Efficient disaster rollback across heterogeneous storage systems

• US 10,152,386 B1
• Filed: 07/29/2016
• Issued: 12/11/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Nutanix Incorporated
• Inventors: Ramachandran, Parthasarathy, Bhattacharyya, Manosiz, Chandrasekaran, Karthik
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Kamini B
• Application Number:
  US15/224,358
• Time in Patent Office: 865 Days
• Field of Search: 714 15
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/203 using migration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2046 where the redundant components share persistent storage G06F11/2043 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

Systems for storage system rollover and rollback. A data mover agent is installed on a source storage system to capture disaster recovery data and send to a target system. Upon receiving a rollover event signal, a virtualized controller creates one or more replica user virtual machines running on the target system that serve to replicate functions of the user virtual machines from the source storage system. The virtualized controller on the target system converts the target disaster recovery data from a first format to a second format to facilitate use of the target disaster recovery data by the replica user virtual machines. Rollback is initiated when the target system receives a rollback event signal. Differences in the data that have occurred between the rollover event and the rollback signal are calculated and sent to the rollback system. The calculated differences are applied to a registered snapshot on the rollback system.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

implementing a disaster recovery operation across heterogeneous distributed storage systems by;

identifying a source storage system having a first hypervisor type and a target storage system having a second hypervisor type, wherein at least the first hypervisor type or the second hypervisor type is at least one of VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, RedHat KVM, or Nutanix AHV, wherein the first hypervisor type and the second hypervisor type are different;

installing a data mover agent on the source storage system, the data mover agent to send snapshot data from the source storage system to the target storage system to form a snapshot file comprising target disaster recovery data;

updating by at least one process on the target storage system, the target disaster recovery data to form updated target disaster recovery data;

receiving, by the target storage system, a failback event signal;

calculating, by the target storage system, calculated differences between the updated target disaster recovery data and the snapshot file; and

sending the calculated differences to the source storage system; and

performing a failback restoration on the source storage system by applying the calculated differences to a registered snapshot that was registered prior to occurrence of the failback event signal.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data mover agent on the source storage system runs in a virtual machine.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the data mover agent on the source storage system runs in an executable container.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the failback event signal is sent by the source storage system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the calculated differences between the updated target disaster recovery data and the snapshot file are calculated using hypervisor-provided conversion services.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising capturing target disaster recovery data that was transmitted from the data mover agent.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the target disaster recovery data corresponds to at least one user virtual machine that operated on the source storage system prior to the failback event signal.

8. A computer readable medium, embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium, the non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when stored in memory and executed by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform a set of acts the acts comprising:

implementing a disaster recovery operation across heterogeneous distributed storage systems by;

identifying a source storage system having a first hypervisor type and a target storage system having a second hypervisor type, wherein at least the first hypervisor type or the second hypervisor type is at least one of VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, RedHat KVM, or Nutanix AHV, wherein the first hypervisor type and the second hypervisor type are different;

installing a data mover agent on the source storage system, the data mover agent to send snapshot data from the source storage system to the target storage system to form a snapshot file comprising target disaster recovery data;

updating by at least one process on the target storage system, the target disaster recovery data to form updated target disaster recovery data;

receiving, by the target storage system, a failback event signal;

calculating, by the target storage system, calculated differences between the updated target disaster recovery data and the snapshot file; and

sending the calculated differences to the source storage system; and

performing a failback restoration on the source storage system by applying the calculated differences to a registered snapshot that was registered prior to occurrence of the failback event signal.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the data mover agent on the source storage system runs in a virtual machine.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the data mover agent on the source storage system runs in an executable container.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the failback event signal is sent by the source storage system.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the calculated differences between the updated target disaster recovery data and the snapshot file are calculated using hypervisor-provided conversion services.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 8, further comprising instructions which, when stored in memory and executed by the one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform acts of capturing target disaster recovery data that was transmitted from the data mover agent.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13, wherein the target disaster recovery data corresponds to at least one user virtual machine that operated on the source storage system prior to the failback event signal.

15. A system comprising:

a storage medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions; and

one or more processors that execute the instructions to cause the one or more processors to perform a set of acts, the acts comprising,

implementing a disaster recovery operation across heterogeneous distributed storage systems by;

identifying a source storage system having a first hypervisor type and a target storage system having a second hypervisor type, wherein at least the first hypervisor type or the second hypervisor type is at least one of VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, RedHat KVM, or Nutanix AHV, wherein the first hypervisor type and the second hypervisor type are different;

installing a data mover agent on the source storage system, the data mover agent to send snapshot data from the source storage system to the target storage system to form a snapshot file comprising target disaster recovery data;

updating by at least one process on the target storage system, the target disaster recovery data to form updated target disaster recovery data;

receiving, by the target storage system, a failback event signal;

calculating, by the target storage system, calculated differences between the updated target disaster recovery data and the snapshot file; and

sending the calculated differences to the source storage system; and

performing a failback restoration on the source storage system by applying the calculated differences to a registered snapshot that was registered prior to occurrence of the failback event signal.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the data mover agent on the source storage system runs in a virtual machine.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the data mover agent on the source storage system runs in an executable container.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the failback event signal is sent by the source storage system.