple secondary
storage computing devices 106. For example, there may be 20,000,
50,000, or 250,000 client computing devices 102 included as part of
the primary storage subsystem 117. Further, there may be 10s, 100s,
or thousands of secondary storage computing devices 106. In
addition, there may be multiple storage managers 140. For example,
the information management system 100 may be divided into different
domains with each domain being assigned a different storage manager
140 or subset of storage managers.
[0296] In certain embodiments, a trigger may cause a data agent 142
of the client computing device 102 to initiate a backup process for
backing up data of a primary storage device 104 of the client
computing device 102. The client computing device 102 using, for
example, the data agent 142 may obtain a job identifier and a set
of job metadata that identifies resources available to the client
computing device 102 to complete the backup process. The client
computing device 102 may store the job identifier and the set of
job metadata at a job cache 516. By storing the job identifier and
the set of job metadata at the job cache 516, the client computing
device 102 may perform multiple jobs using the same job identifier
and the stored set of job metadata. The client computing device 102
includes a cache manager 514 for managing the job cache 516.
Further, the cache manager 514 can determine whether the job
identifier, and associated job metadata, is expired. If the job
identifier, or the associated job metadata, is expired, the data
agent 142 can communicate with the storage manager 140 to obtain a
new job identifier and to confirm the set of job metadata or to
obtain updated job metadata.
[0297] In some embodiments, the client computing device 102 may
include a core media agent 510. The core media agent 510 may be a
reduced or slimmed-down media agent that includes some of the
capabilities of the media agent 144. For example, the core media
agent 510 may be a reduced media agent that is capable of migrating
data or providing data for backup to a secondary store, such as at
the network storage system 302, but may not have other capabilities
of a media agent. For example, the core media agent 510 may not
have features that enable the core media agent 510 to generate or
maintain an index of the backup or to perform deduplication tasks
that may be performable by a full media agent, such as the media
agent 144.
[0298] In some embodiments, a media agent 144 can be divided into
two subsystems, a data migration system 504 and a data management
system 506. The core media agent 510 may include a data migration
system 512 that can communicate with the network storage system
302, but may not include a data management system. On the other
hand, the media agent 144 within the secondary storage subsystem
118 may include both a data migration system 504, which may have
the same capabilities as the data migration system 512, and a data
management system 506. The data management system 506 may include
any system for creating a backup or media agent index 153. In some
embodiments, the data management system 506 may receive information
relating to the data or files provided to the network storage 302
or modified at the network storage 302. The data management system
506 can use the information to create an index that enables
retrieval of the data from the network storage 302. For example,
the index may identify where the data is stored at the network
storage 302, when the data was modified, when the data was provided
to the network storage system 302, and the like.
[0299] The data migration system 512 can communicate data to be
backed up from the primary storage device 104 to the network
storage system 302 without communicating the data to a secondary
storage computing device 106 in the secondary storage subsystem
118. For example, the data migration system 512 may cause the
client computing device 102 to establish a communication connection
with the network storage system 302. Using the communication
connection, the client computing device 102 may stream data for
backup to the network storage system 302. Separately, the core
media agent 510 may provide metadata to the data management system
506 relating to the data provided to the network storage 302. Using
this metadata, the data management system 506 can create an index
of the backup that can be used to restore some or all of the backed
up data. In some embodiments, the data management system 506 may
access the network storage system 302 to complete the backup index
generation process. For example, the data management system 506 may
access the network storage system 302 to determine a status or
location of data provided to the network storage system 302 for
backup. The network storage system 302 may store the data in one or
more secondary storage devices 526 of the network store system 302,
as indicated by the data block 528. In certain embodiments, the
core media agent 510 may be a duplicate of the media agent 144 and
may include the same features as the media agent 144.
[0300] The core media agent 510 may provide backup metadata or
backup index information to the data management system 506 of the
media agent 144. The media agent 144, using the indexing system
502, may generate a backup index at the media agent index 153 that
includes information about the data stored at the network storage
system 302.
[0301] In certain embodiments, the indexing system 502 may be
included on or implemented by the secondary storage computing
device 106. In certain embodiments, the backup index 153 and/or the
metadata index 534 of the indexing system 502 may be stored in a
storage device of the secondary storage computing device 106.
Further, the media agent 144 can create a transaction log file 522,
which may be one of a plurality of transaction log files 522
maintained by the secondary storage computing device 106 and stored
in a transaction log file repository 520. Each transaction log file
522 may include data that is being backed up. For example, each
transaction log file 522 may include a file system object with
index-able metadata. In some embodiments, each transaction log file
522 may include attributes of files that have been backed up by the
data migration system 504 or the data migration system 512 to the
network storage system 302. The media agent 144 may periodically
back up the transaction log files 522 to the network storage system
302, as indicated by the TLFs 530 stored in the secondary storage
devices 526 of the network storage system 302. Further, the media
agent 144 can backup the backup index 153 to the network storage
system 302, as indicated by the index 532 at the secondary storage
devices 526.
[0302] The backup index 153 and the transaction log files 522 may
be generated periodically or at particular scheduled times.
However, in certain embodiments, one or more transactions
associated with backing up data to the network storage system 302
or accessing backed up data from the secondary storage system 302
may occur at times other than the times when the backup index 153
and/or the transaction log files 522 are generated. In some such
cases, a transaction identifier for each performed transaction may
be provided to a metadata index 534. When a trigger causes a
transaction log file 522 to be generated, the media agent 144 may
access the metadata index 534 to identify any transactions that may
have occurred since the previous transaction log file 522 or the
previous backup index 153 was generated.
[0303] FIG. 5B is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
575 for reducing a management burden on a storage manager enabling
an increase in scale of clients supported by an information
management system, according to an embodiment. In certain
embodiments, the system 575 includes one or more of the embodiments
described with respect to the system 500. Further, the secondary
storage computing device may include an indexing agent 580. The
indexing agent 580 may include any system that can perform indexing
of a backup or archive. Further, the indexing agent 580 can
facilitate restore of a backup from a network storage system 302.
In certain embodiments, the indexing agent 580 includes a data
management system 506. In certain embodiments, the combination of
the core media agent 510 and the indexing agent 580 may perform the
operations of a media agent 144. In other words, in certain
embodiments, the media agent 144 may be divided into a core media
agent 510 that can migrate data between a primary storage device
104 and a network storage 302, and an indexing agent 580 that can
create, maintain, and/or update an index for a backup or archive of
the primary storage device 104. Advantageously, in certain
embodiments, by dividing the media agent 144, and the operations
performed by the media agent 144, across the client computing
device and the secondary storage computing device, the amount of
time spent by the client computing device 102 during a backup
process can be reduced. Further, the resource burden, such as
bandwidth and the number of communication connections between the
client computing device 102 and the secondary storage subsystem 118
and/or the network storage 302 may be reduced.
[0304] Additional processes and details of the operations of the
systems illustrated in FIGS. 5A and 5B are described below with
respect to FIGS. 6 through 10 and 12 though 14.
Example Client Managed Job Process
[0305] FIG. 6 depicts operations of a client managed job process
600 according to an embodiment. The process 600 can be implemented
by any system that can self-manage or manage a job, such as a
backup of a primary storage device 104, at a secondary storage
system 118 without communicating with or with minimal communication
to the storage manager 140. The process 600, in whole or in part,
can be implemented by, for example, a data agent 142, a cache
manager 514, or a job cache repository 516, among others. Although
any number of systems, in whole or in part, can implement the
process 600, to simplify discussion, the process 600 will be
described with respect to particular systems.
[0306] The process 600 begins at block 602 where, for example, the
data agent 142 detects a trigger at the client computing device 102
to perform a job at a secondary storage system. The secondary
storage system may be or may include the secondary storage
subsystem 118 or a network storage system (sometimes referred to as
a "cloud" or "cloud storage system"), such as the network storage
system 302. The job may include any type of job or task that
relates to the access or management of data at a secondary storage
system 118. Typically, the job is a backup of data from a primary
storage device 104 to a secondary storage, such as a secondary
storage device 108 or a network storage system 302. However, in
certain embodiments, the job may include a restore operation to
restore data from a secondary storage system 118 or a network
storage system 302 to a primary storage system 117. Further, the
job may include an archiving operation, a deduplication operation,
or any other type of data management operation with respect to a
secondary storage system 118 or a network storage system 302. To
simplify discussion, and not to limit the present disclosure, the
job will primarily be described as a backup job unless specified
otherwise. It should also be understood that the backup job may
include different types of backup operations. For example, the
backup operation may be a complete backup, a backup of a subset of
files in a primary storage device 104, a differential backup, or
any other type of backup process that may be performed with respect
to the primary storage device 104. In some embodiments, the backup
operation may include or may be an archiving operation.
[0307] The trigger may include a command received from a user, an
administrator user, another computing device, an occurrence of a
defined sequence of events (for example, a creation of a particular
number of files or a modification in hardware configuration of the
client computing device 102), or the passage of time. In some
cases, the job may be scheduled to be performed at particular
periods of time or at a particular time intervals. For example, the
job may be scheduled to be performed every weekday, every evening,
every week, or once a month. Further, in certain embodiments, the
trigger may include a detection of a threshold percentage or amount
of change in data or files at the primary storage device 104.
[0308] The client computing device 102 may generally include any
type of client computing device. For example, the client computing
device may be a laptop, a tablet, a desktop computing system, a
smart phone, a computing kiosk, a smart appliance, or any other
type of computing system. Typically, the client computing device is
one of a large number of computing devices at an entity or
organization. For example, the client computing device may be one
of 100 or 200,000 computing devices. Although generally the
computing device is a client computing device, in some embodiments,
the computing device may be a server computing device.
[0309] At decision block 604, the data agent 142 determines whether
an active job identifier exists for the client computing device
102. Determining whether an active job identifier exists may
include determining whether the job identifier available to the
client computing device 102 has expired. The job identifier may be
provided by a storage manager 140 for a single job. However, in
embodiments of the present disclosure, the client computing device
102 may use the job identifier for multiple jobs. Advantageously,
in certain embodiments, by reusing the job identifier for multiple
jobs, communication with the storage manager 140 may be reduced,
thereby reducing the burden on the storage manager 140 and enabling
the storage manager 140 to manage a greater number of computing
systems. In certain embodiments, when the client computing device
102 performs multiple jobs using the same job identifier, the
storage manager 140 may process the multiple jobs as a single job
associated with the same job identifier.
[0310] If it is determined at the decision block 604 that an active
job identifier does not exist for the client computing device 102,
the data agent 142 requests a job identifier from the storage
manager 140 at block 606. The block 606 may include providing
information about the client computing device 102, such as the size
of the primary storage device 104, the amount of data on the
primary storage device 104, a speed or capability of a network card
included in the client computing device 102, or any other
information that may affect the performance of the job by the
client computing device 102. In some embodiments, the block 606 may
include providing information about the job to be performed to the
storage manager 140. For example, the block 606 may include
identifying to the storage manager 140 that the job is a backup job
or restore job. Further, the block 606 may include informing the
storage manager 140 of the amount of data to be backed up or
restored.
[0311] At block 608, the data agent 142 receives a job identifier
and related job metadata from the storage manager 140. The job
metadata may include a designation of computing resources allotted
to or available to the client computing device 102 to perform the
job. For example, the job metadata may identify a number of
communication streams designated for the client computing device
102 to communicate with the secondary storage system 118 or the
network storage system 302. As another example, the job metadata
may include an identity of a particular secondary storage computing
device 106 or a particular media agent 144 for the client computing
device 102 to communicate with to perform the job. In addition, the
job metadata may identify filters to be used by the client
computing device 102 and selecting data or files at the primary
storage device 104 to backup. In some cases, the job metadata may
also identify a type of scan to perform to identify data to back
up. For example, the type of scan may be a recursive scanning
algorithm or an iterative scanning algorithm. In some embodiments,
the job metadata may include a job identifier, an archive
identifier, a chunk identifier, a job token, and the like. In some
embodiments, a job identifier may be related to an archive
identifier and/or a chunk identifier. These identifiers may be used
to identify data to prune or restore from a backup.
[0312] In some systems, a client device may incur many jobs (e.g.,
hundreds, thousands, or more), which may result in many archive
identifiers and correspondingly fragmented chunks associated with
the jobs. The many chunks, archive identifiers, and other tracking
and management data can significantly increase an amount of
resources required for data management and generally system
book-keeping. Further, the many chunks, archive identifiers, and
other tracking and management data can add complexity to restore
and pruning operations.
[0313] On the other hand, by having a relatively large archive, it
is easier to manage jobs and overall efficiency for restoring and
pruning operations can be increased while computing resources for
book-keeping or other tracking and management operations can be
reduced. Thus, reusing a job identifier and/or archive identifier
for multiple jobs can reduce computing resources used for
management tasks. The job identifier and/or archive identifier can
be reused for multiple jobs for a particular time period and/or
until a backup or archive reaches a particular size. The particular
size and/or time period may be configurable. Once the time period
or size is reached, the job identifier or archive identifier may be
rotated. In certain embodiments, the identifiers may be rotated if
there is an error at the information manager relating to archive or
chunk management relating to a particular job.
[0314] At block 610, the cache manager 514 stores the job
identifier and the related job metadata that the job cache 516. In
certain embodiments, the client computing device 102 may be
configured with particular default job metadata. For example, the
client computing device 102 may by default perform recursive
scanning. In some such embodiments, the job metadata received from
the storage manager may be complementary to the default job
metadata and/or may replace some of the default job metadata.
Storing the related job metadata at the job cache 516 may include
associating the related job metadata with the job identifier at the
job cache 516.
[0315] At block 612, the data agent 142 performs the job using the
job metadata. Further, the data agent 142 may associate the job
with the job identifier. Performing the job using the job metadata
may include performing or initiating a backup process using the
computing and/or communication resources available to the client
computing device 102 as identified by the job metadata.
[0316] If it is determined at the decision block 604 that an active
job identifier does exist for the client computing device 102, the
data agent 142, using the cache manager 514, accesses job metadata
corresponding to the job identifier from the job cache 516. Using
the job metadata accessed from the job cache 516, the data agent
142 may determine resources available to complete the job. By using
the stored job metadata to perform multiple jobs and by associating
the multiple jobs with the same job identifier, communication with
the storage manager 140 is reduced enabling the storage manager 140
to support more devices.
[0317] At block 616, the data agent 142 performs the job using the
job metadata without obtaining a new job identifier. Further, the
data agent 142 may associate the job with the job identifier, which
may previously have been associated with previously performed jobs.
In some embodiments, the data agent 142 may assign another
identifier to the job that is associated with the job identifier.
For example, the data agent 142 may assign a sub-identifier or a
set of nested identifiers to each job that is associated with the
job identifier previously provided by the storage manager 140. By
assigning a sub-identifier or other identifier that is associated
with the job identifier to the job, the client computing device 102
can uniquely identify each particular job associated with the
single job identifier provided by the storage manager 140.
Example Job Metadata Update Process
[0318] FIG. 7 depicts operations of a job metadata update process
700 according to an embodiment. The process 700 can be implemented
by any system that can update job metadata at one or more client
computing devices. The process 700, in whole or in part, can be
implemented by, for example, a storage manager 140, a jobs agent
156, or a management agent 154, among others. Although any number
of systems, in whole or in part, can implement the process 700, to
simplify discussion, the process 700 will be described with respect
to particular systems.
[0319] The process 700 begins at block 702 where, for example, the
storage manager 140 determines a change at the information
management system 100 affecting job metadata. The change at the
information management system 100 may include any type of change
that modifies the resources available to one or more computing
devices within the primary storage system 117. In some embodiments,
the change in resources available may be a change to resources
available within the primary storage system 117, a change in
resources available in the secondary storage system 118, or change
in's resources available at the network storage system 302. Some
non-limiting examples of changes at the information management
system that can affect the job metadata may include the addition of
or the loss of access to a media agent 144 or a secondary storage
computing device 106, a change in the availability of one or more
secondary storage devices 108, a change in the amount of storage
available at the secondary storage system 118 or at the network
storage system 302, a change in the number of communication streams
or the bandwidth of the communication streams available at the
information management system 100, a change in the availability of
network resources, a change in the priority level or access control
level of one or more systems of the information management system
100, a change in the number of client computing devices 102
requesting access to resources at the information management system
100, or any other change that may affect the availability of
resources that may be available to perform a job.
[0320] At block 704, the storage manager 140 identifies one or more
client computing devices 102 provided with outdated or expired job
metadata. In some embodiments, the block 704 may include
identifying all client computing devices 102 within the information
management system 100 that have been provided with job metadata. In
other embodiments, the block 704 may include identifying a subset
of client computing devices 102 that may be designated or selected
to receive an modified amount of computing resources as determined
by an administrator or an allocation algorithm performed by the
storage manager 140. In some embodiments, the block 704 may include
identifying a subset of client computing devices 102 that are
associated with an unexpired job identifier.
[0321] At block 706, the storage manager 140 updates the job
metadata for the one or more client computing devices 102 based on
the change at the information management system 100. In some
embodiments, updating the job metadata for the one or more client
computing devices 102 may include modifying the job metadata
previously provided to the one or more client computing devices 102
based on the change in the information management system 100. In
some embodiments, different client computing devices 102 may be
updated with different job metadata. In some embodiments some of
the client computing devices 102 may be updated with different job
metadata and other client computing devices 102 may not be updated
or may not be assigned updated job metadata. In some embodiments,
the storage manager 140 may determine job metadata to provide, or
computing resources to assign, to one or more client computing
devices 102 based on the current state or configuration of the
information management system 100. In some such cases, the storage
manager 140 may determine the computing resources were job metadata
to provide to the one or more client computing devices 102 without
accessing or considering prior job metadata provided to the one or
more client computing devices 102.
