SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR RETRIEVING DATA IN A COMPUTER NETWORK

• US 20090055407A1
• Filed: 10/30/2008
• Published: 02/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Ignatius, Paul, Oshinsky, David Alan, May, Andreas, Prahlad, Anand
• Granted Patent: US 8,103,670 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1415 at system level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/148 File search processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/80 Database-specific techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99955 Archiving or backup

Abstract

A data retrieval system comprising a first computing device communicatively coupled to a second computing device; the first computing device having a processor that supports operation of at least one software application that is used for retrieving data; the second computing device communicatively coupled to one or more storage media; the software application having a retrieval module for retrieving data from the one or more storage media; a storage and backup map that maps to the second computing device; and a data index stored on the second computing device that indicates to the retrieval module a particular location of the data that is to be retrieved by the retrieval module.

Claims

1. A data retrieval system comprising:

a first computing device having a processor that supports operation of a software application and an interface module for retrieving data for the software application;

a second computing device communicatively coupled to the first computing device and to one or more storage media for storing the data;

a third computing device communicatively coupled to the interface module of the first computing device and to the second computing device, the third computing device storing a storage and backup map that maps the data to the second computing device; and

a data index stored on the second computing device that indicates a particular location of the data on the one or more storage media that is to be retrieved by the interface module of the first computing device, the data index comprising different information than the storage and backup map.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the software application interoperates with a backup retrieval module.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the software application interoperates with a file system program.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the first computing device further comprises a file browser that is dynamic and changes to reflect information regarding the data to be retrieved.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the first computing device further comprises a file browser that may be modified to display information regarding the data to be retrieved specified by a user.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein a user may interact with the file browser to define a temporal range that specifies certain data to be retrieved.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the first computing device is capable of retrieving the data without knowing the location of the data when the data is requested by the software application.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the first, second and third computing devices are located remotely to each other and are communicatively coupled through a network.

9. A data retrieval system comprising:

a plurality of storage media;

a plurality of computing devices communicatively coupled to the plurality of storage media;

a processor coupled to the plurality of computing devices and configured to request data stored on the plurality of storage media;

a retrieval module for retrieving the requested data from the plurality of storage media, the retrieval module comprising a storage and backup map that maps the requested data to at least one of the plurality of computing devices; and

a data index stored on the at least one of the plurality of computing devices that indicates to the retrieval module a particular location of the requested data on the plurality of storage media, the data index comprising different information than the storage and backup map.

10. The data retrieval system of claim 9, wherein the processor is programmed to support operation of a software application that requests the data, the software application being programmed to display a toolbar allowing access to particular characteristics of a file of the requested data.

11. The data retrieval system of claim 9, wherein the processor is associated with a first computing device and the retrieval module is associated with a second computing device, the first and second computing devices each being remote to the plurality of computing devices.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the first computing device is capable of retrieving the requested data without knowing the location of the requested data prior to accessing the storage and backup map.

13. A method for retrieving data in a computer system, the method comprising:

activating a retrieval module of a first computing device to find a particular location of data requested by a second computing device;

selecting with the retrieval module one of a plurality of third computing devices associated with at least one storage media storing the requested data, said selecting with the retrieval module being based at least in part upon instructions contained in a storage map;

determining according to a data index stored on the selected third computing device the particular location of the requested data on the at least one storage media coupled to the selected third computing device, the data index comprising different information than the storage map; and

retrieving an indication of the requested data from the particular location on the at least one storage media.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said retrieving further comprises displaying a backup history of at least a portion of the requested data.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the storage map is stored on the first computing device.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising updating the data index when the requested data is moved within the at least one storage media.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising updating the storage map when the requested data is moved from the at least one storage media to a second storage media coupled to another of the plurality of third computing devices.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the data requested by the second computing device comprises a previous version of the data as the data existed on a specified date.

19. A data retrieval system comprising:

means for receiving from a first computing device a request for data retrieval, said receiving means operating on a second computing device in network communication with the first computing device;

means for selecting one of a plurality of third computing devices associated with at least one storage media storing the requested data, said selecting being based at least in part upon instructions contained in a storage map;

means for determining the particular location of the requested data on the at least one storage media coupled to the selected third computing device, said determining means comprising different information than the storage map; and

means for retrieving an indication of the requested data from the particular location on the at least one storage media.

20. The data retrieval system of claim 19, wherein the storage map is stored on the second computing device.