System and method for perennial distributed back up

• US 20080005334A1
• Filed: 05/22/2007
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ugloo, Co.
• Original Assignee: University of Picardie Jules Verne
• Inventors: Randriamaro, Cyril, Utard, Gil
• Granted Patent: US 7,779,128 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1076 Parity data used in redundant arrays of independent storages, e.g. in RAID systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1834 implemented based on peer-to-peer networks, e.g. gnutella p2p communication protocols H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2211/1028 Distributed, i.e. distributed RAID systems with parity

Abstract

The invention relates to computer networks and to a digital data protection thereon, in particular to a method for the distributed backup of a digital data block (B) in an computer network comprising a DHT distributed hash table and at least one node NO, wherein said NO nodes are connected to said network. The inventive method consists in dividing said block B into digital data r fragments F, in storing the fragment F in the NO_F resource memories, in recording couples (block B, node NO_F) and (node NO_F, fragment F) in the DHT parts contained in at least two nodes and in a centralised server when no operation on the DHT or storage operation is carried out during said process.

Claims

1. A method for the distributed backup of a block B of digital data in a computer network including a distributed hash table DHT and at least three nodes NO, the nodes NO being connected to said network, said method comprising a subdivision step for subdividing said block B into r fragments F of digital data, said method further comprising:

a storage step storing a fragment F in the storage resources of a node NO_F; and

a recording step recording the pairs (block B, node NO_F) and (node NO_F, fragment F) in the portions of the DHT that are contained in at least two nodes;

wherein no operation on the DHT or any storage operation is implemented on a centralized server.

2. The method for distributed backup according to claim 1, further comprising after the subdivision step, computing s redundancy fragments computed on the basis of said r fragments F.

3. The method for distributed backup according to claim 2, further comprising storing said fragments, during the storage step, in nodes that are all different.

4. The method for distributed backup according to claim 1, wherein the DHT contains check data only, and no fragment of data.

5. The method for distributed backup according to claim 1, further comprising a periodic sending step where each of said nodes periodically sends activity information to a set of nodes selected by the DHT.

6. The method for distributed backup according to claim 1, wherein the DHT contains a “

life cycle”

field, the method further comprising sending activity information updates the “

life cycle”

field of said node, said field being present in every one of the nodes selected by the DHT.

7. The method for distributed backup according to claim 1, further comprising a detection step detecting a “

life cycle”

field that is not updated by a node C_failed.

8. The method for distributed backup according to claim 1, further comprising a reconstruction step reconstructing the data stored in said failed node C_failed and for updating, in the DHT, the list of the nodes storing at least one fragment of said block B.

9. The method for distributed backup according to claim 1, wherein each of the fragments reconstructed during said reconstruction step is stored in at least one other healthy node.

10. The method for distributed backup according to claim 1, further comprising a recovery step recovering said block B.

11. The method for distributed backup according to claim 10, wherein said recovery step comprises a first step of sending a request from the requesting node to the DHT, a second step in which the DHT sends back to it the nodes that are storing the fragments of the block, a step of sending a request for recovering fragments to said nodes, and a step of reconstructing the block B as of reception of F different fragments.

12. A distributed data backup device comprising a processor, a storage memory, connection means for connecting to the network, and means for controlling the distributed data, of a distributed hash table DHT type.

13. The distributed backup device according to claim 12, wherein the device is in the form of an external box that is added to an existing computer workstation.

14. The distributed backup device according to claim 12, further comprising at least two of the devices connected together via a computer network.

15. The distributed backup device according to claim 12, further comprising a plurality of the devices connected to a plurality of interconnected networks.