High Availability and Disaster Recovery Using Virtualization

• US 20100162039A1
• Filed: 12/22/2009
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quorumlabs Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Quorumlabs Incorporated
• Inventors: Stolorz, Paul E., Dean, Christopher T., Chen, Pang-Chieh, Goroff, Marc H.
• Granted Patent: US 8,055,937 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/6
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/202 where processing functionality is redundant redundant communication control functionality G06F11/2005, redundant storage control functionality G06F11/2089

Abstract

There is disclosed apparatus and processes which address problems in the area of providing high availability and disaster recovery for computing systems and the data in them. These apparatus and processes can be used to provide high availability and disaster recovery for a computing system to be protected. The protected computing systems may be virtual computing systems.

Claims

1. A process for creating periodic backups of a protected system P comprising:

a cyclical replication process comprising, in sequence;

creating a consistent point-in-time snapshot of a protected system at a time t,

creating a content manifest of the snapshot M_t(P),

generating a delta manifest D_t<sup>t−

1</sup>(P) comprising a set of information needed to transition between M_t(P) and M<sub>t−

1</sub>(P), wherein the set of information is sufficient to enable deriving M<sub>t−

1</sub>(P) from M_t(P), and

transmitting the delta manifest D_t<sup>t−

1</sup>(P) to a repository.

2. The process of claim 1 further comprising creating backup virtual disks V at a platform remote from the protected system P, the platform comprising the repository:

creating an initial virtual disk V<sub>t−

n</sub> in a repository

periodically receiving the delta manifests D_t<sup>t−

1</sup>(P) and in response creating a new virtual disk V_t by applying the delta manifest D_t<sup>t−

1</sup>(P) to the prior virtual disk V<sub>t−

1</sub>.

3. The process of claim 1 further comprising recreating a desired snapshot Map) created at a time t−

n, the process comprising;

applying multiple delta manifest transformations to the most recent content manifest M_t(P) according to M<sub>t−

n</sub>(p)=D<sub>t−

n</sub><sup>t−

n+1(P) . . . D</sup><sub>t−

2</sub><sup>t−

1</sup>(P)D<sub>t−

1</sub>^t(P)M_t(P).

4. The process of claim 2 further comprising recreating backup virtual disks Vt−

n created at a time t−

n, the process comprising;

applying multiple delta manifest transformations to the most recent virtual disk Vt to create Vt−

n as V<sub>t−

n</sub>(p)=D<sub>t−

n</sub><sup>t−

n+1</sup>(P) . . . D<sub>t−

2</sub><sup>t−

1</sup>(P)D<sub>t−

1</sub>^t(P)V_t(P).

6. The apparatus of claim 4 further comprising a platform remote from the protected system P, the platform for creating backup virtual disks V and comprising

the repository

a processor

a memory

wherein the processor and the memory comprise circuits and software for, in sequence:

creating an initial virtual disk V<sub>t−

n</sub> in the repository

periodically receiving the delta manifests D_t<sup>t−

1</sup>(P) and in response creating a new virtual disk V_t by applying the delta manifest D_t<sup>t−

1</sup>(P) to the prior virtual disk V<sub>t−

1</sub>.

7. The process of claim 1 further comprising recreating a desired snapshot Map) created at a time t−

in, the process comprising;

applying multiple delta manifest transformations to the most recent content manifest M_t(P) according to M<sub>t−

n</sub>(p)=D<sub>t−

n</sub><sup>t−

n+1</sup>(P) . . . D<sub>t−

2</sub><sup>t−

1</sup>(P)D<sub>t−

1</sub>^t(P)M_t(P).

5. Apparatus for creating periodic backups of a protected system P, the apparatus comprising:

a processor

a memory

wherein the processor and the memory comprise circuits and software for performing a cyclical replication process comprising, in sequence;

creating a consistent point-in-time snapshot of a protected system at a time t,

creating a content manifest of the snapshot M_t(P),

generating a delta manifest D_t<sup>t−

1</sup>(P) comprising a set of information needed to transition between M_t(P) and M<sub>t−

1</sub>(P), wherein the set of information is sufficient to enable deriving M<sub>t−

1</sub>(P) from M_t(P), and

transmitting the delta manifest D_t<sup>t−

1</sup>(P) to a repository.