Sharing of secondary storage data

• US 10,599,525 B2
• Filed: 08/17/2017
• Issued: 03/24/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Varadharajan, Prakash, Vibhor, Anand, Karandikar, Amey Vijaykumar, Vijayan, Manoj Kumar, Attarde, Deepak Raghunath
• Primary Examiner(s): Reyes, Mariela
• Assistant Examiner(s): Harmon, Courtney
• Application Number:
  US15/680,035
• Publication Number:
  US 20180032406A1
• Time in Patent Office: 950 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data

Abstract

An information management system according to certain aspects allows users to share a portion of a file (e.g., a document) stored in secondary storage. The user may specify a portion of a secondary storage file to share and send a link to the portion to another user. The other user can access the shared portion from the link, and just the shared portion may be restored from secondary storage. The system according to certain aspects provides a native view of secondary storage data on a client computing device. The index data and/or metadata relating to secondary storage data may be stored in native application format for access via the native source application.

Claims

1. A method of accessing a portion of a file in secondary storage, the method comprising:

using one or more computing devices comprising computer hardware;

receiving a request to access a portion of a file in a secondary storage subsystem from a client computing device of a primary storage subsystem, the request including an application offset corresponding to the portion of the file and associated with indexing of the file by a software application that is used to access the portion of the file for presentation to a user at the primary storage subsystem;

identifying using a media agent index and based at least in part on the application offset, a logical data chunk of a plurality of logical data chunks stored on a first storage device of the secondary storage subsystem, wherein the logical data chunk;

(i) includes secondary copies of at least a portion of one or more files stored in the secondary storage subsystem including the portion of the file and (ii) has an in-chunk index stored with the logical data chunk on the first storage device, the in-chunk index providing a mapping between one or more application offsets and one or more corresponding secondary storage offsets indicating locations of the secondary copies of the at least the portion of the one or more files in the logical data chunk; and

causing a restore of the portion of the file from the first storage device for presentation by the software application to the user, without restoring the entire file from the first storage device, wherein the restore comprises restoring the portion of the file beginning from a point referenced by the start secondary storage offset to access the portion of the file from the first storage device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a start secondary storage offset from the in-chunk index of the logical data chunk based on the application offset corresponding to the portion of the file; and

generating a link to the portion of the file, the link including a reference to the start secondary storage offset, wherein the causing the restore of the portion of the file occurs when receiving an indication of a user selection of the link.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the link further includes an end secondary storage offset corresponding to an end of the portion of the file at the logical data chunk.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein, prior to causing the restore, the method further comprises determining whether the user is authorized to access the portion of the file corresponding to the link.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the link is usable to view a preview of the portion of the file.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the user selection of the link is by a user of a second client computing device, the method further comprising restoring the portion of the file from the first storage device to a second storage device residing in the primary storage subsystem and associated with the second client computing device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the application offset comprises a start application offset indicating a beginning of the portion of the file, and wherein identifying the start secondary offset comprises using the start application offset to identify the start secondary offset.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving user-entered search criteria from the client computing device;

determining that the file satisfies the search criteria; and

providing search results for display to a user enabling the user to interact with the search results to request access to the portion of the file.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein determining that the file satisfies the search criteria comprises performing a search based on the search criteria using content index data associated with a plurality of files in the secondary storage subsystem that includes the file.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the start secondary storage offset comprises identifying the start secondary storage offset from a plurality of start secondary storage offsets, and wherein the start secondary storage offset corresponds to a first location in the file that is closest to a second location in the file corresponding to the application offset from among the plurality of start secondary storage offsets.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the media agent index specifies, for each logical data chunk of the plurality of logical data chunks, portions of one or more files stored within the logical data chunk.

12. A data storage system configured to provide access to a portion of a file in secondary storage, the system comprising:

a first storage device residing in a secondary storage subsystem and storing a plurality of files; and

computer hardware configured to execute instructions that cause the computer hardware to;

receive a request to access a portion of a file from the plurality of files in the secondary storage subsystem from a client computing device of a primary storage subsystem, the request including an application offset corresponding to the portion of the file and associated with indexing of the file by a software application that is used to access the portion of the file for presentation to a user at the primary storage subsystem;

identify using a media agent index and based at least in part on the application offset, a logical data chunk of a plurality of logical data chunks stored on a first storage device of the secondary storage subsystem, wherein the logical data chunk;

(i) includes secondary copies of at least a portion of one or more files stored in the secondary storage subsystem including the portion of the file and (ii) has an in-chunk index stored with the logical data chunk on the first storage device, the in-chunk index providing a mapping between one or more application offsets and one or more corresponding secondary storage offsets indicating locations of the secondary copies of the at least the portion of the one or more files in the logical data chunk; and

when receiving an indication of a user selection of the link, cause a restore of the portion of the file from the first storage device for presentation by the software application to the user, without restoring the entire file from the first storage device, wherein the restore comprises restoring the portion of the file beginning from a point referenced by the start secondary storage offset to access the portion of the file from the first storage device.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the computer hardware is further configured to:

identify a start secondary storage offset from the in-chunk index of the logical data chunk based on the application offset corresponding to the portion of the file;

generate a link to the portion of the file, the link including a reference to the start secondary storage offset, wherein the causing the restore of the portion of the file occurs when receiving an indication of a user selection of the link.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the link further includes an end secondary storage offset corresponding to an end of the portion of the file at the logical data chunk.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein, prior to causing the restore, the computer hardware is further configured to determine whether the user is authorized to access the portion of the file corresponding to the link.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the link is usable to view a preview of the portion of the file.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the user selection of the link is by a user of a second client computing device, the method further comprising restoring the portion of the file from the first storage device to a second storage device residing in the primary storage subsystem and associated with the second client computing device.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein identifying the start secondary storage offset comprises identifying the start secondary storage offset from a plurality of start secondary storage offsets, and wherein the start secondary storage offset corresponds to a first location in the file that is closest to a second location in the file corresponding to the application offset from among the plurality of start secondary storage offsets.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein the media agent index specifies, for each logical data chunk of the plurality of logical data chunks, portions of one or more files stored within the logical data chunk.

20. The system of claim 12, wherein the application offset comprises a start application offset indicating a beginning of the portion of the file, and wherein identifying the start secondary offset comprises using the start application offset to identify the start secondary offset.

21. The system of claim 12, wherein the computer hardware is further configured to:

receive user-entered search criteria from the client computing device;

determine that the file satisfies the search criteria; and

provide search results for display to a user enabling the user to interact with the search results to request access to the portion of the file.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein determining that the file satisfies the search criteria comprises performing a search based on the search criteria using content index data associated with a plurality of files in the secondary storage subsystem that includes the file.