[0322] At block 708, the storage manager 140 provides the one or
more client computing devices 102 with the updated job metadata.
Providing a client computing device 102 with the updated job
metadata may include providing a new job identifier to the client
computing device 102 associated with the updated job metadata.
Alternatively, providing the client computing device 102 with the
updated job metadata may include identifying to the client
computing device 102 an associated job identifier previously
provided to the client computing device 102 enabling the client
computing device 102 to modify the job metadata associated with the
previously provided job identifier.
[0323] In certain embodiments, the updated job metadata is pushed
to the client computing device 102. In other words, in certain
embodiments, the storage manager 140 may provide the updated job
metadata to the client computing device 102 without the client
computing device 102 requesting the updated job metadata. Upon
receiving the updated job metadata, the cache manager 514 of the
client computing device 102 may update the job cache 516 to store
the updated job metadata. Updating the job cache 516 to store the
updated job metadata may include associating the updated to
metadata with a new job identifier at the job cache 516 or with a
previously provided job identifier at the job cache 516.
Example Backup Process
[0324] FIG. 8 depicts operations of a backup process 800 according
to an embodiment. The process 800 can be implemented by any system
that can perform a backup process for backing up a primary storage
device 104 to a secondary storage or a network storage system. The
process 800, in whole or in part, can be implemented by, for
example, a client computing device 102, a data agent 142, a core
media agent 510, a data migration system 512, a media agent 144, a
data migration system 504, or a data management system 506, among
others. Although any number of systems, in whole or in part, can
implement the process 800, to simplify discussion, the process 800
will be described with respect to particular systems. Further,
although the process 800 is primarily described with respect to
backing up a primary storage device 142 network store system 302,
in some embodiments, the process 800 or a modified version of the
process 800 may be used to perform a restore process for restoring
data from a network storage system 302 to a primary storage device
104 of the client computing device 102.
[0325] The process 800 begins at block 802 where, for example, the
data agent 142 detecting a trigger at a client computing device 102
to perform a backup of a primary storage device 104 at a network
storage system 302. The trigger may include a command received from
a user, an administrator user, another computing device, an
occurrence of a defined sequence of events (for example, a creation
of a particular number of files or a modification in hardware
configuration of the client computing device 102), or the passage
of time. In some cases, the backup job may be scheduled to be
performed at particular periods of time or at particular time
intervals. For example, the job may be scheduled to be performed
every weekday, every evening, every week, or once a month. Further,
in certain embodiments, the trigger may include a detection of a
threshold percentage or amount of change in data or files at the
primary storage device 104.
[0326] At block 804, the cache manager 514 accesses the job cache
516 to obtain job metadata. Accessing the job cash 516 may include
identifying particular job metadata associated with a currently
pending, active, or non-expired job identifier. In some
embodiments, the job identifier may be used as an index into the
job cache 516 to identify current or non-expired job metadata
associated with the job identifier.
[0327] At decision block 806, the data agent 142 determines whether
the client computing device 102 is capable of interacting with the
network storage system 302. In certain embodiments, determining
whether the client computing device 102 is capable of interacting
with the network storage system 302 is based at least in part on
the job metadata obtained at the block 804. In other embodiments,
determining whether the client computing device 102 is capable of
interacting with the network storage system 302 is performed
without consideration of job metadata stored at the job cache 516.
In some such embodiments, the block 804 may be optional or
omitted.
[0328] In some embodiments, the decision block 806 may include
determining whether the client computing device 102 is authorized
to access the network storage system 302. Determining whether the
client computing device 102 is authorized to access the network
store system 302 may include determining whether the client
computing device 102 has an account with the network storage system
302 or has authorization information, such as a username and/or
password for accessing the network storage system 302. In some
embodiments, the decision block 806 may include attempting to
communicate with the network storage system 302 to confirm whether
the client computing device 102 is capable of interacting with the
network storage system 302. Attempting to communicate with the
network storage system 302 may include sending a test communication
packet to the network storage system 302, attempting to
authenticate with the network store system 302, or performing any
other operation that may confirm whether the client computing
device 102 is capable of interacting with the network storage
system 302. In some embodiments, the decision block 806 may include
requesting access to the network storage system 302 from one or
more of the storage manager 140, the network storage system 302, or
a secondary storage computing device 106.
[0329] If it is determined at the decision block 806 that the
client computing device 102 is capable of interacting with the
network storage system 302, the data agent 142 provides data to the
core media agent 510 at the client computing device 102 at block
808. The data provided to the core media agent 510 includes data
from the primary storage device 104 to be backed up. This data may
include one or more files, directories, metadata, or other types of
data to be backed up. Providing the data to the core media agent
510 may include providing the core media agent 510 with access to
the data at the primary storage device 104. In certain embodiments,
providing the data to the core media agent 510 may include copying
the data from the primary storage device 104 to a memory location
at the client computing device 102 that is accessible to the core
media agent 510. This memory location may, for example, be volatile
memory or non-volatile memory that is assigned to the core media
agent 510 or to one or more process threads of the core media agent
510.
[0330] At block 810, the core media agent 510 backs up the data at
the network storage system 302 without accessing the media agent
144 at the secondary storage system 118. Backing up the data at the
network store system 302 may include communicating the data to the
network storage system 302 directly or via a network, such as, but
not limited to, the Internet. Advantageously, in certain
embodiments, by providing the data for backup to the core media
agent 510 and by backing up the data at the network store system
302 without communicating the data to the secondary storage system
118 or to the media agent 144, the amount of processing performed
by the media agent 144 during a backup process is reduced. By
reducing the processing or overhead of the media agent 144, the
media agent 144 and/or the secondary storage computing device 106
may support a larger number of client computing devices 102
enabling the information management system 100 to be scaled to
support more client computing devices 102. Further, in certain
embodiments, by reducing the overhead on the media agent 144 during
the backup process, information management system 100 can support
an increased rate of occurrence of the backup process. In other
words, in certain embodiments, the client computing device 102 may
be backed up more frequently due to the reduced burden on the
secondary storage system 118 by performance of the process 800 and
the communication of data for backup directly to the network
storage system 302 instead of the of the secondary storage system
118.
[0331] If it is determined at the decision block 806 that the
client computing device 102 is not capable of interacting with the
network storage system 302, the data agent 142 provides data for
backup to the media agent 144 at the secondary storage computing
device 106 of the secondary storage system 118 at block 812.
Providing the data for backup to the media agent 144 may include
streaming data from the primary storage device 104 to the media
agent 144 or to the secondary storage computing device 106.
[0332] At block 814, the data agent 142 backs up the data at the
network storage system 302 using the media agent 144 at the
secondary storage system 118. Backing up the data to the network
storage system 302 may include streaming the data from the
secondary storage computing device 106 to the network storage
system 302. In some embodiments, the block 814 is performed by the
media agent 144. In some embodiments, the blocks 810 and 814 may
include backing up the data to a secondary storage device 108
instead of or in addition to backing up the data to the network
storage system 302. In such embodiments, the block 810 may include
backing up the data to the secondary storage device 108 without
accessing the media agent 144 or the secondary storage computing
device 106.
[0333] At block 816, the media agent 144 generates a backup index
at the secondary storage system 118. In certain embodiments,
regardless of whether the backup is performed by the media agent
144 or the core media agent 510, the backup index may be generated
by the media agent 144 at the secondary storage system 118. As
previously described, the backup index may be a media agent index
153 and may include a data structure that includes information
about the stored data. In some embodiments, as previously
described, the media agent index 153 may store information about
stored data associated with a particular media agent 144. However,
in other embodiments, the media agent index 153 may not be
associated with a particular media agent 144 and may be distributed
among a set of media agents 144. Moreover, as the data may be
backed up to the network storage system 302 instead of the
secondary storage system 118, the media agent index 153 generated
by the media agent 144 may be associated with one or more
particular backups of data at the network storage system 302. The
media agent index 153 generated by the media agent 144 may
facilitate searching and accessing data backed up to the network
storage system 302. In certain embodiments, generating the backup
index may include performing one or more operations of the process
900 described with respect to FIG. 9.
[0334] At block 818, the media agent 144 stores the backup index at
the secondary storage system 118. In certain embodiments, the block
818 may include backing up the backup index, or the media agent
index 153, to the network storage system 302. Further, in certain
embodiments, the block 818 may include distributing the backup
index among a plurality of media agents 144.
Example Indexing Process
[0335] FIG. 9 depicts operations of an indexing process 900
according to an embodiment. The process 900 can be implemented by
any system that can perform an indexing process for creating a
backup index to facilitate access to data stored or backed up to a
secondary storage system 118 or a network storage system 302. The
process 900, in whole or in part, can be implemented by, for
example, a media agent 144, a data management system 506, a
secondary storage computing device 106, a storage manager 140, or
an indexing system 502, among others. Although any number of
systems, in whole or in part, can implement the process 900, to
simplify discussion, the process 900 will be described with respect
to particular systems.
[0336] The process 900 begins at block 902 where, for example, the
media agent 144, using the data management system 506, generates a
backup index based at least in part on the backup metadata
corresponding to a backup job. This backup metadata may be received
from the client computing device 102, the core media agent 510, or
the data agent 142. In some embodiments, the block 902 may include
storing the backup index at the indexing system 502. The backup job
may be a full backup of the primary storage device 104. Further, in
certain embodiments the backup job may be an initial backup of the
primary storage device 104. In other embodiments, the backup job
may be any type of backup or archive the primary storage device 104
and may or may not be an initial backup of the primary storage
device 104 to stop
[0337] At block 904, the media agent 144 backs up the backup index
to a network storage system 302. Backing up the backup index to the
network storage system 302 may include associating the backup index
with the backup job. This backup job may be a backup job performed
by the media agent 144 or a backup job performed by the core media
agent 510. In other words, in certain embodiments, the backup index
generated by the media agent 144 may be associated with a backup
job is performed by system other than the media agent 144, such as
the core media agent 510. In some such embodiments, despite not
receiving the data for backup, the media agent 144 may generate the
backup index based on backup metadata received from the core media
agent 510, the data agent 142, or the client computing device
102.
[0338] At block 906, the media agent 144 receives a set of
transaction log files including metadata corresponding to a job
performed by a client. This job may be a separate or subsequent job
to the job that generated the metadata used to create the backup
index at the block 902. Further, the metadata received at the block
906 may be received over time or over a set of time intervals. For
example, a first set of metadata may be received at or during a
first time period while a second set of metadata may be received at
or during a second time period that is later than the first time
period. The second set of metadata may come in some cases, be
received after a period of inactivity following receipt of the
first set of metadata. In certain embodiments, the metadata
received at the block 906 may be received at the same time as or
substantially in parallel to the corresponding job being performed
by the client computing device 102 or the media agent 144.
[0339] At block 910, the media agent 144 backs up the set of
transaction log files at the network storage system 302. Backing up
the set of transaction log files may include storing the data and,
in some cases, the metadata at the network storage system 302
without updating or generating a backup index associated with the
data of the transaction log files. In some embodiments, the set of
transaction log files may be backed up to the network storage
system 302 as they are received or created during the set of time
intervals. In other embodiments, the set of transaction log files
may be aggregated and backed up to the network storage system 302
together during a particular period in time. In some embodiments,
the block 910 may include distributing the set of transaction log
files 522 across a plurality of media agents 144 or a plurality of
secondary storage computing devices 106. The set of transaction log
files 522 may be backed up periodically. For example, the set of
transaction log files 522 may be backed up once a day, every two
hours, or each workday. In certain embodiments, the transaction log
files 522 are backed up more frequently than the backup index.
Thus, for example, while the backup index may be backed up to the
network storage system 302 once a day or once a week, the
transaction log files 522 may be backed up each hour or a few times
a day.
[0340] Generally, storing the attributes of files or data and/or
the transaction log file 522 is faster than generating a backup
index. Thus, in certain embodiments, attributes of files or data
obtained from the metadata received at the block 906 may be stored
in a transaction log file 522 during a time period while a job is
occurring. At some period of time subsequent to the backup job
completing, a backup index can be generated based on the set of
transaction log files. Advantageously, in certain embodiments, by
first storing file data attributes in a transaction log file 522
and later generating the backup index, the amount of time required
to complete the backup process, or the man of time that the client
computing device 102 is involved in the backup process, may be
reduced.
[0341] A backup index may be implemented as a database. Storing
and/or maintaining the backup index separately from the TLF(s) can
have several benefits. One advantage is that it is possible to
transition the backup index to a new or different storage
technology with or without any changes to the TLFs or backed up
data. For example, a common or middle layer may be implemented
between the backup index and the TLFs. The middle layer could
translate the TLFs to the new database schema associated with the
new backup index technology or vice versa. Further, in certain
embodiments, by separating the TLFs from the backup indexing, it is
possible to store the TLFs and to generate or update the backup
index at a later time, such as when more computing resources are
available. Thus, in certain embodiments, scheduled backup indexes
can be satisfied even when a system is busy because, for example,
the amount of computing resources required to complete the backup
can be reduced by separating when the storage of the TLFs and the
generation of the backup index occurs. Further, the TLFs can be
used to regenerate a backup index if there is loss of a previously
generated backup index.
[0342] Moreover, in certain cloud backup or network storage
embodiments, a distributed backup process comprising backing up the
TLFs in network storage at a first time period and later playing
back the TLF at a second time period to generate the backup index
can have significant scale and performance improvements. For
example, a large number of TLFs can be stored at a first time
period using a set of available network computing resources. At a
second time period when a greater amount of computing resources are
available or when the cost of using the computing resources is
lower, the backup index can be created reducing a burden on
available computing resources and/or reducing cost.
[0343] In certain embodiments, one transaction log file 522 may be
generated for each job performed by the client computing device
102. In other embodiments, multiple transaction log files 522 may
be generated per job performed by the client computing device 102.
The transaction log files 522 may include attributes of files or
data that are included as part of the backup process.
[0344] At block 912, the media agent 144 generates a transaction
metadata index at the indexing system 502 to manage the transaction
log files 522 for a set of media agents. The transaction metadata
index may be distributed among a plurality of media agents 144.
Advantageously, in certain embodiments, by distributing or
replicating the indexing system 502 among a plurality of media
agents 144 and/or secondary storage computing devices 106, access
to the backup index 153 and the transaction log files 522 may be
maintained when some of the media agents 144 or secondary storage
computing devices 106 suffer or experience a failure.
[0345] At block 914, the media agent 144 updates a backup index 153
based at least in part on the set of transaction log files 522. In
certain embodiments, updating the backup index 153 may include
generating a new backup index based at least in part on the set of
transaction log files 522. In some cases, the new backup index may
be generated based on the previous backup index 153 generated at
the block 902. A TLF 522 may include the backed up data and
index-able metadata. Updating the backup index can include
executing or performing one or more commands or actions based on
the data stored in the transaction log files to bring the backup
index and indexing information in the backup index repository
up-to-date based on the data that has been backed up.
[0346] At block 916, the media agent 144 backs up the updated
backup index to the network storage system 302. Backing up the
updated backup index to the network storage system 302 may include
modifying the backup index previously stored to the network store
system 302. Alternatively, or in addition, backing up the updated
backup index may include storing a new copy of a backup index
corresponding to the updated backup index to the network storage
system 302.
[0347] At block 918, the media agent 144 stores a transaction
identifier, or a transaction number, for each transaction occurring
subsequent to storage of the most recent transaction log file 522
in a metadata index 534. Storing the transaction log file 522 in
the metadata index 534 may include storing metadata of the
transaction log file 522, or of data stored in the transaction log
file 522, in the metadata index 534. In some embodiments, the
transaction identifiers for each transaction occurring subsequent
to storage of the most recent transaction log file may be stored at
the network storage system 302. Further, in some embodiments, upon
a particular number of transaction identifiers being stored or upon
a particular point in time being reached, a new transaction log
file may be generated based on the transaction identifiers. In some
such cases the transaction identifiers may be discarded upon
creation of the new transaction log file. Further, additional
transaction identifiers associated with transactions occurring
subsequent to the new transaction log file 522 may be collected and
stored at the metadata index 534.
[0348] In certain embodiments, the transaction number may be a
serial number associated with a client device that is backed up.
Each client device may be associated with a different transaction
number. A transaction log file that is generated during a backup
process may be named after the transaction number. In certain
embodiments, each transaction that is generated during the backup
process may be recorded in an index, such as the backup index 153,
the metadata index 534, or the index 532. When a transaction is
consumed or recorded into the index, an attribute, flag, or other
marker may be recorded representing that transaction in the index.
This attribute may indicate that the transaction is consumed or
recorded. Periodically, it can be checked whether all received
transactions have been consumed or not by checking the flag in the
index. If it is determined that any unconsumed transactions exist,
the transaction can be retried, and the index can be updated to
indicate that the transaction metadata has been recorded in the
index.
[0349] The process 900, or portions thereof may be repeated
intermittently, on a continuous basis, or each time a backup job is
performed. For example, the operations associated with the blocks
906-910 may be repeated for a particular number of jobs. In some
embodiments, after a particular number of jobs, the process 900 may
return to the block 902 to create a new backup index. Thus, in one
non-limiting example, a backup index may be created at time 0. At
times 10, 20, 30, and 40, a set of transaction log files may be
created. At times occurring between the creation of the backup
index and/or each transaction log file, transaction identifiers for
each transaction occurring in the time intervals may be stored. For
example, transaction identifiers for transactions occurring between
times 10 and 20 may be stored at the metadata index 534. Metadata
associated with these transactions may then be integrated or
included as part of the transaction log file created at time 20. At
time 50, a new backup index may be created, or the backup index
generated at time 0 may be updated based on the transaction log
files created at times 10, 20, 30, and 40. The backup index may
also be updated based on transactions occurring between time 40 and
50. At time 60, a number transaction log file may be generated.
[0350] As will be understood from the previous description, the
process 900 may be a form of tiered indexing process that creates
different types or granularities of indexes. In certain
embodiments, at least some of the operations associated with the
process 900 may be performed in a different order or at least
partially in parallel. For example, in some embodiments, a backup
index may be created prior to the formation of transaction log
files. In some other embodiments, transaction log files may be
created first, and a backup index may be created later, with or
without using the transaction log files.
