Methods and systems for validating accessibility and currency of replicated data

• US 20070088763A1
• Filed: 09/27/2006
• Published: 04/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Yahalom, Raphael, Levy, Assaf, Alon, Roee, Kessel, Omri
• Granted Patent: US 7,702,667 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2058 using more than 2 mirrored copies
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2071 using a plurality of controllers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2308 Concurrency control transaction processing G06F9/466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/273 Asynchronous replication or reconciliation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

Systems and processes for determining and validating accessibility and currency, i.e., the actual status, of data replicated in a networked environment are disclosed. According to the disclosed process, a replicated-data policy for replicating data is defined, and access paths between network devices or between applications running on the network devices are monitored, for example, by a replicated-data monitor. Also monitored are the data replication activities in the network. The currency, i.e., timeliness, and accessibility of a replica by a network device is then compared with the requirements in the replicated-data policy and discrepancies with the replicated-data policy are identified, optionally accompanied by a notification.

Claims

1. A process for validating replicated data residing on network devices in a network, comprising:

defining a replicated-data policy for replicating data in the network;

monitoring access paths between network devices or between applications running on the network devices;

monitoring data replication activities in the network, and

comparing currency and accessibility of a replica with the requirements in the replicated-data policy to identify discrepancies with the replicated-data policy.

2. The process of claim 1, further providing a violation notification if a discrepancy is identified.

3. The process of claim 1, wherein the replicated-data policy specifies an access path between a host or application and a replica, a number of replicas in a network, locations of the replicas, one or more access paths between the replicas, a maximum age of a corresponding replica at each location, or a combination thereof.

4. The process of claim 1, wherein monitoring the data replication activities includes monitoring at least one of synch, split, copy start, copy complete, source data volume, target data volume, and a time of the replication.

5. The process of claim 1, wherein the currency of each replica includes a copy status selected from the group consisting of in-synch, snapshot time, and inconsistent.

6. The process of claim 5, wherein the each replica is associated with a tag which includes at least one of a source data set name, the copy status, and a time stamp.

7. The process of claim 6, wherein the tag of a replica is updated in response to a copier event.

8. The process of claim 1, wherein comparing accessibility of a replica includes identifying at least one of access path to a local host, access path to a remote host, a disaster recovery access path, and an access path to a data copier, said access path conforming to access path attributes defined in an access path policy.

9. The process of claim 8, wherein the access path attributes include at least one of redundancy, number of intermediate components, performance, security, interoperability, sharability, and capacity.

10. The process of claim 1, wherein identifying discrepancies includes identifying at least one of currency violation, missing access path, unauthorized access path, and path attribute violation.

11. The process of claim 2, wherein the violation notification includes at least one of e-mail, SNMP, violation type, affected hosts, time of copy start, and root cause event.

12. The process of claim 1, further including comparing currency and accessibility of replicas of different data volumes and identifying cross-consistency violations.

13. The process of claim 1, further including simulating an effect of future network events and actions on the currency and accessibility of replica.

14. The process of claim 1, further including generating replication reports which include at least one of applications, replicas and replication properties;

events and impact on replication properties;

replication violations and time to correct them; and

replication resource utilization over time.

15. A replication validation manager, comprising:

a policy engine that stores replicated-data policy for replicating data in the network;

a validation engine that monitors access paths between network devices or between applications running on the network devices, the validation engine further monitoring data replication activities in the network and comparing currency and accessibility of a replica with the requirements in the replicated-data policy to identify discrepancies with the replicated-data policy; and

a notification engine that provides a violation notification if a discrepancy is identified.