SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INDEXING USER DATA ON STORAGE SYSTEMS

• US 20080201384A1
• Filed: 08/30/2007
• Published: 08/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Batterywala, Yusuf
• Granted Patent: US 8,868,495 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/200
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/14 Details of searching files based on file metadata

Abstract

A system and method for indexing user data on storage systems is provided. A client of the storage system executes a novel client side agent that is configured to detect changes to data stored by the client on the storage system. In response to detecting that data has been modified, the agent examines modified data containers and parses the modified data to identify new and/or modified index terms or the creation/deletion of data containers. Once the data has been parsed by the agent to identify new/modified index terms, the parsed data is transmitted from the agent to a management module executing on a management server. The management module receives the parsed data and updates a search database using the received parsed data.

Claims

1. A method for indexing data stored on a storage system by a client, the method comprising the steps of:

determining, by an agent executing on the client, that data has been modified by the client;

parsing, by the agent, the modified data;

transmitting, to a data management module, the parsed data; and

updating a search database utilizing the parsed data, whereby data stored on the storage system is indexed.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of parsing the modified data further comprises the step of identifying new index terms within the modified data.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of parsing the modified data further comprises the step of identifying modified index terms within the modified data.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of parsing the modified data further comprises the step of identifying one or more new data containers.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the new data container comprises a file.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of parsing the modified data further comprises the step of identifying deleted data containers.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of parsing, the modified data further comprises the step of reading the modified data by the agent using a file system executing on the client.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of parsing, the modified data further comprises the step of reading the modified data by the agent using an application program executing on the client.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the application program comprises a volume manager.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the application program comprises a database program.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the data management module executes on a management server operatively interconnected with the client.

18. The system of claim 11 wherein the search database comprises a word table, a file table and a content table.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the content table associates a search term with a data container containing the search term.

12. A system for indexing data, the system comprising:

a storage system exporting storage space for use by a client; and

an agent executing on the client, the agent configured to (i) identify modified data, (ii) parse the modified data, and (iii) forward the parsed modified data to a data management module, the data management module configured to update a search database using the parsed data.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the client overlays a file system onto the exported storage space.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the client utilizes the exported storage space to store structured data from an application.

15. The system of claim 12 wherein the agent parses the modified data using a file system executing on the client.

16. The system of claim 12 wherein the agent parses the modified data using an application executing on the client.

17. The system of claim 12 wherein the data management module executes on a management server operatively interconnected with the client.

20. The system of claim 12 wherein the management module is further configured to, in response to a user request, perform a query of the search database and display results of the query.

21. A computer readable medium for indexing data stored on a storage system by a client, the computer readable medium including program instructions for performing the steps of:

determining, by an agent executing on the client, that data has been modified by the client;

parsing, by the agent, the modified data;

transmitting, to a data management module, the parsed data; and

updating a search database utilizing the parsed data.