Example Media Agent Restoration Process
[0351] FIG. 10 depicts operations of a media agent restoration
process 1000 according to an embodiment. The process 1000 can be
implemented by any system that can add a new media agent to a
secondary storage system 118 or replace a media agent at the
secondary storage system 118. The process 1000, in whole or in
part, can be implemented by, for example, a storage manager 140 or
a secondary storage computing device 106, among others. Although
any number of systems, in whole or in part, can implement the
process 1000, to simplify discussion, the process 1000 will be
described with respect to particular systems.
[0352] The process 1000 begins at block 1002 where, for example,
the storage manager 140 detects a failure of the media agent 144 at
the secondary storage system 118. In some embodiments, the block
1002 may be optional or omitted. For example, in some embodiments,
the process 1000 may be used to add new or additional media agents
144 to the secondary storage system 118 when, for example, scaling
the information management system 100 to provide additional
computing resources or support additional client computing devices
102. In such embodiments, the process 1000 may be performed without
the detection of a failure of a media agent 144.
[0353] Alternatively, or in addition, the block 1002 may detect
that a new media agent should be configured or made available based
on one or more detected scaling criteria associated with the
information management system 100. In some cases, the media agent
may be added if the detected scaling criteria satisfy a scaling
threshold. This scaling criteria and/or threshold may relate to the
number of computing devices available or registered at the primary
storage system 117, the amount of expected backups to be performed,
the amount of data to be backed up, or any other criteria that may
affect the number of media agents to be used. For example, if the
storage manager 140 detects that more than a threshold number of
client computing devices have been added to or registered with the
primary storage system 117, the storage manager 140 may determine
that one or more additional media agents should be configured or
made available to the information management system 100, to the
primary storage system 117, or to the secondary storage system 118.
As another example, if it is determined that a threshold number of
backup operations are to be scheduled over a particular time
period, the storage manager 140 may determine that one or more
additional media agents should be configured or made available. In
certain embodiments, the failure of one or more media agents may
cause the scaling criteria to satisfy a scaling threshold that
causes the storage manager 140 to configure new or additional media
agents. In some cases, the failure of one media agent may not cause
the scaling criteria to satisfy the scaling threshold. In some such
cases, the failure of a media agent may not result in the remainder
of the process 1000 being performed. But the failure of additional
media agents in the future that result in the scaling criteria
satisfying the scaling threshold may cause the remainder of the
process 1000 to be performed after the additional media agents have
failed.
[0354] At block 1004, the storage manager 140 configures a
computing system as a new media agent 144 or to include a new media
agent 144. In some embodiments, the computing system may be
configured as a secondary storage computing device 106 that is
configured to host or implement the new media agent 144. In some
cases, the secondary storage computing device 106 or the media
agent 144 may be configured to replace a secondary storage
computing device or a media agent that has failed. In other cases,
the secondary storage computing device 106 or the media agent 144
may be configured as a new or additional secondary storage
computing device 106 or media agent 144.
[0355] At block 1006, the storage manager 140 restores the most
recent backup index 532 from the network storage system 302 to the
new media agent 144 to create a backup index 153 at the media agent
144. Restoring the most recent backup index may include retrieving
the backup index from the network store system 302 and storing it
on an indexing system 502 of the new secondary storage computing
device 106. In some embodiments, the backup index may be restored
from the secondary storage device 108 at the secondary storage
system 118. The most recent backup index may comprise the most
recently created backup index generated and/or the most recently
created backup index stored at the network storage system 302. In
some embodiments, the most recent backup index may be the most
recent backup index identified as available or eligible for use or
restoration. For example, in some cases, one or more backup indexes
may be marked or identified as being expired, unavailable,
corrupted, or otherwise unusable. In some such cases, the most
recent backup index may be marked as unavailable. In some cases, a
most recent backup index may be unusable because a more recent
backup was discarded and an earlier backup was identified as the
most up-to-date backup to be used. Thus, in some cases, the most
recent backup index restored at the block 1006 may in fact not be
the most recent backup index generated.
[0356] At block 1008, the storage manager 140 updates the backup
index 153 at the new media agent 144 based at least in part on one
or more transaction log files at the network storage system 302
that are more recent than the backup index 153. The one or more
transaction log files may be retrieved from the network storage
system 302 and stored at the indexing system 502 of the new
secondary storage computing device 106. In some embodiments, the
one or more transaction log files may be restored from the
secondary storage device 108 at the secondary storage system 118.
In certain embodiments, the storage manager 140 accesses,
retrieves, or cause to be retrieved one or more transaction log
files that have a timestamp that is more recent than a timestamp
associated with the backup index 153. In certain embodiments, at
least some of the transaction log files may be accessed from an
indexing system of another secondary storage computing device.
Further, in some cases, the transaction log files may be stored at
a distributed index, such as a distributed indexing system 502.
Moreover, in certain embodiments, there may be no transaction log
files that are more recent than the backup index. In such
embodiments, the block 1008 may be omitted.
[0357] At decision block 1010, the storage manager 140 determines
whether any transaction identifiers that are more recent than the
backup index 153 exist. Determining whether any transaction
identifiers that are more recent than the backup index 153 exists
may include comparing the timestamp of the transaction identifiers
with the timestamp of the backup index and/or the one or more
transaction log files used to update the backup index. The
transaction identifiers may be accessed from a network storage
system 302, from a secondary storage device 108, or from an
indexing system 502 of another secondary storage computing device
106 other than the one being replaced or added to the secondary
storage system 118.
[0358] If it is determined at the decision block 1010 that there
are transaction identifiers that exist that are more recent than
the backup index 153, the storage manager 140, at block 1012,
replays or causes to be replayed transactions associated with the
transaction identifiers that are more recent than the backup index
153 to create an up-to-date backup index. Replaying the
transactions may include accessing one or more transactions from
transaction log files associated with the transaction identifiers
that have yet to be recorded in the backup index. These one or more
transactions may be replayed or performed and the backup index may
be updated to indicate that the transaction has been flushed to
backup. A flag in the backup index may indicate that the
transaction has been consumed to performed. By replaying the
transactions associated with the transaction identifiers, backup
index can be updated to reflect the state of the index at a point
in time where the media agent 144 of the block 1002 was detected to
have failed or to the current state of the index. In certain
embodiments, replaying the transactions may be limited to replaying
the effects of the transactions on the index because, for example,
although the index may have been lost when the media agent 144
failed, the backup of the primary storage device associated with
the index may still exist at the network store system 302. In some
embodiments, replaying the transactions may include modifying the
backup index 153 based on one or more results generated by
replaying the transactions. In some embodiments, one or more
transaction identifiers are accessed from the network storage
manager 302. Alternatively, or in addition, one or more of the
transaction identifiers may be accessed from an indexing system
502, which may be associated with another secondary storage
computing device. In some cases the indexing system 502 may be a
distributed indexing system that is distributed among a plurality
of systems at the secondary storage system 118.
[0359] After creating the up-to-date backup index at block 1012, or
if it is determined that there are no transaction identifiers that
are more recent than the backup index at the decision block 1010,
the storage manager 140 adds the new media agent 144 to the set of
available media agents at the secondary storage system 118. Adding
the new media agent 144 to the set of available media agents may
include providing the new media agent with the up-to-date backup
index. In some cases, providing the up-to-date backup index to the
new media agent 144 includes storing the up-to-date backup index at
an indexing system 502 of the new media agent 144. This indexing
system 502 may be included as part of or hosted by the secondary
storage computing device 106 that hosts the new media agent
144.
[0360] Further, adding the new media agent 144 to the set of
available media agents may include identifying the new media agent
144 as available for use by one or more client computing devices
102. Further, adding the new media agent 144 to the set of
available media agents may include storing the identity of or
access information for the new media agent 144, or the new
secondary storage computing device 106, in the management database
146.
[0361] In certain embodiments, one or more of the blocks of the
process 1000 may be performed by the new media agent 144 itself.
For example, after the storage manager 140 configures the secondary
storage computing device 106 as a new media agent 144 or to include
the media agent 144, the new media agent 144 may perform the
operations associated with the blocks 1006, 1008, 1010, and 1012.
Upon completion of the operations associated with the blocks 1010
and/or 1012, the new media agent 144 may inform the storage manager
140 that the backup index has been restored for use by the new
media agent 144 enabling the storage manager 142 at the new media
agent the set of available media agents as part of the block
1014.
[0362] In regard to the figures described herein, other embodiments
are possible, 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.
Example Use Cases
[0363] In one example use case, a backup of a client computing
device 102, or other data management task, may be triggered. For
example, a user may request a backup or a scheduled backup time may
be reached. The data agent 142 may request a job ID and job
metadata from a storage manager 140 to perform the backup task
using, for example the process 600. The data agent 142 may receive
the job ID (e.g., Job ID XYZ) and job metadata indicating
information to facilitate the backup process. For example, the job
metadata may identify where to backup the data, how many data
connections to establish, or an amount of bandwidth available to
the client computing device 102. The job ID and job metadata may be
stored at a job cache 516.
[0364] In embodiments where the client computing device 102
includes a core media agent 510, the data agent 142 may write or
provide data from the primary storage device 104 to the core media
agent 510 for backup using, for example, the process 800. Metadata
relating to the files to be backed up may be provided to a data
management system 506 at a media agent 144 or at an indexing agent
580 to create or maintain an index of the backup. In embodiments
where the client computing device 102 does not include a core media
agent 510, the data may be provided by the data agent 142 to a
media agent 144 at a secondary storage computing device 106.
[0365] In a continuing example use case, a second job may be
triggered. For example, an incremental backup may be triggered. The
client computing device 102 may determine from the job cache that
the job ID XYZ and associated job metadata is still valid. For
example, an associated time to live value has not been reached or
an invalidation command invalidating the job ID has not been
received from the storage manager 140. In such cases, the second
job may be performed using the job metadata associated with the job
ID XYZ. Thus, it may appear to the storage manager 140 that the
second job is a continuation of the first job. In other words, the
client computing device 102 may cause one or more other systems
within the information management system 500 to associate a
plurality of jobs as one job under one job ID. Advantageously,
overhead is reduced within the system 500 by reducing communication
between systems within the system 500.
[0366] At some time subsequent to the performance of the first and
second job, and possibly one or more additional jobs, the client
computing device 102 may provide a batch update to the storage
manager 140 relating to the plurality of jobs performed under the
job ID XYZ. At such time, the storage manager 140 may update a jobs
agent 156 to identify the plurality of jobs performed under the job
ID XYZ and whether the jobs were successful or failed.
Storage Manager Query Caching
[0367] As previously described, one way to reduce overhead, and
therefore increase the number of client computing devices 102 that
can be supported by the storage manager 140, is to re-use job
identifiers for multiple backup and/or restore processes. Another
way to reduce overhead in the information management system 100 is
to reduce the number of times the storage manager 140 is queried or
otherwise communicated with during a backup, restore, or other data
management process. Embodiments disclosed herein can reduce the
number of communications with the storage manager 140 by combining
separate queries into a single query and/or by caching query
results enabling the query results to be re-used in subsequent data
management operations (e.g., in subsequent backup operations)
without accessing the storage manager 140 during the subsequent
data management operation.
[0368] FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
1100 for reducing a management burden on a storage manager enabling
an increase in the number of clients supported by an information
management system, according to an embodiment. In some embodiments,
the system 1100 can be part of an information management system 100
and may include one or more of the systems and one or more of the
embodiments previously described with respect to the information
management system 100. Moreover, in certain embodiments, the system
1100 includes one or more of the embodiments described with respect
to the systems 500 and/or 575.
[0369] The client computing device 102, as illustrated in FIG. 11,
may include a query cache 1102. The query cache 110 may include any
repository that is capable of storing or caching query results, or
data obtained from query results, from queries provided to the
storage manager 140. The query cache 1102 may comprise volatile
memory, non-volatile memory, or a combination of volatile and
non-volatile memory. The query cache 1102 can be managed by the
cache manager 514, which also manages the job cache 516.
Alternatively, the query cache 1102 may be managed by a separate
cache manager (not shown). In some cases, the cache manager 514 may
be included as part of the data agent 142 and/or the core media
agent 510. Thus, in some cases, the data agent 142 and/or the core
media agent 510 may manage the query cache 1102. In some
embodiments, the query cache 1102 and the job cache 516 may be
combined into a single repository. Alternatively, the query cache
1102 may replace the job cache 516.
[0370] The query cache 1102 may cache any type of data obtained
from the storage manager 140 during a data management process, such
as a backup process, a restore process, a deduplication process, an
archive process, and the like. The data obtained from the storage
manager 140 may relate to various policies implemented globally at
the information management system 100 or implemented with respect
to particular subsystems or computing devices of the information
management system 100. For example, the policies may be associated
with client computing devices 102 of particular types, associated
with particular users, or associated with users of particular
roles.
[0371] Further, the policies may relate to storage policies (e.g.,
storage locations, encryption used, deduplication frequency and
policies, and the like), sub-client configurations (e.g.,
particular storage drives of the client computing device 102),
back-up policies (e.g., frequency of backup, data to backup,
location of backup, whether to archive, deduplication frequency and
policies, and the like), restore policies (e.g., when to restore,
where to restore, and the like), access control policies, or any
other policy that can be applied to an information management
system 100 or a portion thereof. In other words, in certain
embodiments, the query cache 1102 may store data relating to where
to backup data, where to restore data, the number of streams or
communication connections available to backup or restore data, the
type of encryption to use, encryption/decryption keys to use, the
size of data chunks, where to index the backup, the type of data to
include in the index, network storage 302 access information, a job
identifier for a storage management task, and any other data that
may be obtained from the storage manager 140 as part of or to
enable a storage management task.
[0372] In some embodiments, the query cache 1102 may be split into
a light-weight cache, such as a registry cache, that can store more
frequently accessed data and/or smaller data units, and a
heavy-weight cache, such as a SQL-based cache that may store more
substantial data blocks. For example, the light-weight cache may
store identifiers or query response data that comprises a single
value or data that rarely changes. For instance, the light-weight
cache of the query cache 1102 may store a job identifier value, or
a secondary storage computing device identifier. The SQL-based
cache may store larger data-entries compared to the light-weight
cache, such as storage policy information or access information for
each computing device within the secondary storage subsystem
118.
[0373] The data agent 142 in the core media agent 510 are
illustrated as separate systems within the client computing device
102. However, in certain embodiments, the core media agent 510 may
be part of or implemented within the data agent 142. Alternatively,
or in addition, the data agent 142 may have at least some of the
functionality of the core media agent 510.
[0374] Additional processes and details of the operations of the
systems illustrated in FIG. 11 are described below with respect to
FIGS. 12 through 14.
Example Storage Manager Query Process
[0375] FIG. 12 depicts operations of a storage manager query
process 1200 according to an embodiment. The process 1200 can be
implemented by any system that can query, or may attempt to query,
a storage manager 140 during performance of a data management task,
such as a backup operation, a restore operation, a deduplication
operation, an archiving operation, and the like. The process 1200,
in whole or in part, can be implemented by, for example, a data
agent 142, a cache manager 514, a query cache 1102, or a core media
agent 510, among others. Although any number of systems, in whole
or in part, can implement the process 1200, to simplify discussion,
the process 1200 will be described with respect to particular
systems.
[0376] The process 1200 begins at block 1202 where, for example,
the data agent 142 detects a trigger to initiate a backup process
of a primary storage device 104. Alternatively, or in addition, the
data agent 142 may detect a trigger to perform an alternative data
management operation, such as a restore, archive, or deduplication
operation. The trigger may include any of the previously described
triggers herein. For example, the trigger may include a command, an
amount of changes to the primary data 112, or a scheduled time
being reached. Further, a core media agent 510 instead of, or in
addition to, the data agent 142 may detect the trigger at the block
1202.
[0377] While the process 1200 may be performed with respect to a
number of different data management operations, the process 1200
may be performed most frequently during a backup operation. The
backup operation may be triggered by a thread of the data agent
142, which may work in conjunction with the core media agent 510
perform the backup process. In some embodiments, the backup process
may be initiated without a management agent 150 for a job agent 156
of the storage manager 140 initiating the backup process. In other
words, in certain embodiments, a scheduler within the data agent
142 may trigger the backup process.
[0378] At block 1204, the cache manager 514 obtains a query
requesting information from the storage manager 140. The query may
be generated by the data agent 142 and provided to the cache
manager 514 or generated by the cache manager 514 itself.
Alternatively, or in addition, the query may be generated by
software that triggers the backup process. This software may be at
the client computing device 102, the storage manager 104, or
elsewhere within the information management system 100. In some
embodiments, the query may be generated by the cache manager 514.
In yet other embodiments, the query may be generated by the core
media agent 510 or any other system involved in the data backup
process. The query may then be provided to the data agent 142
and/or the cache manager 514.
[0379] At block 1206, the cache manager 514 generates a hash of the
query obtained at the block 1204. In certain embodiments, the hash
of the query is generated based on the entire query. In other
embodiments, the hash of the query is generated based on a portion
of the query. In certain embodiments, two instances of the same
query may include at least some differing data or metadata. For
example, in certain embodiments, each query may be associated with
a timestamp. Thus, two queries that are otherwise identical in all
other ways may have differing timestamps. As another example, each
query may be associated with a unique identifier. In such cases,
two otherwise identical queries may each have unique identifiers.
