SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR USING REVERSED BACKUP OPERATION FOR MINIMIZING THE DISK SPINNING TIME AND THE NUMBER OF SPIN-UP OPERATIONS

• US 20090113123A1
• Filed: 10/24/2007
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Snap, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Joukov, Nikolai
• Granted Patent: US 8,037,240 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/112
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3221 of disk drive devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3268 Power saving in hard disk drive
• 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 11/2082 Data synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A system and method for providing reversed backup operation for keeping local hard drives in a stand-by (non-spinning) mode thereby extending the life of local hard drives and reducing power consumption, heat and noise produced by the local drives. The present invention uses remote storage systems as primary storage systems when the network connectivity and its bandwidth are sufficient so that the local hard disk can stay in the stand-by mode. If the network connectivity is unavailable or insufficient to handle the data flow, the local hard disk is spun up and temporarily used as the primary storage for reads and writes. When necessary and possible, the data on both storage locations is synchronized.

Claims

1. A method of reversed data backup for keeping local hard drives in a stand-by (non-spinning) mode and minimizing the number of disk spin-up operations thereby extending the life of local hard drives and reducing power consumption, heat and noise produced by the local hard drives in a system having a remote server for storing data from a client, the client for writing client data to and for reading client data from the remote server over a network, the client having at least one local hard drive for providing a back up of the client data stored on the remote server, the method comprising the steps of:

a. determining if one or more conditions exist to synchronize the client data stored on the remote server with the local hard drive; and

b. if at least one of the one or more conditions exist, synchronizing the client data between the remote server and the local hard drive.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the one or more conditions is that the storage system is being mounted.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the one or more conditions is that the storage system being unmounted.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the one or more conditions is that the bandwidth or latency between the client and the remote storage system is causing noticeable inconvenience for one or more users of the system.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the one or more conditions is that a prespecified amount of time since the last synchronization has passed, another of the one or more conditions is that a prespecified frequency rate of synchronizations has been reached and another of the one or more conditions is that a prespecified amount of activity of client data writes to and reads from the remote server has been exceeded.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the one or more conditions is that the client has run out of memory.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprises the steps of:

determining whether the client is configured to commit the data to the local hard drive;

if not, dropping the pages; and

if so, spinning up the local hard disk and committing the data to the local hard drive.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising the step of determining whether any of the other conditions exist and, if so, synchronizing the data between the remote server and the local hard drive.

9. The method of claim 1, if none of the conditions exists, further comprising the step of not synchronizing the client data between the remote server and the local hard drive.

10. A method, in a system having local data storage in a client and remote data storage, the client and the remote data storage being connected via a network, for determining which data storage the client to access, the method comprising the steps of:

determining whether the network is operational;

if not, the client accessing the local data storage;

if so, determining whether the remote data storage is operational;

if not, the client accessing the local data storage;

if so, determining whether the bandwidth or latency to the remote storage system is causing noticeable inconvenience for the users;

if so, the client accessing the local data storage; and

if not, the client accessing the remote data storage.

11. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for operating in a system comprising a network I/O, a CPU, and one or more databases, for implementing a method for reversed backup operation for keeping local hard drives in a stand-by (non-spinning) mode and minimizing the number of disk spin-up operations thereby extending the life of local hard drives and reducing power consumption, heat and noise produced by the local drives in the system, the system further comprising a remote server for storing data from a client and having client data stored thereon, the client for reading client data from and writing data to the client remote server over a network, the client having at least one local hard drive for providing a back up of the client data stored on the remote server, the method comprising the steps of:

a. determining if one or more conditions exist to synchronize the client data stored on the remote server with the local hard drive; and

b. if at least one of the one or more conditions exists, synchronizing the client data between the remote server and the local hard drive.

12. The computer program product of claim 11 wherein one of the one or more conditions is that the storage is being mounted.

13. The computer program product of claim 11 wherein one of the one or more conditions is that the storage system being unmounted.

14. The computer program product of claim 11 wherein one of one or more conditions is that the bandwidth or latency between the client and the remote storage system is causing noticeable inconvenience for one or more users of the system.

15. The computer program product of claim 11 wherein one of one or more conditions is that a prespecified amount of time since the last synchronization has passed, another of the one or more conditions is that a prespecified frequency rate of synchronizations has been reached and another of the one or more conditions is that a prespecified amount of activity of client data writes to and reads from the remote server has been exceeded.

16. The computer program product of claim 12 wherein one of the conditions is that the client has run out of memory.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 further comprising the steps of:

determining whether the client is configured to commit the data to the local hard drive;

if not, dropping the pages; and

if so, spinning up the local hard disk and committing the data to the local hard drive.

18. The computer program product of claim 17 further comprising the step of, if not, determining whether any of the other conditions exist and, if so, synchronizing the data between the remote server and the local hard drive.

19. The computer program product of claim 11 wherein, if none of the conditions exists, the method further comprising the step of not synchronizing the client data between the remote server and the local hard drive.

20. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for operating in a system comprising a network I/O, a CPU, and one or more databases, for implementing a method for reversed backup operation for keeping local hard drives in a stand-by (non-spinning) mode and minimizing the number of disk spin-up operations thereby extending the life of local hard drives and reducing power consumption, heat and noise produced by the local drives in the system, the system further comprising a remote server for storing data from a client and having client data stored thereon, the client for accessing data to and from the remote server over a network, the client having at least one local hard drive for providing a back up of the data stored on the remote server, the method comprising the steps of:

determining whether the network is operational;

if not, the client accessing the local data storage;

if so, determining whether the remote data storage is operational;

if not, the client accessing the local data storage;

if so, determining whether the bandwidth or latency to the remote storage system is causing noticeable inconvenience for the users;

if so, the client accessing the local data storage; and

if not, the client accessing the remote data storage.

21. A system for reversed backup operation for keeping local hard drives in a stand-by (non-spinning) mode and minimizing the number of disk spin-up operations thereby extending the life of local hard drives and reducing power consumption, heat and noise produced by the local drives, the system comprising:

a remote server for storing client data from a client;

a client connected to the remote server over a network for reading client data from and writing client data to the remote server over the network, the client having at least one local hard drive for providing a back up of the client data stored on the remote server; and

c. a processing unit for determining if one or more conditions exist to back up the client data stored on the remote server to the local hard drive so that a back up of the client data is stored on the local hard drive and for backing up the client data from the remote server to the local hard drive and, if all of the one or more conditions exist, backing up the client data from the remote server to the local hard drive.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein one of the one or more conditions is that a prespecified amount of time since the last synchronization has passed, another of the one or more conditions is that a prespecified frequency rate of synchronizations has been reached and another of the one or more conditions is that a prespecified amount of activity of client data writes to and reads from the remote server has been exceeded.