SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CREATING COPIES OF DATA, SUCH AS ARCHIVE COPIES

• US 20080229037A1
• Filed: 12/04/2007
• Published: 09/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Brockway, Brian, Prahlad, Anand, Bunte, Alan
• Granted Patent: US 8,140,786 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/162
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/113 Details of archiving lifecycle management in storage systems G06F3/0649; backup systems G06F11/1446
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/325 Hash tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database

Abstract

A system and method of creating archive copies of data sets is described. In some examples, the system creates an archive copy from an original data set. In some examples, the system creates an archive copy when creating a recovery copy for a data set. In some examples, the system creates a copy without redundant data, and then encrypts the data set.

Claims

1. A data storage system that creates and stores an archive copy of data originating from a file system, comprising:

a hierarchical storage system having a storage manager server computer, at lest one data store subsystem, and one or more client computers coupled among the storage manager and the data store subsystem,

wherein the storage manager includes at least one storage policy for directing storage operations,

wherein each client computer includes a data agent that copies data originating from the file system,

wherein the one or more client computers communicate the copied data to be included in storage operations performed by the at least one data store subsystem based on the storage policy, and

wherein the hierarchical storage system comprises;

a copy creation subsystem, wherein the copy creation subsystem, based on the storage policy of the storage manager, creates a copy of at least a subset of data from the file system, the copy creation subsystem including;

a data selection component, wherein the data selection component selects the subset of data to be copied;

an indexing component, wherein the indexing component indexes content from the subset of data; and

a data redundancy component, communicatively coupled to the data selection component, wherein the data redundancy component identifies at least some redundancies within the subset of data and creates a copy of the subset of data without the identified redundancies; and

wherein the data store subsystem is communicatively coupled to the copy creation subsystem, and wherein the data store subsystem writes the created copy of the subset of data to data storage media.

2. The data storage system of claim 1, wherein the selected data is a subset of a primary copy of the original data.

3. The data storage system of claim 1, wherein the selected subset of data is a subset of a secondary copy of the original data.

4. The data storage system of claim 1, wherein the data selection component includes a user interface component capable of receiving a request from a user of the data storage system that identifies the subset of data to be selected.

5. The data storage system of claim 1, wherein the copy creating subsystem further comprises:

an encryption component, wherein the encryption component encrypts the created copy of the subset of data.

6. A method of archiving an original set of data created by a file system, the method comprising:

at a first time, identifying one or more redundant data objects within the original set of data and creating a copy of the original set of data that does not include the identified one or more redundant data objects, wherein the original set of data is a production copy of the set of data that is for primary use by users of the set of data; and

at a second time after the first time, encrypting the created copy of the original set of data; and

at a third time after the first time and the second time, storing the encrypted copy of the original set of data as an archive copy,

wherein the archive copy is stored in a data storage medium separate from the file system, and

wherein the archive copy is in a format that differs from a format of the production copy of the set of data, and wherein data within the archive copy can not be used by applications that created the set of data without first converting the data within the archive copy into another format that is different than the format of the archive copy.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein identifying one or more redundant data objects includes:

computing a hash value for each data object to be archived; and

comparing each of the hash values of the data objects.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

at the first time, computing a hash value for each data object to be archived and storing the computed hash values in a table.

9. A system for creating an archive copy of a data set created by a file system, comprising:

a signature component, wherein the signature component generates a alphanumeric identification signature for all data objects within the data set and stores the alphanumeric identification signatures in a signature database, wherein the alphanumeric identification signature is at least partially based on a first characteristic of the data object;

an encryption component, wherein the encryption component encrypts the data objects of the data set; and

a copy component, wherein the copy component;

creates an archive copy of the encrypted data objects, wherein the archive copy represents a logical view of storage of the data objects; and

stores the archive copy via data chunks to a physical storage component; and

stores information related to locations of the encrypted data objects on the physical storage component in a location database separate from the signature database.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the signature component uses a SHA-512 function to generate the alphanumeric identification signatures.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the signature component scrambles the signature database.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the copy component populates the location database when the encrypted data objects are stored to the locations on the physical storage component.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the copy component indexes contents of the data objects.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the encryption component encrypts a data object after the signature component generates the alphanumeric identification signature for the data object.

15. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a data storage system to perform a method of building an archive of data objects within a set of data created by a file system, wherein at least some of the data objects of the set of data are stored within a primary copy of the set of data and wherein at least some of the data objects of the set of data are stored as copies within one or more secondary copies of the set of data, the method comprising:

identifying a data object to be stored in an archive of data objects;

creating an identifier for the data object, wherein creating the identifier includes calculating an alphanumeric representation for the data object;

comparing the identifier with other identifiers for data objects already stored in the archive of data objects;

when the comparison determines that the identifier for the data object is different than the other identifiers, encrypting a copy of the data object and transferring the encrypted copy of the data object to the archive of data objects;

or

when the comparison determines that the identifier for the data object is similar to one or more of the other identifiers, transferring information that represents the data object to the archive of data objects; and

storing the transferred data object, or the information that represents the data object, to storage media that do not contain the primary copy of the set of data or the secondary copies of the set of the data.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein storing the transferred data object includes encapsulating the data object with information related to the identifier and storing the encapsulated data object in a location on the storage media that only contains encapsulated data objects and wherein storing the information that represents the data object includes storing the information in a location on the storage media that only contains information that represents data objects.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein storing the transferred data object includes encapsulating the data object with information related to the identifier and storing the encapsulated data object in a location on the storage media that only contains encapsulated data objects.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein comparing the identifier with other identifiers for data objects includes comparing the identifier with other identifiers for data objects stored within the one or more secondary copies.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the data object is identified from the primary copy of the set of data.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the data object is identified from one or more of the secondary copies of a subset of the set of data.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the data object is identified when the data storage system receives a request from a user to store a copy of the data object in the archive of data objects.

22. A method for creating a copy of a production volume of data used for archiving of the production volume, the method comprising:

creating two or more secondary copies of the production volume of the data, wherein the two or more secondary copies include multiple instances of one or more data objects within the volume of data;

removing at least some of the multiple instances of the one or more data objects;

storing the data from the two or more secondary copies into a tertiary copy, wherein the stored data includes only one instance for at least one data objects having multiple instances; and

encrypting the data stored within the tertiary copy.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein storing the data from the two or more secondary copies into a tertiary copy includes storing the one instance of the at least one data object in a first location within the tertiary copy and storing information related to other instances of the at least one data object in a second location within the tertiary copy.

24. A method for building an index associated with a secondary copy of a data set, wherein the index relates to single instancing the data set, comprising:

receiving an indication that a previous index related to the single instanced data set is unrecoverable;

identifying one or more data files stored within a secondary copy of a data set created by a file system that were associated with the previous index;

extracting information related to the data file within a header of the data file, wherein the extracted information includes information that identifies the data file with respect to other data files stored within the secondary copy of the data set;

adding the extracted information to the index associated with the secondary copy.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the extracted information includes an alphanumeric representation of the data file.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the secondary copy is an archive copy that includes a location within the archive copy that exclusively contains data files that the information within headers of the data files.

27. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

decrypting the identified one or more data files to gain access to the information within the header of the data file; and

re-encrypting the decrypted data files.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

receiving a request to restore a data object; and

using the built index to locate the data object within the secondary copy of the data set.