In certain embodiments, in generating the hash of the query, unique
data or metadata associated with the query that does not affect a
response to the query may be omitted (e.g., a timestamp or unique
identifier, or the like may be omitted). In other words, in some
cases, repeated instances of the same query may include some unique
aspects that differentiate the queries (e.g., timestamps). These
unique aspects may be omitted in generating a hash of the
query.
[0380] In certain embodiments, each query may be associated with a
unique identifier, but repetitions of the same query to be
associated with the same unique identifier. In other words, the
identifier may be unique to the particular query, but not to the
particular instance of the query. In some such embodiments, the
hash may be generated based on the unique identifier. In other
embodiments, the unique identifier may be used in place of the hash
at the block 1206 in such embodiments, the block 1206 may include
identifying the unique identifier.
[0381] At decision block 1208, the cache manager 514 determines
whether the hash is located within a query cache 1102. Determining
whether the hash is located within the query cache 1102 may include
comparing the hash generated the block 1206 two hash is stored
within the query cache 1102. Alternatively, or in addition, the
hash generated at the block 1206 may be used as a key or to index
the query cache 1102. In such embodiments, the decision block 1208
may include determining whether there is a value stored in the
query cache 1102 at an entry indexed or otherwise identified based
on the hash generated at the block 1206. In certain embodiments,
the decision block 1208 may include determining whether an entry in
the query cache 1102 associated with the hash is valid. In cases
where the hash is located within the query cache but the entry
associated with the cash has been invalidated, the process 1200 may
proceed to the block 1210 as if the hash was not located within the
query cache 1102.
[0382] If it is determined at the decision block 1208 that the hash
is not located within the query cache 1102, the data agent 142
provides the query to the storage manager 140 at block 1210. In
certain embodiments, as is described in more detail below, the
query may be associated with a set of queries or a plurality of
queries. In some such cases, the block 1210 may include providing
the set of queries or an aggregate query created from the set of
queries to the storage manager 140 of the block 1210.
[0383] At block 1212, the data agent 142 receives a query response
from the storage manager 140. The query response may include data
or metadata obtained from one or more management tables at the
storage manager 140. In certain embodiments, the query response may
include a response specifying whether the data exists at the
storage manager 140. As the query may include any type of query
associated with performing a data management operation, such as a
backup process, the query response may include any type of data
responsive to the query and associated with performing the data
management operation. For example, a query associated with
determining the type of encryption to perform on the primary data
112 or a query associated with identifying a secondary storage
device 526 to backup the data may result in the storage manager 140
providing an encryption key or an identity of a particular
secondary storage device 526 available for backup.
[0384] At block 1214, the cache manager 514 stores the hash of the
query and the query response at the query cache 1102. Storing the
hash of the query and the query response may involve indexing the
query cache 1102 using the hash and storing the query response at
the location within the query cache 1102 indexed by the hash. In
other words, in certain embodiments, the hash of the query may be
used as an address or to determine an address within the query
cache 1102 at which to store the query response or to identify a
location in memory at which to store the query response. In certain
embodiments, the block 1214 may include storing the query along
with the hash of the query at the query cache 1102.
[0385] At block 1216, the cache manager 514 identifies a
configuration category associated with the query. The configuration
categories can include any type of category or delineation
associated with configurations of different aspects of the
information management system 100. For example, the configuration
categories may relate to storage policy, sub client configurations
(e.g., configuration of different drives or different partitions
within the primary storage device 104), backup policies, restore
policies, duplication policies, access control policies, or any
other policies or configurations associated with the information
management system 100.
[0386] The cache manager 514 may identify the configuration
category associated with the query based on a tag included with the
query. Alternatively, or in addition, the cache manager 514 may
categorize the query by analyzing one or more portions of the
query. For example, the cache manager 514 may categorize the query
based at least in part on one or more tables referenced at the
storage manager 140. As another example, the cache manager 514 may
categorize the query based at least in part on types of variables
or data referenced in the query. In yet another example, the cache
manager 514 may categorize the query based at least in part on a
source of the query.
[0387] In some embodiments, the block 1216 may include identifying
multiple configuration categories to associate with the query. For
example, a query may be associated with both a storage policy and a
backup policy. In such an example, the cache manager 514 may
categorize the query under both a storage policy category and a
backup policy category at the query cache 1102.
[0388] At block 1218, the cache manager 514 associates the hash of
the query with the configuration category at the query cache 1102.
Alternatively, or in addition, the cache manager 514 associates the
configuration category with an entry at the query cache 1102 that
is referenced by, accessible using, or otherwise associated with
the hash. The cache manager 514 may associate the hash of the
query, or an entry associated with the hash of the query, with the
configuration category by associating a particular tag with the
hash, or the entry associated with the hash of the query.
Alternatively, or in addition, the block 1218 may include storing
the hash and/or data associated with the hash in a particular
location at the query cache 1102 that is associated with the
configuration category.
[0389] At block 1220, the data agent 142 provides data included in
the query response to the core media agent 510. Alternatively, or
in addition, the data may be provided to the data agent 142. In
some embodiments, providing the data to the core media agent 510
may include providing the query response to the core media agent
510. Alternatively, or in addition, providing the data to the core
media agent 510 may include providing portions of the data that are
responsive to the query to the core media agent 510, but may omit
portions of the query response that may be un-responsive to her
unrelated to the particular query. For example, portions of the
query response that may be related to transmitting or directing the
patent between computing systems may be omitted from the data that
is provided to the core media agent 510. In certain embodiments,
the data agent 142 may provide the query response, or data included
in the query response, to the media agent 144.
[0390] If at the decision block 1208 the cache manager 514
determines that the hash is located within the query cache 1102,
the process 1200 proceeds to the block 1222. At the block 1222, the
cache manager 514 retrieves data associated with the query from the
query cache 1102. Retrieving the data associated with the query
from the query cache 1102 may include accessing an entry at the
query cache 1102 associated with the hash. The entry may be located
at the query cache 1102 by using the hash as a key to locate the
entry responsive to the query within the query cache 1102.
[0391] At block 1224, the data agent 142 provides the retrieved
data to the core media agent 510. Alternatively, in certain
embodiments, the cache manager 514 may provide the retrieved data
directly to the core media agent 510. In certain embodiments, the
block 1224 may include one or more of the embodiments described
with respect to the block 1220.
[0392] In certain embodiments, the query obtained and/or generated
at the block 1204 may be one of a plurality of queries that are
obtained and/or generated at the block 1204. This plurality of
queries may be processed together as part of the process 1200. In
other words, in certain embodiments, the plurality of queries may
be provided to the storage manager 140 at the block 1210 during a
single communication with the storage manager 140. This single
communication may be a single packet or a single message, or may be
a plurality of packets or messages that occur during a single
communication session. Advantageously, in certain embodiments, by
providing the plurality of queries together, the number of
communications (or communication sessions) with the storage manager
140 or messages provided to the storage manager 140 can be reduced
compared to embodiments where the storage manager 140 is separately
queried throughout the backup process for each of the queries
included in the plurality of queries.
[0393] The queries identified to be included in the plurality of
queries may be determined based at least in part on a probability
that one or more additional queries are issued within a threshold
time period of the query obtained at the block 1204 or within a
single instance of a backup process. This probability may be
determined based on an analysis of historical data. For example, if
a query to the storage manager 140 to determine an encryption
policy is determined to occur more at more than a threshold rate
subsequent to a query to determine a backup location for backing up
the primary data 112, the two queries may be associated with each
other. Thus, if a query is obtained at the block 1204 to determine
a backup location, the data agent 142 or the cache manager 514 may
combine the query with a query to determine the encryption
policy.
[0394] The plurality of queries obtained or identified at the block
1204 may be aggregated into a single query to the storage manager
140. Further, the aggregated query may be hashed and stored at the
query cache 102 with the query response obtained from the storage
manager 140. Alternatively, the individual queries that are
aggregated may be separately hashed and separately stored at the
query cache 1102 with the associated query responses.
Advantageously, by separately hashing and storing each query and
associated query response, queries associated with different
configuration categories can be aggregated for the purposes of
querying the storage manager 140 while continuing to be associated
with separate categories at the query cache 1102, which enables
partial query invalidation as described further below with respect
to the process 1400. Moreover, although aggregated queries may
include groups of queries that are often, or more than a threshold
probability of time performed together, there may be instances
where it is desirable for a query to be repeated without repeating
each of the queries in the aggregate query. Separately storing the
queries at the query cache 1102 enables the repeat of individual
queries while still reducing the accesses to the storage manager
140.
Example Cache Invalidation Process
[0395] FIG. 13 depicts operations of a cache invalidation process
1300 according to an embodiment. The process 1300 can be
implemented by any system that can invalidate the query cache 1102.
The process 1300, in whole or in part, can be implemented by, for
example, a data agent 142, a cache manager 514, a query cache 1102,
or a core media agent 510, among others. Although any number of
systems, in whole or in part, can implement the process 1300, to
simplify discussion, the process 1300 will be described with
respect to particular systems.
[0396] The process 1300 begins at block 1302 where, for example,
the cache manager 514 receives a new job identifier. The new job
identifier may be received from the storage manager 140 and/or from
the data agent 142. In certain embodiments, the new job identifier
may be received using the process 600 or based on any other process
that may result in a new job identifier being assigned. The new job
identifier may be received when a configuration of the information
manager 100, or one or more elements of the information manager
100, changes. Alternatively, or in addition, the cache manager 514
may receive the new job identifier when one or more policies is
changed. For example, when a storage or backup policy is modified,
a new job identifier may be received. In some cases, in addition to
receiving the new job identifier, the cache manager 514 may receive
an identity of the change that triggered the provisioning of the
new job identifier.
[0397] At block 1304, the cache manager 514 identifies one or more
entries associated with an existing job identifier at the query
cache 1102. In certain embodiments, the block 1304 includes
identifying any entries within the query cache 1102 that are
associated with a different job identifier than the new job
identifier received at the block 1302. Alternatively, or in
addition, the block 1304 may include identifying entries that are
not associated with the new job identifier received at the block
1302.
[0398] At the block 1306, the cache manager 514 invalidates entries
associated with the existing job identifier at the query cache
1102. Alternatively, or in addition, the cache manager 514
invalidates entries at the query cache 1102 that are not associated
with the new job identifier received at the block 1302.
Invalidating entries at the query cache 1102 may include any
process for invalidating a cache. For example, invalidating entries
at the query cache 1102 may include deleting the entries from the
query cache 1102, marking entries at the query cache 1102 as
invalid, or marking entries at the query cache 1102 is available
for storage.
[0399] In certain embodiments, the identification of particular
entries within the query cache 1102 and/or the invalidation of
particular entries within the query cache 1102 is unnecessary
because, for example, the cache manager 514 may invalidate all
entries within the query cache 1102 upon receipt of a new job
identifier. In other words, in certain embodiments, operations
associated with the block 1304 may be optional or omitted.
[0400] At block 1308, the cache manager 514 generates a new data
structure in the query cache 1102 associated with the new job
identifier received at the block 1302. The new data structure may
be used to store any new queries, hashes of the new queries, and/or
query responses are data associated with query responses as may be
obtained using, for example, the process 1200. In certain
embodiments, invalidating entries within the query cache 1102 at
the block 1306 may include identifying the new data structure
generated at the block 1308 as the active data structure. The data
structure may include any type of data structure that can store a
query, a hash of a query, and/or data associated with a response to
the query. For example, the data structure may be a table or a
linked list.
Example Partial Cache Invalidation Process
[0401] FIG. 14 depicts operations of a partial cache invalidation
process 1400 according to an embodiment. The process 1400 can be
implemented by any system that can partially invalidate the query
cache 1102. The process 1400, in whole or in part, can be
implemented by, for example, a data agent 142, a cache manager 514,
a query cache 1102, or a core media agent 510, among others.
Although any number of systems, in whole or in part, can implement
the process 1400, to simplify discussion, the process 1400 will be
described with respect to particular systems.
[0402] The process 1400 begins at block 1402 where, for example,
the cache manager 514 receives a work queue token from the storage
manager 140. In some embodiments, the work queue token may be
received by the data agent 142. The data agent 142 may provide the
work queue token to the cache manager 514. Alternatively, or in
addition, the data agent 142 may provide an identity of a
configuration change to the cache manager 514 based at least in
part on the work queue token. The work queue token may be received
from the storage manager 140.
[0403] The work queue token may include an identity of a
configuration change within the information management system 100.
This configuration change may be registered or otherwise stored at
the storage manager 140. In certain embodiments, the storage
manager 140 may determine the configuration change. This
configuration change can relate to any change within the
information management system 100. For example, the configuration
change can be a change in available computing systems or computing
resources, a change in policies (e.g., a change in backup policy, a
change in storage policy, and the like), a change in user
permissions, or any other change that could possibly invalidate
data previously stored at the query cache 1102. In certain
embodiments, the changes may be reflected in one or more tables
that are stored at the storage manager 140. When the storage
manager 140 determines that a change in configuration or policy
(e.g., backup policy or storage policy) has occurred, the storage
manager 140 may provide a work queue token identifying the change
to the cache manager 514 and/or the client computing device 102. In
some embodiments, the storage manager 140 provides the work queue
token to each system that the configuration or policy change
affects.
[0404] At block 1404, the cache manager 514 determines the system
configuration change based at least in part on the work queue
token. In certain embodiments, the block 1404 may be optional or
omitted. For example, the work queue token may identify the
configuration category associated with the change configuration
with or without identifying the particular configuration
change.
[0405] At block 1406, cache manager 514 identifies a configuration
category associated with the system configuration change. The
configuration category may be one (or more) of a plurality of
possible configuration categories. In certain embodiments, the
block 1406 may include identifying multiple configuration
categories the may be associated with a particular system
configuration change.
[0406] At block 1408, the cache manager 514 invalidates entries
associated with the configuration category at the query cache 1102.
Invalidating entries at the query cache 1102 may include deleting
the entries or marking them as invalid. In certain embodiments, the
block 1408 may include one or more of the embodiments previously
described with respect to the block 1306. However, while
embodiments of the block 1306 may be with respect to the entire
query cache or entire data structure associated with a job
identifier, the cache manager 514 may invalidate entries associated
with a particular configuration category at block 1408 while
maintaining entries associated with other configuration categories
at the query cache 1102.
[0407] In certain embodiments, the block 1408 includes invalidating
entries within the query cache 1102 that are associated with the
configuration category identified at the block 1406 regardless of
whether the particular entry was affected or changed as a result of
the system configuration change determined at the block 1404. In
certain embodiments, a number of different queries can result in
the retrieval of particular data. Further, in certain embodiments,
a query can be formed in a number of different ways. Accordingly,
in certain embodiments, it may be difficult and resource intensive
to track individual queries that may be invalidated by a change in
data. Advantageously, in certain embodiments, by invalidating a
particular configuration category, the overhead required to
identify particular query entries within the query cache 1102 that
may be affected by the system configuration change can be reduced
or eliminated while still at least partially maintaining the
advantages associated with having the query cache 1102. For
example, while queries associated with the invalidated
configuration category may need to be presented to the storage
manager 140, queries associated with configuration categories were
not invalidated can be obtained from the query cache 1102 reducing
the communications with the storage manager 140.
Transaction Log Based Indexing
[0408] As previously described, one way to reduce overhead in the
information management system 100 is to reduce the number of times
the storage manager 140 is queried or otherwise communicated with
during a backup, restore, or other data management process. One way
that the interaction with the storage manager 140 is reduced is by
enabling the client computing devices 102 to communicate directly
with a network storage system 302 during a data management (e.g.,
data backup, data restore, data access, etc.) process. Embodiments
disclosed herein can further improve the efficiency of the
information management system by delaying generation of a backup
index to a period of time when load on the information management
system is reduced. For example, the backup index may be generated
after scheduled business hours or when less users are accessing
resources of the information management system. The backup index
generation may be delayed without losing backup metadata that
enables access of data at the network storage system 302 by
generating transaction log files that identify the transactions
performed with respect to the network storage system 302. The
transaction log files may then be used to later generate or update
a backup index. Further, to prevent a loss of the transaction log
files during a system failure, a media agent assigned to a client
computing system or to a particular job can replicate the
transaction log files to another media agent until such time as the
backup index is generated or updated.
[0409] FIG. 15 is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
1500 using transaction log files to reduce a management burden on a
storage manager enabling an increase in the number of clients
supported by an information management system, according to an
embodiment. In some embodiments, the system 1500 can be part of an
information management system 100 and may include one or more of
the systems and one or more of the embodiments previously described
with respect to the information management system 100. Moreover, in
certain embodiments, the system 1500 includes one or more of the
embodiments described with respect to the systems 500, 575, and/or
1100.
[0410] The client computing device 102 may include a log manager
1510. The log manager 1510 may be implemented separately in the
client computing device 102 or may be included as part of the core
media agent 510. Alternatively, or in addition, the core media
agent 510 may implement one or more features of the log manager
1510.
[0411] The log manager 1510 can generate one or more transaction
log files 522 based on data backed up to the network storage system
302, or the secondary storage devices 526 of the network storage
system 302. In some cases, the one or more transaction log files
522 may be generated based on data accessed, modified, deleted, or
otherwise interacted with in a manner that modifies storage of the
data at the network storage system 302, or the secondary storage
devices 526 of the network storage system 302. The transaction log
files 522 may include or be generated based at least in part on an
identity of a file interacted with (e.g., backed up, deleted,
modified, moved, deduplicated, etc.) at the network storage 302, an
attribute of the file (e.g., size, access controls, encryption
status, deduplication status, etc.), an indication of a change with
respect to a file or storage that caused the transaction log file
to be generated, where the file is stored at the network storage
system 302 (e.g., which secondary storage device 526, the storage
address of the file, etc.), where the file is stored at the primary
storage device 104, and the like. In some implementations, the log
manager 1510 obtains the information included in the transaction
log file 522, but does not generate the transaction log file 522.
