TIME ORDERED VIEW OF BACKUP DATA ON BEHALF OF A HOST

• US 20100169591A1
• Filed: 12/26/2008
• Published: 07/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: InMage Systems, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Tirumala, Anup S., Atluri, Rajeev
• Granted Patent: US 8,601,225 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/162
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1461 Backup scheduling policy
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data

Abstract

A method and systems of a time ordered view of backup data on behalf of a host are disclosed. In an embodiment, a method to provide a time-ordered snapshot view on behalf of a host of a specified portion of a backup of a first storage system data container stored at a second storage system includes initiating an order at the host to obtain a view of a data container. The order specifies a date and time of the ordered view. The method further includes receiving the order at a server adapted to assemble and enable access to the ordered view, and at the server, accessing the second storage system according to the date and time of the ordered view and accessing an applicable data write representing a data change to the data container.

Claims

1. A method to provide a time-ordered snapshot view on behalf of a host of a specified portion of a backup of a first storage system data container stored at a second storage system, comprising:

(a) initiating an order at the host to obtain a view of a data container, wherein the order specifies a date and time of the ordered view;

(b) receiving the order at a server adapted to assemble and enable access to the ordered view;

(c) at the server, accessing the second storage system according to the date and time of the ordered view and accessing an applicable data write representing a data change to the data container;

(d) accessing the data container of the time specific to the view ordered by the host including and associating the data change thereto replacing the writes affected by the data change to assemble a snapshot appropriate to the date and time specified in the order; and

(e) enabling access to the view from the host.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (a) the host is at least one of a plurality of hosts that are LAN-connected and the first storage system is a SAN-based storage system.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein in step (a) more than one host orders a snapshot view during a same time period of at least one of a shared data container and a plurality of data containers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the view is generated based on the primary storage data and at least one of a transactional log, an SLUN, and a T-LUN.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein a host orders a view that corresponds to at least one of an event and an application consistent state.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (b) the order is received over a TCP/IP enabled network connection and the server is the same server that backed up the data to the second storage system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (d) the change data is stored separately from the volume data and the volume data is rolled forward or backward according to existing time references adopting the change data stored with respect to those time references to complete the snapshot view.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein in step (d) a complete volume of the container is rolled forward or backward to complete a full volume view.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein in step (d) a portion of the container data representing application data or specific files is rolled forward or backward to complete an application level or file specific view.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (e) access is enabled by serving the view, and access includes mounting the container to perform data recovery.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (e) the view is made compatible with the current logical view of the first storage system at the host using at least one of a file system, an application system, and a platform.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein in step (d), the snapshot is generated by logically rolling up a selected baseline data container to at least one of a prior and a subsequent version using data changes.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the selected baseline data container is rolled up using a data change when the selected baseline data container is overlaid by at least one of a stored data structure and an algorithm.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the data container is comprised of a snapshot acquired when at least one of a regular time interval has occurred, a predefined event has occurred, and a data write size accumulation threshold has been reached.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the snapshot is comprised of at least one of a block, a file, a data set, and a volume.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising performing a write validation by comparing two snapshots of the data container, wherein the snapshots are compared using at least one of compression change, length, and checksum value.

17. The method of claim 1 further comprising sampling data of the view using a host to determine whether to retrieve a specific data container.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein a virtual machine is provided to the host in response to a read request to process and present the requested view in accordance with at least one of an application version and a operating system of the view.

19. A system to provide a time-ordered snapshot view on behalf of a host of a specified portion of a backup of a first storage system data container stored at a second storage system, comprising:

(a) a host to initiate an order to obtain a view of a data container, wherein the order specifies a date and time of the ordered view;

(b) a server to receive the order, wherein the server is adapted to assemble and enable access to the ordered view;

(c) a second storage system, wherein the server accesses the second storage system according to the date and time of the ordered view and the server accesses an applicable data write representing a data change to the data container; and

(d) the data container, wherein the data container is accessed by the server to obtain the view ordered by the host including and associating the data change thereto replacing the writes affected by the data change to assemble a snapshot appropriate to the date and time specified in the order.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the host is at least one of a plurality of hosts that are LAN-connected and the first storage system is a SAN-based storage system.

21. A software suite to provide a time-ordered snapshot view on behalf of a host of a specified portion of a backup of a first storage system data container stored at a second storage system, comprising:

(a) a portion to initiate an order at the host to obtain a view of a data container, wherein the order specifies a date and time of the ordered view;

(b) a portion to receive the order at a server adapted to assemble and enable access to the ordered view;

(c) a portion at the server to access the second storage system according to the date and time of the ordered view and to access an applicable data write representing a data change to the data container;

(d) a portion to access the data container of the time specific to the view ordered by the host including and associating the data change thereto replacing the writes affected by the data change to assemble a snapshot appropriate to the date and time specified in the order; and

(e) a portion to enable access to the view from the host.

22. A method to provide a time-ordered view on behalf of a host of a specified portion of data change of a first storage system data container stored at least one of a T-LOG, an SLUN, and a V-LUN, comprising:

(a) initiating an order at the host to obtain a view of a data container, wherein the order specifies a date and time of the ordered view;

(b) receiving the order at a server adapted to assemble and enable access to the ordered view;

(c) at the server, accessing a first storage system and at least one of a transactional log, an S-LUN, and a V-LUN according to the date and time of the ordered view and accessing an applicable data write representing a data change to the data container;

(d) accessing the data container of the time specific to the view ordered by the host including and associating the data change thereto replacing the writes affected by the data change to assemble a view appropriate to the date and time specified in the order; and

(e) enabling access to the view from the host.

23. A system to provide secondary data storage and recovery services of one or more networked host nodes comprising:

a server application to facilitate data backup and recovery services;

a first data storage medium of primary data backup;

a second data storage medium to include secondary data storage of the backup data;

at least one client application to duplicate data write activity by a host to the primary storage medium to a transactional log volume; and

at least one machine instruction enabling direct data read and data clear operations to be performed on the transactional log volume by the server application to backup write data from the log volume to the secondary storage medium, wherein the view is generated based on the primary storage data and at least one of a transactional log, an SLUN, and a T-LUN.