Instead, the information, or backup metadata, may be provided to
the secondary storage computing device 106, or a media agent 144
thereof. The media agent 144 may generate the transaction log file
based on the backup metadata.
[0412] As previously described, the core media agent 510 may
include a data migration system 512 that facilitates backing up
data to the network storage system 302. The core media agent 510
may be a reduced or slimmed down version of the media agent in that
it may not include all of the functionality of a full media agent,
such as the media agent 144. For example, while the media agent 144
may include both data management 504 and data migration 506
systems, the core media agent 510 may include the data migration
system 512, but may omit a data management system. Thus, the core
media agent 510 may be capable of transmitting data or files to the
networks storage system 302, but the index generation and
maintenance may be delegated to the media agent 144. It should be
understood that the core media agent 510 may include some data
management functionality. For example, the core media agent 510 may
determine file distribution among chunks. This chunk information
may then be provided, for example as part of a TLF 522, to the
media agent 144. The media agent 144 may use the chunk information
to facilitate generation of a backup index. Advantageously, by
including the slimmed down media agent at the client computing
device, the client computing device 102 can backup file directly to
the network storage system 302 without accessing the secondary
storage system or storage manager 140 during the backup process.
Moreover, by including the slimmed down media agent at the client
computing device instead of a full media agent, the direct
communication during backup can occur without using significant
resources of the client computing device 102. For example, the
backup index generated and stored by the media agent can, in some
cases, utilize several Gigabytes of data. Thus, while it may be
desirable to move the backup process from the secondary storage
system 118 to the primary storage system 117, it is desirable, in
some cases, to maintain backup index generation and maintenance at
the secondary storage system 118.
[0413] The secondary storage subsystem 118 of the information
management system 100 may include multiple secondary storage
computing devices 106, 1506. Although only two secondary storage
computing devices are illustrated, it should be understood that the
secondary storage subsystem 118 may include more. For example, the
secondary storage subsystem 118 may include 10s, 100s, or more
secondary storage computing devices. The number of secondary
storage computing devices may be determined based on the number of
client computing devices to be supported in the information
management system.
[0414] Each of the secondary storage computing devices may include
one or more media agents 144, 1544. The media agents 144, 1544 may
each include a data management system 506, 1508, respectively, that
facilitates generation and maintenance of a backup index. Further,
the data management system 506, 1508 may generate and/or maintain
transaction log files 522 generated during a backup process or
other process that modifies the backup storage of the network
storage 302.
[0415] Each of the secondary storage computing devices 106, 1506
may include a transaction log file repository 520, 1520,
respectively, that stores one or more transaction log files. The
transaction log file repositories 520, 1520 may include any type of
data structure that may store the transaction log files 522.
Alternatively, or in addition, the transaction log file
repositories 520, 1520 may include a storage device associated with
the respective secondary storage computing devices 106, 1506 that
is configured to store and/or maintain the transaction log files
522.
[0416] Although only one client computing device 102 is illustrated
in the system 1500, as previously described, the primary storage
subsystem 117 may include multiple client computing devices 102. In
some cases, the primary storage subsystem 117 may include 10s or
100s of thousands of client computing devices, or more. Each of the
client computing devices 102 may be assigned to a different media
agent for managing access to the secondary storage at the secondary
storage subsystem 118 and/or the network storage 302. In some
cases, a client computing device 102 may be assigned to multiple
media agents. For example, different jobs of the client computing
device 102 may be associated with different media agents.
[0417] Each media agent 144, 1544 may receive TLFs from a client
computing device 102 assigned to it. Alternatively, or in addition,
the media agents 144, 1544 may receive backup metadata, which the
media agents 144, 1544 may use to generate the TLFs 522. Further,
the media agents 144, 1544 may distribute or replicate TLFs 522
among multiple secondary storage computing devices 106, 1506. For
example, the client computing device 102 may provide TLFs
associated with a job identifier to the media agent 144. The media
agent 144 may store the received TLFs in association with the job
identifier at the transaction log files repository 520. Further,
the media agent 144 may provide copies of the TLFs to the secondary
storage computing device 1506 and/or one or more additional
secondary storage computing devices. Advantageously, by replicating
the TLFs across multiple systems, the TLFs can be recovered in the
event that the media agent 144 or the secondary storage computing
device 106 becomes inaccessible. Further, the replicated TLFs may
be provided to a new media agent and/or secondary storage computing
device that may be configured to replace the media agent 144 and/or
the secondary storage computing device 106. In some cases, the
client computing device 102 may provide the TLFs 522 to multiple
media agents instead of, or in addition to, the media agent 144
replicating the TLF among other media agents.
[0418] Each media agent 144, 1544 may generate a backup index 1540,
1542 based on the TLFs 522. Further, the media agents 144, 1544 may
update an existing backup index 1540, 1542 based on the TLFs 522.
As mentioned above, TLFs may be replicated among multiple media
agents. Generally, the media agent 144 assigned to a job or client
computing device 102, or that received the TLFs 522 from the client
computing device 102, updates or generates the backup index 1540,
1542. However, in some cases, another media agent that has received
copies of the TLFs 522 may update or generate the backup index
1540, 1542.
[0419] The media agents 144, 1544 may store the backup index 1540,
1542 at an index repository 1522, 1524 of a network storage system
1502. The network storage system 1502 may be the same network
storage system 302, or may be an alternative network storage
system. In either case, the network storage system 1502, like the
network storage system 302, may be associated with a third-party
provider of network storage. For example, the network storage
systems 302 and/or 1502 may be network storage (or a cloud
computing service) supplied by Amazon.RTM., Google.RTM., or
Microsoft.RTM.. Further, the network storage systems 302 and/or
1502 may be maintained by a different entity than the information
management system 100. For example, the information management
system 100 may be a data management system for an entity or
business, and the network storage 302 and/or 1502 may be associated
with a different entity that provides storage services as part of a
third-party service.
[0420] The backup index 1540, 1542 stored at the network storage
1502 may be replicated among multiple network repositories 1522,
1524. For example, the backup index 1542 may be a replicated
version of the backup index 1540. In some cases, the media agent
144, 1544 may replicate the backup index 1540, 1542 across multiple
network repositories 1522, 1524. In other cases, the network
storage system 1502 may be configured to replicate the backup index
1540, 1542. When the backup index 1540, 1542 is updated based on
the TLFs 522, the updates may be replicated across the multiple
instances of the backup index stored at the network storage 1502.
Advantageously, by replicating the backup index 1540, 1542 across
multiple systems, the backup index 1540, 1542 can be recovered in
the event that one of the index repositories 1522, 1524 becomes
inaccessible. It should be understood that although only two index
repositories are illustrated, the network storage system 1502 may
include more than two index repositories. Further, each of the
index repositories may include storage devices. In some cases, the
index repositories are specifically configured to store backup
indexes for backups stored at the secondary storage devices
526.
Example Transaction Log Based Indexing Process
[0421] FIG. 16 depicts operations of a transaction log based
indexing process 1600 according to an embodiment. The process 1600
can be implemented by any system that can generate or update a
backup index associated with backing up a primary storage device to
a secondary storage device using transaction log files. The process
1600, in whole or in part, can be implemented by, for example, a
data agent 142, a cache manager 514, a log manager 1510, a media
agent 144, or a core media agent 510, among others. Although any
number of systems, in whole or in part, can implement the process
1600, to simplify discussion, the process 1600 will be described
with respect to particular systems.
[0422] The process 1600 begins at block 1602 where, for example,
the log manager 1510 detects backup of data to a network storage
system 302. In some cases, a data agent 142 or a core media agent
510 may alert the log manager 1510 to performance of the backup
process. Alternatively, or in addition, the log manager 1510 may
determine occurrence of the backup process based on a backup
schedule. In some cases, the backup process may be associated with
a job identifier. This job identifier may be associated with the
client computing device 102. As previously described, the job
identifier and information associated with the job may be assigned
or determined based at least in part on interaction with a storage
manager 140.
[0423] At block 1604, the log manager 1510 generates a transaction
log file 522 based at least in part on the backup of the data, or
metadata associated with the backing up of the data. The metadata
used to generate the transaction log file 522 may include any
information associated with the files being backed up, the backup
process, the location of the files at the network storage system
302 or the secondary storage devices 526, attributes of the files
being backed up, information relating to changes in the files being
backed up, or any other information that could facilitate
maintaining a backup or accessing files from a backup. In some
cases, the backup metadata is provided to a media agent 144, which
may generate the transaction log file 522 in place of the log
manager 1510.
[0424] In some cases, the block 1604 may include generating
multiple transaction log files 522. For example, in some cases, a
different transaction log file 522 may be generated for each file
backed up or for each set of files backed up. In some cases, a
transaction log file 522 may be limited to a particular size. In
some such cases, the block 1604 may generate multiple transaction
log files 522 to accommodate backups or modifications to backups
that exceed the size of what may be recorded in a particular
transaction log file 522. Advantageously, in some cases, by
limiting the size of a transaction log file 522 and/or by limiting
the amount of data or sets of files that are associated with a
particular transaction log file 522, communication and/or
distribution of the transaction log files 522 at the secondary
storage subsystem 118 may be performed more quickly or efficiently
compared to the generation of a single transaction log file.
[0425] At block 1606, the log manager 1510 associates the
transaction log file 522 with a job identifier. The job identifier
may be in identifier assigned to the client computing device 102 by
storage manager 140. In some cases, the job identifier is
associated with a particular job performed or initiated by the
client computing device 102. In other cases, the job identifier is
associated with a set of jobs or with the client computing device
102 for a period of time. Thus, in some cases, the job identifier
may be associated with multiple transaction log files 522 that may
be generated as part of different jobs or during different periods
of time.
[0426] At block 1608, the log manager 1510 provides the transaction
log file 522 to a media agent 144. Alternatively, as described
above, the log manager 1510 may provide backup metadata relating to
the backup process to the media agent 144. The media agent 144 may
then generate one or more transaction log files 522 based at least
in part on the backup metadata. Whether providing a transaction log
file 522 or backup metadata to the media agent, the log manager
1510 may determine the media agent to receive the transaction log
file 522 or the backup metadata-based on information stored at the
job cache 516 and/or information provided by the storage manager
140. For example, the storage manager 140 may assign a media agent
to facilitate performing data management tasks on behalf of the
client computing device 102. The media agent 144 may store the
transaction log files 522 at the transaction log file repository
520.
[0427] At block 1610, the media agent 144 replicates the
transaction log file 522 to at least a second media agent 1544.
Replicating the transaction log file 522 may include providing a
copy of the transaction log file 522 to the media agent 1544 or a
secondary storage computing device 1506 that hosts the media agent
1544. Further, the block 1610 may include providing a copy of the
transaction log file to one or more additional media agents or
secondary storage computing devices. In some cases, the media agent
144 selects one or more media agents to receive the transaction log
file 522 based at least in part on an identity of the client
computing device 102 or a job identifier associated with the
transaction log file 522.
[0428] At block 1612, the media agent 144 updates a backup index
1540 based at least in part on the transaction log file 522 at a
network storage system 1502. Operations associated with the block
1612 may be performed during some period of time that is later than
the period of time during which operations associated with the
blocks 1602 through 1610 are performed. In some cases, operations
associated with the blocks 1602 through 1610 may be performed
multiple times prior to performance of operations associated with
the block 1612. For example, multiple transaction log files 522 may
be provided to the media agent 144 during multiple performances of
the operations associated with the block 1608 prior to performance
of operations associated with the block 1612. In some cases the
multiple transaction log files 522 may be provided during different
time periods. Thus, for example, a first transaction log file 522
may be received at time T0, a second transaction log file 522 may
be received at time T1, a third transaction log file 522 may be
received at a time T2, and at a time T3 performance of operations
associated with the block 1612 may be performed.
[0429] Operations associated with the block 1612 may be performed
periodically or at a scheduled time. Alternatively, or in addition,
operations associated with the block 1612 may be performed after a
job initiated by the client computing device 102 is completed. For
example, performance of operations associated with the block 1612
may be delayed until a particular backup is completed at the
network storage system 302. The backup may be a full backup or a
differential backup. In some cases, operations associated with the
block 1612 may be performed after a job identifier has expired or
after receiving an indication from the client computing device 102
that a particular job has completed.
[0430] Updating the backup index 1540 may include modifying entries
within the backup index 1540 based on the information included in
the transaction log file 522. In some cases, portions of the backup
index 1540 are replaced with the information included in the
transaction log file 522. In other cases, modifications to entries
within the backup index 1540 are performed based on data within the
transaction log file 522. During one non-limiting example, during a
backup, a file that has been modified at the primary storage device
104 may be copied to the secondary storage device 526. Copying the
modified file to the secondary storage device 526 may include
updating and address of the file at the secondary storage device
526 to point to the modified file in place of the previously stored
file. The updated address to the modified file may be included as
part of a transaction log file 522. When the backup index 1540 is
updated, and entry associated with the previously stored file may
be modified or replaced based on the updated address of the
modified file at the secondary storage device 526 as specified
within the transaction log file 522.
[0431] In some cases, the block 1612 may include generating a new
backup index 1540. For example, during the first occurrence of the
process 1600 for a particular client computing device 102, a backup
index 1540 may not yet exist. In this example, the transaction log
file 522 or a set of transaction log files 522 received during
initial performance of the process 1600 may be used to generate a
new backup index 1540 at the block 1612.
[0432] Updating of the backup index 1540 may be caused or
controlled by the media agent 144 that initially receives the
transaction log file 522. In other words, in some cases, the one or
more secondary media agents that receive replicated copies of the
transaction log file 522 may not necessarily be involved in the
updating of the backup index 1540. However, in some cases, a
different media agent than the media agent that receive the
transaction log files from the client computing device 102 may
cause the backup index 1540 to be updated based on the transaction
log files. For example, if the media agent 144 becomes inaccessible
at a time when the backup index 1540 is to be updated, one of the
fallback media agents that have received a copy of the transaction
log files 522 may cause the backup index 1540 to be updated.
[0433] At block 1614, the network storage system 1502 replicates
the backup index 1540 within the network storage system 1502.
Replicating the backup index 1540 may include causing the network
storage system 1502 to make a copy of the backup index 1540 at
multiple index repositories 1522, 1524. For example, the backup
index 1540 may be replicated as the backup index 1542. Thus, the
backup index 1542 may be the same as the backup index 1540.
Further, although the network storage 1502 is illustrated as having
only two index repositories 1522, 1524, the network storage system
1502 may have more than two index repositories. Thus, the block
1614 may include replicating the backup index at a plurality of
index repositories. In some cases, the backup index 1540 may be
replicated at multiple index repositories, but not necessarily all
of the index repositories of the network storage system 1502. In
some cases, the media agent 144 causes the backup index 1540 to be
replicated within the network storage system 1502. The network
storage system 1502 may implement a database system that performs
automatic replication, in such cases, replication of the backup
index 1540 may occur automatically without additional interaction
by the media agent 144.
[0434] At block 1616, the media agent 144 flushes the transaction
log file 522. The block 1616 may include flushing the transaction
log files 522 at each secondary storage computing device or media
agent that is received a copy of the transaction log files 522.
Flushing the transaction log files 522 may include deleting the
transaction log files 522, marking the transaction log files 522 as
expired or out of date, or performing any other process that
indicates that the transaction log files 522 are no longer current.
In some cases, the block 1616 may be limited to flushing
transaction log files 522 that have been used to update or create a
backup index 1540 at the block 1612. Additional transaction log
files that may exist that were not involved in the generating or
updating of the backup index 1540 may be preserved. For example,
transaction log files 522 associated with a different backup index
1540 or that of been received after triggering of the backup index
1540 update may be preserved until such time as the transaction log
files have been used to update or generate a backup index 1540.
Second Example Media Agent Restoration Process
[0435] FIG. 17 depicts operations of a media agent restoration
process 1700 according to an embodiment. The process 1700 can be
implemented by any system that can add a new media agent to a
secondary storage system 118 or replace a media agent at the
secondary storage system 118. The process 1700, in whole or in
part, can be implemented by, for example, a storage manager 140 or
a secondary storage computing device 106, among others. Although
any number of systems, in whole or in part, can implement the
process 1700, to simplify discussion, the process 1700 will be
described with respect to particular systems.
[0436] The process 1700 begins at block 1702 where, for example,
the storage manager 140 detects a failure of a media agent 144 at
the secondary storage system 118. The block 1702 may include one or
more of the embodiments previously described with respect to the
block 1002. In some cases, as previously described with respect to
the block 1002, the storage manager 140 may determine that a new
media agent should be configured or generated based on criteria
other than the failure of the media agent 144. For example, scaling
of the information management system 100 may cause an additional
media agent to be added. In some cases, the block 1702 may include
detecting a failure of a secondary storage computing device 106
that hosts the media agent 144.
[0437] At block 1704, the storage manager 140 configures or causes
to be configured a computing system as a new media agent or to host
a new media agent. In some embodiments, the block 1704 may include
one or more of the embodiments previously described with respect to
the block 1004.
[0438] At block 1706, the storage manager 140 replicates
transaction log files 522 from a second media agent 1544 to the new
media agent. In some cases, the block 1706 is performed by another
media agent or a secondary storage computing device instead of or
in addition to the storage manager 140. In some cases, the storage
manager 140 identifies which media agent the new media agent is
replacing. By identifying the media agent being replaced, may be
determined which transaction log files 522 two copy to the new
media agent. For instance, in some implementations, a subset of
secondary storage computing devices or media agents may be
configured to process or store transaction log files 522 associated
with a subset of client computing devices of the primary storage
subsystem 117. In such implementations, may be desirable to
determine which media agent is being replaced by the new media
agent so as to determine which subset of transaction log files 522
are to be replicated to the new media agent being added as part of
the block 1704. In other cases, each media agent stores a copy of
all transaction log files 522 regardless of whether the media agent
receives the transaction log files 522 directly from the client
computing device 102 or from another media agent to serve as a
backup to the media agent providing the transaction log files 522.
In such cases, the newly added media agent may automatically
receive a copy of the transaction log files 522 within the
secondary storage subsystem 118 upon configuration of the new media
agent.
[0439] A block 1708, the new media agent is registered with the
storage manager 140. In some embodiments, the block 1708 may
include one or more of the embodiments previously described with
respect to the block 1014. Registering the new media agent may
include providing access information of the media agent to one or
more client computing devices of the primary storage subsystem 117.
In other cases, the new media agent may be configured with the same
access information and the same network address information as the
media agent being replaced. In such cases, the client computing
device 102 make communicate with the new media agent without
receiving any updated information and/or without realizing that the
media agent with which it is communicating is not the same media
agent as it was previously communicating.
Example Secondary Storage Access Process
[0440] FIG. 18 depicts operations of a secondary storage access
process 1800 according to an embodiment. The process 1800 can be
implemented by any system that can access data from a secondary
storage device at a secondary storage subsystem 118 and/or a
network storage system 302. The process 1800, in whole or in part,
can be implemented by, for example, a data agent 142, a cache
manager 514, a log manager 1510, a media agent 144, or a core media
agent 510, among others. Although any number of systems, in whole
or in part, can implement the process 1800, to simplify discussion,
the process 1800 will be described with respect to particular
systems.
[0441] The process 1800 begins at block 1802 where, for example,
the media agent 144 receives a command to access data stored at a
network storage system 302. In some cases, the command may be a
restore command to restore data from a backup at the secondary
storage device 526. In other cases, the command may include any
type of command that causes data to be accessed at the network
storage system 302. For example, the command may be an archive
command, a duplication command, a command to view data, or any
other command that causes access of the data. In some cases, the
command may be related to accessing the backup index and may or may
not include accessing data at the secondary storage device 526.
[0442] At block 1804, the media agent 144 identifies a backup index
associated with the command. Identifying the backup index may
include identifying a job identifier associated with the command
and/or a job identifier associated with a client computing device
102 that provided the command to the media agent 144. The media
agent 144 may access the backup index from the network storage
system 1502 or the index repository 1522 based on the job
identifier that is identified or determined at the block 1804. In
some cases, the backup index is associated with the client
computing device 102 or the primary storage device 104 rather than
the command itself. However, in some such cases, the backup index
may be identified based on information included with the
command.
[0443] At decision block 1806, the media agent 144 determines
whether the backup index identified at the block 1804 is
up-to-date. Determining whether the backup index is up-to-date may
include determining whether any transaction log files 522
associated with the backup index exist. Determining whether any
transaction log files 522 associated with the backup index exist
may include determining whether any transaction log files 522 have
not been applied to the backup index or have not been used to
update the backup index. Further, determining whether any
transaction log files 522 exist may include determining whether any
transaction log files 522 associated with the job identifier, the
client computing device 102, or the primary storage device 104
exist. Generally, although not necessarily, the same information
used at the block 1804 to identify the backup index may be used to
determine whether any transaction log files 522 exist or have not
been applied to the backup index. As indicated above, in some cases
transaction log files 522 may exist, but may have already been
applied or used to update a backup index. In some such cases, it
may be determined that the transaction log files 522 of been
applied or used to update the backup index based on a marker, a
label, a tag, metadata in the transaction log file repository 520
associated with the transaction log files 522, or any other
information that may be used to determine that a transaction log
file 522 was previously used to update the backup index.
[0444] If it is determined at the decision block 1806 that the
backup index is up-to-date, the media agent 144 performs the
command based at least in part on the backup index at block 1808.
Performing the command may include accessing the backup index,
providing access to the backup index to the client computing device
102, accessing the secondary storage device 526 based at least in
part on the backup index, or any other action or operation that may
be performed in response to receipt of the command at the block
1802.
[0445] If it is determined at the decision block 1806 that the
backup index is not up-to-date, the media agent 144 accesses one or
more transaction log files 522 from a transaction log file
repository 520 at block 1810. The one or more transaction log files
522 access from the transaction log file repository 520 may include
any transaction log files 522 that are associated with the backup
index. Transaction log files 522 that are not associated with the
backup index may be excluded from performance of the block 1810.
Accessing the transaction log files 522 may include performing any
of the operations for identifying the transaction log files as
previously described with respect to the decision block 1806.
Further, accessing the transaction log files 522 may include
loading or retrieving the transaction log files from the
transaction log file repository 520. In some cases, the transaction
log files 522 are accessed in a particular order. For example, the
transaction log files 522 may be accessed in a chronological or
reverse chronological order as they were received, generated, or
stored at the transaction log files 520. In other cases, the
transaction log files 522 may be accessed based on a sequence order
determined from a tag, label, or other marker associated with the
transaction log file 522 that indicates its order comparison to
other transaction log files 522 stored at the transaction log file
repository 520. Advantageously, by determining an order for the
transaction log files 522, updates to the backup index may be
applied in the same order that changes to data stored at the
network source system 302 are performed.
[0446] At block 1812, the media agent 144 updates the backup index
based at least in part on the transaction log files 522. Updating
the backup index may include modifying or replacing one or more
entries in the backup index based at least in part on the
information included in the transaction log files 522. In some
cases, the block 1812 may include one or more of the operations
previously described with respect to the process 1600. For example,
the block 1812 may include one or more of the operations associated
with the block 1612. Further, the block 1812 may include
replicating the updated backup index across multiple index
repositories 1522, 1524 as previously described with respect to the
block 1614. In addition, the block 1812 may include performing
operations associated with the block 1616 including, for example,
flushing the transaction log files 522 used to update the backup
index as part of the block 1812.
[0447] At block 1814, the media agent 144 performs the command
based at least in part on the updated backup index. The block 1814
may include one or more of the operations previously described with
respect to the block 1808, but using the updated backup index.
[0448] Advantageously, embodiments described herein as well as the
process 1800 enables data to be accessed at the network storage
system 302 without the use of the storage manager 140. For example,
the association of the backup index with a job identifier that
identifies a specific client computing device 102 enables the
backup index to be identified without accessing a storage manager
140. Further, the ability of the media agent 144 to determine
whether the backup index is up-to-date and to update the backup
index if it is not up-to-date without accessing the storage manager
140 enables data to be accessed at the network sure system 302
without communicating with the storage manager 140. Advantageously,
the ability to perform data management and data processing tasks
without accessing the storage manager enables the information
management system 100 to be scale to support a greater number of
client computing devices without adding additional resources to the
storage manager 140 and/or the secondary storage subsystem 118.
Interrupted Backup Restoration
[0449] Backing up a primary storage device 104 may take a
non-negligible amount of time. Often a user does not want to wait
or cannot wait for the backup process to complete before
disconnecting from a network or turning off the client computing
device 102. Further, in some cases, unplanned interruptions may
occur to a backup process. For example, a networking device or a
computing device involved in the backup or in the communication
between the client computing device 102 and the network storage
system 302 may fail. As another example, an unexpected power outage
may occur. It is generally not desirable to restart a backup
process from the beginning when the backup process is interrupted.
A backup process managed by a storage manager 140 or a media agent
144 can monitor the progress of a backup at a secondary storage
computing device 106 enabling an interrupted backup to be restarted
at, or within a threshold period of time, of the point of
interruption in the backup process.
[0450] However, as previously described, it is sometimes desirable
to have the client computing device 102 communicate directly with
the network storage system 302 and to at least partially manage
backup through a core media agent 510 so as to reduce the burden on
the storage manager 140 and/or the secondary storage subsystem 118,
thereby facilitating scaling up of the number of client computing
systems supported by the information management system 100. Thus,
it is desirable to have the client computing device 102 monitor a
restart point in a backup process to enable the client computing
device 102 to manage a backup process while reducing the burden on
the storage manager 104 and/or the secondary storage subsystem 118.
Certain embodiments disclosed herein enable the client computing
device 102 to determine a restart point for an interrupted backup
by monitoring a position in a collect file that identifies files to
be backed up. The collect file may be periodically updated upon
determination that a backup index and/or transaction log file has
been generated or updated to reflect a commit status of files or
chunks within a network storage system 302.
[0451] FIG. 19 is a block diagram illustrating portions of a system
1900 using a commit process to restore an interrupted backup
without interacting with a storage manager enabling an increase in
the number of clients supported by an information management
system, according to an embodiment. In some embodiments, the system
1900 can be part of an information management system 100 and may
include one or more of the systems and one or more of the
embodiments previously described with respect to the information
management system 100. Moreover, in certain embodiments, the system
1900 includes one or more of the embodiments described with respect
to the systems 500, 575, 1100, and/or 1500.
[0452] The client computing device 102 may include a collect file
1902. This collect file 1902 may be generated or maintained by the
core media agent 510 during occurrence of a backup process to
backup primary data 112 stored at the primary storage device 104.
The core media agent 510 may backup the data to a secondary storage
device 526 at a network storage system 302.
[0453] During the backup process, the core media agent 510 may
generate and/or populate a collect file 1902 with a list of files
1904 to be backed up. Although only one dashed line is labelled
with the reference 1904, it should be understood that each dashed
line within the collect file 1902 may represent a file or data to
be backed up. Further, the collect file 1902 is not limited to the
number of files (or dashed lines) represented in the example of
FIG. 19. The collect file 1902 may include an identity of more or
fewer files.
[0454] The files listed in the collect file 1902 may be listed in a
backup order, or an order in which the files are to be backed up at
the network storage system 302. The order in which the files are
backed up may be random (or pseudorandom), based on a modification
time of the file, based on a backup policy associated with the
client computing device 102 or the information management system
1900, based on a frequency of access of the file, based on an
identified important of the file, or based on any other factor that
may affect the order in which files are backed up to the network
storage system 302.
[0455] The collect file 1902 may track a restart point 1906 for
restarting an interrupted backup. Although the collect file 1902
may list files to be backed up, the network storage device 526 may
backup or store the files in chunks. As previously explained, the
use of fixed-size chunks can increase communication and storage
efficiency. Although chunks may be a fixed size, which may vary
based on a configuration of the network storage system 302, the
information management system 1900, or user settings, files may be
of varying size. Thus, each chunk 1908 that is written to the
secondary storage device 526 may include different numbers of files
and, in some cases, portions of files. Accordingly, as files are
written, and/or committed, to the secondary storage device 526, the
restart point 1906 may be adjusted non-uniformly based on the
number of files committed in a particular chunk 1908. For example,
after chunk 1 is committed, the restart point 1906 may be adjusted
down five files, and after chunk 2 is committed, the restart point
1906 may be adjusted down a further 3 or 7 files. In other cases,
each chunk is configured to include a uniform number of files. In
some such cases, where the files are of different sizes, space may
remain unused in a chunk. Further, in such cases, as each chunk may
include the same number of files, the restart point 1906 may be
adjusted a uniform amount after each chunk 1908 is committed. For
example, if each chunk 1908 includes ten files, the restart point
may be adjusted down ten files in the collect file 1902 after each
chunk 1908 is committed.
Example Backup Tracking Process
[0456] FIG. 20 depicts operations of a backup tracking process 2000
according to an embodiment. The process 2000 can be implemented by
any system that can perform a backup process from a primary storage
device 104 to a secondary storage subsystem 118 or a network
storage system 302, and that can maintain a restart point during
the backup process so as to restart the interrupted backup at the
last confirmed chunk. The process 2000, in whole or in part, can be
implemented by, for example, the client computing device 102, a
data agent 142, a cache manager 514, a log manager 1510, a
secondary storage device 526, a network storage system 302, a media
agent 144, or a core media agent 510, among others. Although any
number of systems, in whole or in part, can implement the process
2000, to simplify discussion, the process 2000 will be described
with respect to particular systems.
[0457] The process 2000 begins at block 2002 where, for example,
the core media agent 510 receives or detects a trigger to back up a
primary storage device 104. The trigger may include any type of
trigger that causes a backup process to occur or be initiated. For
example, the trigger may include a change in files stored at the
primary storage device 104, receipt of a command, or a passage of
time. In some cases, the trigger may be based on a schedule, such
as a scheduled backup process that occurs regularly or
intermittently. In some cases, the block 2002 may include one or
more of the embodiments previously described with respect to the
block 802.
[0458] In some cases, the frequency with which a client computing
device 102 is backed up, or the frequency with which a trigger
occurs to back up the primary storage device 104, may be based at
least in part on usage of the client computing device 102. For
example, a client computing device that is used more frequently or
that includes data that is accessed or modified more frequently may
be backed up more frequently than a client computing device that is
used less frequently.
[0459] In some cases, a backup schedule is generated for the client
computing device 102 based at least in part on a prediction
function or parameter model. The prediction model may be used to
determine the frequency with which a backup process should be
triggered. In some cases, the prediction model may predict how
often a threshold amount of data or files may be generated or
modified a particular primary storage device 104 associated with a
particular client computing device 102. Based on the predicted
frequency that the threshold amount of data or files are generated
or modified, a backup schedule may be generated for the client
computing device 102.
[0460] The prediction function or parameter model may be generated
using a machine learning algorithm. Historical data associated with
the client computing device 102, other computing devices of the
primary storage subsystem 117 or other computing devices having the
same role or classified similarly to the client being device 102
may be supplied to the machine learning algorithm to generate the
prediction function. In some cases, the historical data provided to
the machine learning algorithm may include a profile that is
generated for the client computing device 102. The profile may, for
example, be generated for the client computing device 102 based at
least in part on a user that is assigned to the client computing
device 102 or who uses the client computing device 102, the role of
the user (e.g., a salesperson, an engineer, an administrator, an
executive officer, an administrative assistant, etc.) that accesses
the client computing device 102, the role of the client computing
device 102 (for example, is a regularly used device, as a loaner or
temporary device, or as a device included in a particular
department of an entity (e.g., sales, billing, marketing,
engineering, etc.)). In some cases, the profile may include
historical access information for the client computing device 102
and/or for a user accessing the client computing device 102. This
historical access information may include information about the
types of files accessed, the frequency with which the files are
accessed, the frequency with which modifications are made to
accessed files, or any other information that may be used to
estimate an amount of changes or additions of data that may be made
over a particular time period with respect to the client computing
device 102. Further, the profile may include a frequency with which
a threshold amount of data at the client computing device 102, or
other computing devices, is generated or modified. Based on the
profile information and/or other historical data, machine learning
algorithm may generate the prediction function, which may be used
to predict a backup schedule for a particular client during device
102.
[0461] At block 2004, the core media agent 510 determines the files
to back up. Determining the files to back up may include accessing
metadata associated with the files. Further, determining files to
back up may include determining files that have been modified,
files included in directories that have been modified, files
included in directories that include a file that has been modified,
files included in particular directories regardless of whether the
files have been modified, files that have not been backed up for
more than a threshold period of time, files associated with a
particular user (e.g., files having a particular author or owner),
or files associated with any other characteristic that may be used
to determine whether a file is to be backed up.
[0462] Determining the files to back up may also include
determining the distribution of files among chunks. In some cases,
the core media agent 510 may assign one or more files to a
particular chunk. The core media agent 510 may determine the files
to assign to the chunk based on a number of criteria. At least some
of the criteria may be based on whether the chunk is limited to a
particular size or must satisfy a particular size. For example, if
the chunk size is 4 GB, the core media agent 510 may assign 4 GB of
files to a first chunk. If additional files are to be backed up,
the core media agent 510 may assign the additional files to one or
more additional chunks. If, in the example of a 4 GB chunk size
limit, there are less than 4 GB files to be backed up, or if the
remainder of files left to be backed up is less than 4 GB, the
chunk size may be less than 4 GB. Alternatively, the chunk may be
filled with placeholder data to satisfy the 4 GB chunk size.
[0463] In some cases, the criteria for determining the files to
include in a particular chunk may be based on where the files are
stored in the primary storage device 104 (e.g., the particular
directory), the application that created the files, how frequently
the files are accessed, an importance assigned to the files, or any
other criteria that may be used to determine the chunk to assign a
file. In some cases, the core media agent 510 may assign files to a
chunk in access order, which may be determined by the order the
files were created, edited, or stored, or an alphanumeric order for
a name or identifier number assigned to the file. In some cases,
the core media agent 510 may assign files to a chunk randomly or
pseudo-randomly. In certain embodiments, the core media agent 510
may identify the files for back up, but may not allocate the files
to a particular chunk. Instead, the files may be sent to the
network storage system 302, which may determine the distribution or
assignment of the files to one or more chunks. In some such cases,
the network storage system 302 may inform the core media agent 510
as to which chunk or chunks a particular file is stored enabling
the chunk information to be added to the collect file 1902 and/or
to a backup index identifying the location of backed up files.
[0464] At block 2006, the core media agent 510 stores file
identifiers associated with the files identified at the block 2004
at a collect file table 1902. The collect file table 1902 may be a
table that stores the identifier of files to be backed up.
Alternatively, or in addition, the collect file table 1902 may
include any other type of data structure that may track files to be
backed up. The file identifiers may include a name of a file, a
unique file number or other ID value, a storage location of the
file, or any other information that may serve as a unique
identifier for the file. In some cases, the collect file table 1902
may store an indication of which chunk each file is assigned. For
example, the collect file table 1902 may identify that the first
three files 1904 are included in chunk 1 1908, that the next four
files 1904 are included in chunk 2 1908, and so on and so forth. In
some cases, a file may be split among multiple chunks due to the
size of the file and/or the size limits of the chunk. In some such
cases, the collect file table 1902 may identify each chunk that
includes a portion of the file or may identify the first chunk that
includes a portion of the file (such as the first portion of the
file).
[0465] At block 2008, the core media agent 510 sets a restart point
1906 at the start of the collect file table 1902. Setting the
restart point 1906 may include storing an address, a link, a
locator, or any other location information identifying a portion or
location within the collect file table 1902. In some cases, the
restart point 1906 may be stored in a register of the client
computer device 102. In some cases, the restart point 1906 is not
necessarily set at the start of the collect file table 1902, but
may be set at some location that facilitates tracking the progress
of the backup process with respect to the files to be backed up.
For example, the restart point 1906 may be set at the end of the
collect file table 1902 and may be decremented as files are backed
up.
[0466] At block 2010, the client computing device 102 transmits a
subset of files forming a chunk 1908 to a network storage system
302. Transmitting the subset of files to the network storage system
302 may include streaming the files or otherwise transmitting the
files over a network using one or more data packets. As described
above, the core media agent 510 may track which files are included
in a particular chunk. Accordingly, the client computing device 102
may stream or transmit files a chunk at a time. As a chunk is
usually larger than a data packet, streaming files a chunk at a
time may include streaming multiple data packets that are
associated with the chunk.
[0467] In some cases, the core media agent 510 is unaware, or
initially unaware, of what files constitute a chunk 1908 or are
included in a specific chunk 1908. In some such cases, the files
are transmitted or streamed to the network storage system 302, and
the network storage system 302 determines which chunk 1908 to store
particular files received from the client computing device 102. In
some such cases, the core media agent 510 may be informed by the
network storage system 302 of which files are included in a
particular chunk. In some cases, a file may be split among multiple
chunks 1908. Further, a chunk 1908 may include portions of multiple
files.
[0468] Typically, data packets generally carry significantly less
information than is included in a file or a chunk 1908. Therefore,
the subset of files may be transmitted over a plurality of data
packets. Thus, in some cases, a portion of a chunk 1908 may be
written as files are received at the network storage system 302,
but something may occur to interrupt the transmission and/or a
writing of the portion of the chunk 1908. Accordingly, in some
cases, the transmission of the subset of files by the client
computing device 102 may, on its own, be an insufficient basis for
modifying the restart point 1908. Thus, in certain cases,
additional interaction between the network storage system 302 and
the core media agent 510 may be necessary to determine whether a
file has been successfully backed up or whether the chunk 1908 has
been committed. In certain cases, the indication that chunk 1908
has been committed at a secondary storage device 526 may include a
indication that the chunk 1908 has been successfully stored.
Further, an indication that the chunk 1908 has been committed may
include an indication of where the chunk 1908 is stored within the
network storage system 302.
[0469] At decision block 2012, the core media agent 510 determines
whether an indicator, which may be referred to as a "commit
indicator," that the chunk 1908 has been committed has been
received. The commit indicator may be a form of acknowledgment
provided by the network storage system 302 to acknowledge receipt
and storage of a file within a chunk 1908 at the secondary storage
device 526. The commit indicator may be received from the network
storage system 302 upon a chunk 1908 being committed. In some
cases, the commit indicator may include an address of where the
chunk 1908 is located at the network storage system 302. For
example, the commit indicator may include a storage address at one
of the secondary storage devices 526. The storage address may be
provided to the media agent 144 or the log manager 1510 to
facilitate generating a transaction log file 522 and/or a backup
index. Alternatively, or in addition, the storage address of the
chunk 1908 may be transmitted separately from or in conjunction
with the commit indicator.
[0470] Further, in some cases, an identity of the files stored
within the chunk 1908 may be provided by the network storage system
302 to the core media agent 510 or the client computing device 102.
As previously indicated, in some cases, a file may be stored among
multiple chunks. In some such cases, the identity of each chunk
that includes a portion of a file, or an address of each chunk that
includes a portion of the file, may be included with the commit
indicator or may be transmitted separately from the commit
indicator from the network storage system 302 to the client
computing device 102. In some other cases, only an indicator or
address of a chunk that includes a first portion of the file is
provided. In such cases, upon attempting to access the file by
using the address that points to a chunk including a first portion
of the file, the network storage system 302 may determine the
chunks and include other portions of the file based at least in
part on metadata stored at the network storage system 302. In some
cases, the address of the chunk 1908 that includes a file or
portion of a file is provided by the network storage system 302
directly to the media agent 144. In some such cases, the commit
indicator may be provided to the client computing device 102
without providing a source location or address for the check 1908
to the client computing device 102. The commit indicator may be, or
may include, an acknowledgement packet or receipt. This
acknowledgement packet received from the network storage system 302
may indicate that the chunk has been successfully committed.
[0471] If it is determined at the decision block 2012 that the
commit indicator has not been received, the process 2000 returns to
the decision block 2012 to continue determining whether the commit
indicator has been received. In some cases, the core media agent
510 may not actively determine whether the commit indicator has
been received, but may instead proceed to the block 2014 upon
receiving the commit indicator. In other words, in some cases, the
receipt of the commit indicator may serve as a trigger that causes
the process to proceed to the block 2014. In some cases, after a
threshold period of time has passed without receipt of the commit
indicator, an error process may be performed. The error process may
include retransmitting some or all of the subset of files to the
network storage 302, alerting an administrator regarding the
failure to receive the commit indicator within the threshold period
of time, alerting the network storage system 302 regarding the
failure to receive the commit indicator, or any other error process
that may be performed in response to failure to receive the commit
indicator within the threshold time.
[0472] At block 2014, the core media agent 510 alerts the media
agent 144 that the chunk has been committed. Alternatively, or in
addition, the core media agent 510 may alert the log manager 1510
that the chunk has been committed. In some cases, alerting the
media agent 144 that the chunk has been committed may include
providing metadata indicating at least a storage location of the
chunk 1908 or files included in the chunk 1908. In some cases, the
metadata may be provided as part of a transaction log file 522 to
the media agent 144. In other cases, the metadata may be provided
as backup metadata to the media agent 144, which uses the backup
metadata to generate a transaction log file 522.
[0473] At block 2016, the core media agent 510 receives an
indication that the backup index has been updated to reflect the
storage of the chunk 1908. The backup index may be updated based at
least in part on backup metadata provided by the core media agent
510 to the media agent 144 and/or backup metadata provided by the
network storage system 302 to the secondary storage subsystem 118.
In some cases, some or all of the process 1600 may be performed
after the media agent 144 is alerted that the chunk 1908 has been
committed. Further, as part of performing the process 1600,
indication that the backup index has been updated may be received
as part of the block 2016.
[0474] At block 2018, the core media agent 510 sets the restart
point to a point in the collect file table that is subsequent to
the listing of the subset of the files transmitted at the block
2010. Further, the block 2018 may include generating transaction
log files 522 based at least in part on the files included in the
chunk 1908 indicated is being committed. After operations associate
with the block 2018 or performed, the process 2000 may return to
the block 2010 where additional files forming a chunk may be
transmitted or may continue to be transmitted to the network
storage system 302. Alternatively, if the restart point has reached
the end of the collect file table 1902 indicating that all files
have been transmitted to the network storage system 302, the backup
process may be complete and the process 2000 may end.
[0475] Advantageously, if there is a failure during the backup
process or if an event occurs that causes the backup process to be
interrupted, the restart point may be used to resume the backup
process upon the failure being resolved or the completion of the
event that interrupted the backup process. For example, if a user
turns off a client computing device 102 during a backup, upon the
client computing device 102 being turned back on, the backup
process may automatically resume beginning with the files in the
collect file table 1902 following the restart point 1906.
Similarly, if a network connection between the client computing
device 102 and the network storage system 302 is interrupted,
backup may automatically resume at the restart point upon the
network connection being reestablished.
EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS
[0476] Some example enumerated embodiments are recited in this
section in the form of methods, systems, and non-transitory
computer-readable media, without limitation.
[0477] One aspect of the disclosure provides a computer-implemented
method of reducing storage manager overhead associated with
secondary storage management of an information management system
during backup. The computer implemented method comprises: as
implemented by one or more hardware processors of the information
management system, the one or more hardware processors configured
with specific computer-executable instructions, accessing first
backup metadata associated with backing up data from a first client
computing system to a one or more secondary storage devices of a
network storage system as part of a backup process, the first
backup performed using a cached job identifier associated with the
first client computing system; generating a first transaction log
file based on the first backup metadata; providing the first
transaction log file to a first media agent associated with the
first client computing system; and replicating the first
transaction log to at least a second media agent; determining
occurrence of a trigger to update a backup index; accessing a set
of transaction log files including the first transaction log file;
updating the backup index based on the set of transaction log
files; and flushing the set of transaction log files.
[0478] The method of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
method further comprises, prior to said flushing the set of
transaction log files, replicating the backup index within a
distributed index storage system; where the distributed index
storage system is implemented at the network storage system; where
flushing the set of transaction log files comprises deleting the
set of transaction log files; where updating the backup index
comprises identifying a backup index at the distributed index
storage system associated with the first client computing system
based on the job identifier assigned to the first client computing
system; where the trigger to update the backup index comprises one
or more of: an elapse of a period of time, an indication of
completion of a backup job, the number of transaction log files
added to the set of transaction log files satisfying a threshold;
or receipt of a command to update the backup index; where updating
the backup index comprises generating a new backup index; where the
first media agent is implemented at a secondary storage computing
system included in a secondary storage environment and the first
client computing system is included in a primary storage
environment of the information management system; where at least
said generating the first transaction log file is performed by a
core media agent at the first client computing system that is
separate from the first media agent; where a second transaction log
file associated with backup of a second client computing system is
provided to the second media agent, and wherein the second
transaction log file is replicated to the first media agent; where
the method further comprises: detecting failure of a secondary
storage computing system hosting the first media agent; configuring
a computing system as a replacement secondary storage computing
system; replicating the first transaction log from the second media
agent to a replacement media agent hosted by the replacement
secondary storage computing system; and registering the replacement
media agent with a storage manager of the information management
system; where the method further comprises receiving a request to
access a backup index associated with the job identifier;
determining that a set of transaction log files associated with the
job identifier exist, the set of transaction log files including
the first transaction log file; updating the backup index based at
least in part on the set of transaction log files to obtain an
updated backup index; and providing access to the updated backup
index responsive to the request to access the backup index; and
where the method further comprises flushing the set of transaction
log files after updating the backup index.
[0479] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a system for
reducing storage manager overhead associated with secondary storage
management of an information management system. The system
comprises a log manager and a first media agent. The log manager
may be implemented by one or more hardware processors of a client
computing system. The log manager may be configured to: access
first backup metadata associated with backing up data from a
primary storage device of client computing system to a network
storage system as part of a backup process at a first time, the
first backup performed using a cached job identifier obtained from
a storage manager at a second time that is earlier than the first
time; generate a first transaction log file based on the first
backup metadata; and provide the first transaction log file to a
first media agent at a first secondary storage computing system.
The first media agent may be implemented by one or more hardware
processors of the secondary storage computing system. Further, the
first media agent may be configured to replicate the first
transaction log to at least a second media agent hosted by a second
secondary storage computing system.
[0480] The system of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
first media agent is further configured to: determine an occurrence
of a trigger to update a backup index; access a set of transaction
log files including the first transaction log file; update the
backup index based on the set of transaction log files; replicate
the backup index within a distributed index storage system; and
flush the set of transaction log files; where the first media agent
is further configured to cause the set of transaction log files to
be flushed from the second media agent; where the first media agent
determines the set of transaction log files to access based at
least in part on the job identifier associated with the client
computing system; where the system further comprises a storage
manager configured to: detect failure of the secondary storage
computing system implementing the first media agent; configure a
computing system as a replacement secondary storage computing
system; and replicate the first transaction log from the second
media agent to a replacement media agent hosted by the replacement
secondary storage computing system; where the storage manager is
further configured to assign the replacement media agent to the
client computing system as a replacement for the first media agent;
and where the first media agent is further configured to: receive a
request to access a backup index associated with the job
identifier; determine that a set of transaction log files
associated with the job identifier exist, the set of transaction
log files including the first transaction log file; update the
backup index based at least in part on the set of transaction log
files to obtain an ' computing system comprising one or more
hardware processors and configured with specific
computer-executable instructions, obtaining a first storage manager
query associated with querying a storage manager of an information
management system as part of a backup process for backing up data
of a primary storage of the client computing system to a secondary
storage; generating a hash of the first storage manager query;
accessing a query cache of the client computing system to determine
whether the hash of the first storage manager query is located in
the query cache; determining that the hash of the first storage
manager query is not located within the query cache of the client
computing system; providing the first storage manager query to the
storage manager; receiving a query response from the storage
manager responsive to providing the first storage manager query to
the storage manager; and storing at least the hash of the first
storage manager query and at least a portion of the query response
at the query cache enabling a subsequent request for data
associated with the query response to be processed without
accessing the storage manager.
[0481] The method of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
cache manager is part of a data agent of the client computing
system, the data agent configured to manage data associated with
one or more applications executed by the client computing system;
where the secondary storage is part of a network storage system
that is external to the information management system; where the
method further comprises: determining one or more additional
storage manager queries associated with the first storage manager
query; and aggregating the one or more additional storage manager
queries with the first storage manager query to obtain an aggregate
query, wherein providing the first storage manager query to the
storage manager comprises providing the aggregate query to the
storage manager; where the one or more additional storage manager
queries are identified based at least in part on a probability that
the one or more additional storage manager queries are issued
within a threshold time period of the first storage manager query
being issued; where the method further comprises: identifying a
configuration category associated with the first storage manager
query, the configuration category one of a plurality of
configuration categories; and associating the hash of the first
storage manager query with the configuration category at the query
cache; where the configuration category may include one of: a
storage policy; a sub-client configuration; a back-up policy; or an
access control policy; where the method further comprises:
receiving an indication of a change to a configuration setting of
the information management system; identifying a configuration
category associated with the configuration setting of the
information management system, wherein the configuration category
is one of a plurality of configuration categories, and wherein each
entry at the query cache corresponds to a different storage manager
query that is associated with at least one configuration category
of the plurality of configuration categories; and invalidating
entries in the query cache associated with the configuration
category while not invalidating entries in the query cache not
associated with the configuration category; where the method
further comprises: receiving an indication of a change in a job
identifier associated with one or more storage management jobs; and
invalidating the query cache; where the method further comprises
providing the query response to a media agent to facilitate
performing the backup process; where providing the query response
to the media agent comprises providing the query response to a
portion of the media agent hosted by the client computing system;
where obtaining the first storage manager query comprises receiving
the first storage manager query from a data agent of the client
computing system as part of the backup process, the data agent
configured to manage data associated with one or more applications
executed by the client computing system; where obtaining the first
storage manager query comprises generating the first storage
manager query as part of the backup process; where generating the
hash of the first storage manager query comprises generating the
hash based on a portion of the first storage manager query that is
unique to the first storage manager query; where the method further
comprises obtaining a second storage manager query associated with
querying the storage manager; generating a hash of the second
storage manager query; determining that the hash of the second
storage manager query is located within the query cache of the
client computing system; and retrieving data associated with a
response to the second storage manager query from the query cache
of the client computing system without accessing the storage
manager; and where the second storage manager query is a second
instance of the first storage manager query.
[0482] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a system for
reducing storage manager overhead associated with secondary storage
management of an information management system. The system
comprises a query cache and a cache manager. The query cache may be
configured to at least store configuration data obtained from a
storage manager of an information management system. The cache
manager of a client computing system comprising one or more
hardware processors and configured to: obtain a first storage
manager query associated with querying the storage manager as part
of a backup process for backing up data of a primary storage of the
client computing system to a secondary storage, the first storage
manager query including a request for configuration data of the
information management system; generate a hash of the first storage
manager query; access a query cache of the client computing system
to determine whether the hash of the first storage manager query is
located in the query cache; determine that the hash of the first
storage manager query is not located within the query cache;
provide the first storage manager query to the storage manager;
receive a query response from the storage manager responsive to
providing the first storage manager query to the storage manager,
the query response including configuration data at least partially
responsive to the first storage manager query; and store at least
the hash of the first storage manager query and at least a portion
of the query response at the query cache enabling a subsequent
request for data associated with the query response to be processed
without accessing the storage manager.
[0483] The system of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
system further comprises a data agent of the client computing
system, and the data agent is configured to: generate the first
storage manager query as part of the backup process to backup data
managed by the data agent; and provide the first storage manager
query to the cache manager; where the cache manager is further
configured to: obtain a second storage manager query associated
with querying the storage manager; generate a hash of the second
storage manager query; determine that the hash of the second
storage manager query is located within the query cache of the
client computing system; and retrieve data associated with a
response to the second storage manager query from the query cache
of the client computing system without accessing the storage
manager; and where the cache manager is further configured to:
receive an indication of a change to a configuration setting of the
information management system; identify a configuration category
associated with the configuration setting of the information
management system, wherein the configuration category is one of a
plurality of configuration categories, and wherein each entry at
the query cache corresponds to a different storage manager query
that is associated with at least one configuration category of the
plurality of configuration categories; and invalidate entries in
the query cache associated with the configuration category while
not invalidating entries in the query cache not associated with the
configuration category.
[0484] One aspect of the disclosure provides a computer-implemented
method of managing a job at a client computing system of an
information management system. The computer-implemented method
comprises: as implemented by a data agent within a client computing
system comprising one or more hardware processors and configured
with specific computer-executable instructions, detecting a trigger
to perform a job at a secondary storage system; determining that an
active job identifier does not exist for the client computing
system; requesting a job identifier from a storage manager of an
information management system; receiving the job identifier from
the storage manager and a set of job metadata, wherein the set of
job metadata comprises an identity of resources available to the
client computing system to perform the job; storing the job
identifier and the set of job metadata at a job cache of the client
computing system, wherein the job metadata is associated with the
job identifier at the job cache; and performing the job at the
secondary storage system using at least some of the resources
identified in the set of job metadata.
[0485] The method of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
job comprises a backup job that backs up data from the client
computing system to the secondary storage system or a restore job
that restores data from the secondary storage system to the client
computing system; where determining that the active job identifier
does not exist comprises determining that an existing job
identifier at the client computing device has expired; where
determining that the active job identifier does not exist comprises
determining that a threshold number of errors associated with an
existing job identifier at the client computing device has
occurred; where the method further comprises designating the job
identifier as expired when determining that the threshold number of
errors associated with the existing job identifier have occurred;
where the information management system comprises the client
computing system and the secondary storage system; where the
resources identified by the job metadata comprise one or more of
filters that filter data to include as part of the job; a number of
communication streams available for use by the client computing
system to communicate with the secondary storage system; an
identity of one or more secondary storage devices of the secondary
storage system available to the client computing system; or one or
more file scanning resources available to the client computing
system; where performing the job at the secondary storage system
comprises: storing data at a network storage system that is
external to the information management system without communicating
with a media agent of the secondary storage system; and providing
index information associated with the data to the media agent of
the secondary storage system; where the method further comprises:
detecting a trigger to perform a second job at the secondary
storage system; determining that the job identifier stored at the
job cache remains active; accessing the job cache to determine the
set of job metadata associated with the job identifier; and
performing the second job at the secondary storage system using at
least some of the resources identified in the set of job metadata
without accessing the storage manager; where the method further
comprises associating a plurality of jobs with the job identifier
at the client computing system; where the storage manager is
unaware of at least one job from the plurality of jobs associated
with the job identifier for at least a period of time; where
performing a batch update with respect to the storage manager,
wherein the batch update comprises providing the storage manager at
least a unique identifier of each job of the plurality of jobs
associated with the job identifier; where the method further
comprises receiving an updated set of job metadata associated with
the job identifier from the storage manager; and updating the job
metadata stored at the job cache based at least in part on the
updated set of job metadata; and where the trigger comprises one or
more of a scheduled job, a command, or a threshold amount of new or
modified data at a primary storage of the client computing
system.
[0486] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a system for
managing a job at a client computing system of an information
management system. The system comprises a data agent of a client
computing system comprising one or more hardware processors. The
data agent may be configured to: detect a trigger to perform a job
at a secondary storage system; determine that an active job
identifier does not exist for the client computing system; request
a job identifier from a storage manager of an information
management system; receive the job identifier from the storage
manager and a set of job metadata; store the job identifier and the
set of job metadata at a job cache; and perform the job at the
secondary storage system based at least in part on the set of job
metadata.
[0487] The system of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
data agent is further configured to determine that a threshold
number of errors associated with the an existing job identifier at
the client computing device has occurred; and designate the
existing job identifier as unusable; where the secondary storage
comprises one or more secondary storage devices and a network
storage system; where the data agent is further configured to
perform the job at the secondary storage system by: storing data at
a network storage system without communicating with a media agent
of the secondary storage system; and providing index information
associated with the data to the media agent of the secondary
storage system; where the data agent is further configured to:
detect a trigger to perform a second job at the secondary storage
system; determine that the job identifier stored at the job cache
remains active; access the job cache to obtain the set of job
metadata associated with the job identifier; and perform the second
job at the secondary storage system using at least some of the
resources identified in the set of job metadata without accessing
the storage manager; and where the data agent is further configured
to: receive an updated set of job metadata associated with the job
identifier from the storage manager; and update the job metadata
stored at the job cache based at least in part on the updated set
of job metadata.
[0488] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a
computer-implemented method of backing up a client computing system
of an information management system. The computer implemented
method comprises: as implemented by a data agent within a client
computing system comprising one or more hardware processors and
configured with specific computer-executable instructions,
detecting a trigger to perform an instance of a backup process at a
network storage system during a first time period; determining that
the client computing system is capable of interacting with the
network storage system during the first time period; backing up
data from a primary storage of the client computing system using a
core media agent at the client computing system as part of the
instance of the backup process, wherein the data is backed up to
the network storage system without accessing a media agent at a
secondary storage system of the information management system; and
providing backup metadata to the media agent at the secondary
storage system without providing the data from the primary storage
to the media agent.
[0489] The method of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
method further comprises: accessing a job cache to obtain job
metadata; and determining based at least in part on the job
metadata that the client computing system is capable of interacting
with the network storage system; where the job metadata comprises
access information for accessing the network storage system; where
determining that the client computing system is capable of
interacting with the network storage system comprises communicating
a test packet to the network storage system; where determining that
the client computing system is capable of interacting with the
network storage system comprises determining that the client
computing system is capable of interacting with the network storage
system directly or via an external network without communicating
with an intermediary system of the information management system;
where the network storage system is external to the information
management system; where the method further comprises detecting a
trigger to perform a second instance of the backup process at the
network storage system during a second time period that differs
from the first time period; determining that the client computing
system is not capable of interacting with the network storage
system during the second time period; and providing data from the
primary storage of the client computing system for backup as part
of the second instance of the backup process to the media agent at
the secondary storage system; where determining that the client
computing system is not capable of interacting with the network
storage system during the second time period comprises determining
that the client computing system is not capable of providing data
for backup to the network storage system without providing the data
to the media agent at the secondary storage system; where the
trigger comprises one or more of a scheduled backup, a command, or
a threshold amount of new or modified data at the primary storage
of the client computing system; where the method further comprises
detecting a trigger to perform an instance of a restore process to
restore data from the network storage system; retrieving a backup
index from the media agent at the secondary storage system, the
backup index created based at least in part on the backup metadata;
and restoring, using the core media agent, the data from the
network storage system based at least in part on the backup index
without accessing the media agent to obtain the data when it is
determined that the client computing system is capable of
interacting with the network storage system during a restore time
period; where the method further comprises restoring, using the
media agent, the data from the network storage system based at
least in part on the backup index to obtain the data when it is
determined that the client computing system is not capable of
interacting with the network storage system during the restore time
period; and where backing up the data from the primary storage
using the core media agent comprises writing the data to a memory
space of the core media agent, wherein the core media agent
provides the data written to the memory space of the core media
agent to the network storage system for backup.
[0490] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a system for
backing up a client computing system of an information management
system. The system comprises a data agent of a client computing
system comprising one or more hardware processors. The data agent
may be configured to: detect a trigger to perform an instance of a
backup process at a network storage system during a first time
period; determine that the client computing system is capable of
interacting with the network storage system during the first time
period; back up data from a primary storage of the client computing
system using a core media agent at the client computing system as
part of the instance of the backup process, wherein the data is
backed up to the network storage system without accessing a media
agent at a secondary storage system of the information management
system; and provide backup metadata to the media agent at the
secondary storage system without providing the data from the
primary storage to the media agent.
[0491] The system of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
data agent is further configured to: access a job cache to obtain
job metadata; and determine based at least in part on the job
metadata that the client computing system is capable of interacting
with the network storage system; where the job metadata comprises
access information for accessing the network storage system; where
the data agent is further configured to: detect a trigger to
perform a second instance of the backup process at the network
storage system during a second time period that differs from the
first time period; determine that the client computing system is
not capable of interacting with the network storage system during
the second time period; and provide data from the primary storage
of the client computing system for backup as part of the second
instance of the backup process to the media agent at the secondary
storage system; where determining that the client computing system
is not capable of interacting with the network storage system
during the second time period comprises determining that the client
computing system is not capable of providing data for backup to the
network storage system without providing the data to the media
agent at the secondary storage system; where the data agent is
further configured to: detect a trigger to perform an instance of a
restore process to restore data from the network storage system;
retrieve a backup index from the media agent at the secondary
storage system, the backup index created based at least in part on
the backup metadata; and use the core media agent to restore the
data from the network storage system based at least in part on the
backup index without accessing the media agent to obtain the data
when it is determined that the client computing system is capable
of interacting with the network storage system during a restore
time period; where the data agent is further configured to use the
media agent to restore the data from the network storage system
based at least in part on the backup index when it is determined
that the client computing system is not capable of interacting with
the network storage system during the restore time period; and
where the data agent is further configured to back up the data from
the primary storage using the core media agent by writing the data
to a memory space of the core media agent enabling the core media
agent to access the data for backup to the network storage
system.
[0492] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a
computer-implemented method of a multi-tiered backup indexing
process of an information management system. The computer
implemented method comprises: as implemented by a media agent
within a secondary storage computing device comprising one or more
hardware processors and configured with specific
computer-executable instructions, receiving backup metadata from a
client computing system undergoing a backup process at a first time
period; generating a backup index based at least in part on the
received backup metadata; receiving job metadata corresponding to a
job performed with respect to the client computing system at a
second time period; generating a transaction log file based on the
job metadata, wherein the transaction log file comprises a reduced
set of metadata compared to the backup metadata used to generate
the backup index enabling faster processing of the transaction log
file than the backup index; and updating the backup index based at
least in part on the transaction log file at a period of time that
occurs after completion of the job performed at the second time
period.
[0493] The method of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
method further comprises: where the backup index comprises a full
index associated with a full backup of the client computing system;
where the backup index comprises a distributed index that is
distributed across a plurality of media agents across a plurality
of secondary storage computing devices; where the reduced set of
metadata comprises file attributes of files undergoing the job
performed with respect to the client computing system at the second
time period; where the job performed with respect to the client
computing system at the second time period comprises a backup job;
where the backup job comprises one or more of a differential
backup, a partial backup, a reduced backup, an archive operation,
or a non-full backup; where the method further comprises storing
one or more transaction identifiers of one or more transactions
occurring subsequent to generating the transaction log file; where
the method further comprises generating a second transaction log
file at a third time period based at least in part on the one or
more transaction identifiers for the one or more transactions
occurring subsequent to generating the transaction log file; where
the method further comprises discarding the one or more transaction
identifiers after generating the second transaction log; where the
method further comprises backing up the backup index and the
transaction log file to a network storage system; where the backup
index or the transaction log file is backed up at a different time
period than data of a primary storage of a client computing system
being backed up as part of the backup process; where updating the
backup index comprises generating a new copy of the backup index
that is updated based at least in part on the transaction log file;
where generating the transaction log file based on the job metadata
comprises generating a plurality of transaction log files based on
the job metadata as the job metadata is received over a period of
time associated with the second time period; and where the method
further comprises storing the backup index and the transaction log
file at an indexing system of a secondary storage system, the
secondary storage system including the secondary storage computing
device.
[0494] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a system for
performing a multi-tiered backup indexing process of an information
management system. The system comprises: a media agent of a
secondary storage computing device comprising one or more hardware
processors, the media agent configured to: receive backup metadata
from a client computing system undergoing a backup process at a
first time period; generate a backup index based at least in part
on the received backup metadata; receive job metadata corresponding
to a job performed with respect to the client computing system at a
second time period; generate a transaction log file based on the
job metadata, wherein the transaction log file comprises a reduced
set of metadata compared to the backup metadata used to generate
the backup index enabling faster processing of the transaction log
file than the backup index; and update the backup index based at
least in part on the transaction log file at a period of time that
occurs after completion of the job performed at the second time
period.
[0495] The system of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
media agent is further configured to store one or more transaction
identifiers of one or more transactions occurring subsequent to
generating the transaction log file; where the media agent is
further configured to generate a second transaction log file at a
third time period based at least in part on the one or more
transaction identifiers for the one or more transactions occurring
subsequent to generating the transaction log file; where the media
agent is further configured to periodically backup, at a network
storage system, backup indexes and transaction log files, wherein
the backup indexes include the backup index and the transaction log
files include the transaction log file; where data that is backed
up as part of the backup process is backed up during a different
period of time than the backup index generated based at least in
part on the received backup metadata, wherein the backup index
corresponds to the data that is backed up; and where the media
agent is further configured to replicate the backup index across a
plurality of media agents.
[0496] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a
computer-implemented method of configuring a media agent of an
information management system. The computer-implemented method
comprising: as implemented by a storage manager within an
information management system, the storage manager comprising one
or more hardware processors and configured with specific
computer-executable instructions, configuring a secondary computing
system as a media agent; restoring a backup index from a network
storage system to the media agent; accessing a transaction log file
at the network storage system that is more recent than the backup
index; updating the backup index at the media agent based at least
in part on the transaction log file to obtain a current backup
index; associating the current backup index with the media agent;
and adding the media agent to a set of available media agents at a
secondary storage system of the information management system.
[0497] The method of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where
configuring the secondary computing system as the media agent
comprises configuring the secondary computing system to host the
media agent; where the secondary computing system comprises a
computing system at the secondary storage system of the information
management system; where the method further comprises detecting a
failure of a second media agent that differs from the media agent,
wherein configuring the secondary computing system as the media
agent occurs in response to detecting the failure of the second
media agent; where the failure of the second media agent comprises
a loss of access to the second media agent; where the backup index
is one of a plurality of backup indexes at the network storage
system, and wherein the backup index is the most recently generated
backup index of the plurality of backup indexes; where the
transaction log file is associated with a timestamp that is more
recent than a timestamp of the backup index; where the transaction
log file comprises a set of file attributes for one or more files
that have been backed up during a period of time that is more
recent than when the backup index was generated; where the
transaction log file is one of a plurality of transaction log
files, wherein each transaction log file is generated at a
different time period, and wherein each transaction log file is
more recent than the backup index; where adding the media agent to
the set of available media agents comprises designating the media
agent as available for use by a primary storage system in a
management repository of the storage manager; wherein the method
further comprises accessing a transaction identifier that is more
recent than the transaction log file; and updating the current
backup index based at least in part on the transaction identifier
to obtain an updated current backup index, wherein associating the
current backup index with the media agent comprises associating the
updated current backup index with the media agent; where updating
the current backup index based at least in part on the transaction
identifier comprises replaying a transaction associated with the
transaction identifier and updating the current backup index based
on a result of replaying the transaction; and where the transaction
identifier is accessed from a distributed indexing system.
[0498] Another aspect of the disclosure provides a system for
configuring a media agent at an information management system. The
system comprises: a storage manager comprising one or more hardware
processors, the storage manager configured to: configure a
secondary computing system as a media agent; restore a backup index
from a network storage system to the media agent; access a
transaction log file at the network storage system that is more
recent than the backup index; update the backup index at the media
agent based at least in part on the transaction log file to obtain
a current backup index; provide the media agent with access to the
current backup index; and add the media agent to a set of available
media agents at a secondary storage system of the information
management system.
[0499] The system of the preceding paragraph can include any
combination or sub-combination of the following features: where the
storage manager is further configured to determine that a scaling
criteria satisfies a scaling threshold, wherein configuring the
secondary computing system as the media agent occurs in response to
detecting that the scaling criteria satisfies the scaling
threshold; where the storage manager is further configured to add
the media agent to the set of available media agents by replacing a
second media agent of the set of available media agents with the
media agent; where the transaction log file comprises a reduced set
of metadata for a backed up file compared to the backup index;
where the storage manager is further configured to add the media
agent to the set of available media agents by designating the media
agent as available for use in a management repository of the
storage manager; where the storage manager is further configured
to: access a transaction identifier that is associated with a
timestamp that is more recent than a timestamp of the transaction
log file; and update the current backup index based at least in
part on the transaction identifier to obtain an updated current
backup index, wherein providing the media agent with access to the
current backup index comprises providing the media agent with
access to the updated current backup index with the media agent;
and where the storage manager is further configured to update the
current backup index based at least in part on the transaction
identifier by replaying a transaction associated with the
transaction identifier and updating the current backup index based
on a result of replaying the transaction.
[0500] In other embodiments, a system or systems may operate
according to one or more of the methods and/or computer-readable
media recited in the preceding paragraphs. In yet other
embodiments, a method or methods may operate according to one or
more of the systems and/or computer-readable media recited in the
preceding paragraphs. In yet more embodiments, a computer-readable
medium or media, excluding transitory propagating signals, may
cause one or more computing devices having one or more processors
and non-transitory computer-readable memory to operate according to
one or more of the systems and/or methods recited in the preceding
paragraphs.
Terminology
[0501] 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.
[0502] 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, i.e., 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 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.
[0503] In some embodiments, 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). 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.
[0504] Systems and modules described herein may comprise software,
firmware, hardware, or any combination(s) of software, firmware, or
hardware suitable for the purposes described. 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 computer 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.
[0505] Further, processing of the various components of the
illustrated systems can be distributed across multiple machines,
networks, and other computing resources. 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, e.g., 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.
[0506] 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.
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 to a computing device or
other programmable data processing apparatus to cause 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 computing device or other
programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the acts
specified in the flow chart and/or block diagram block or
blocks.
[0507] 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 one or
more embodiments can be modified, if necessary, to employ the
systems, functions, and concepts of the various references
described above. These and other changes can be made in light of
the above Detailed Description. While the above description
describes certain examples, and describes the best mode
contemplated, no matter how detailed the above appears in text,
different embodiments can be practiced in many ways. Details of the
system may vary considerably in its specific implementation. As
noted above, particular terminology used when describing certain
features should not be taken to imply that the terminology is being
redefined herein to be restricted to any specific characteristics,
features with which that terminology is associated. In general, the
terms used in the following claims should not be construed to limit
the scope to the specific examples disclosed in the specification,
unless the above Detailed Description section explicitly defines
such terms. Accordingly, the actual scope encompasses not only the
disclosed examples, but also all equivalent ways of practicing or
implementing the claims.
[0508] To reduce the number of claims, certain aspects are
presented below in certain claim forms, but the applicant
contemplates other aspects in any number of claim forms. For
example, while only one aspect may be 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.
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