REMOTE BACKUP STORAGE

• US 20100313066A1
• Filed: 06/03/2009
• Published: 12/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: HANES, David H.
• Granted Patent: US 8,370,681 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/6
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments

Abstract

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with a backup utility are described. One example system causes a backup utility to identify a remote device as local to a client device. Backup data may then be retained on the remote device identified by the backup utility as being local.

Claims

1. A system, comprising.

emulation logic implemented in a computer-readable medium and configured to cause a backup utility to identify a remote device as local to a client device;

and

storage logic implemented in a computer-readable medium and configured to, in response to an instruction from the backup utility to retain backup data, cause the backup data to be retained on the remote device identified by the backup utility as being local.

2. The system of claim 1, where the emulation logic and storage logic are part of a kernel of the client device.

3. The system of claim 2, where the emulation logic and storage logic are part of a kernel extension of the kernel.

4. The system of claim 1, where the storage logic causes the backup data to embed in a file system of the remote device while the backup data retains a format of the client device.

5. The system of claim 1, comprising a converter that translates the backup data from a format used for storage at the client device to a format used for storage at the remote device.

6. The system of claim 5, where the converter modifies the backup data from a logical block address format to a file offset format as at least part of the translation.

7. The system of claim 1, comprising analysis logic implemented in a computer-readable medium and configured to process the instruction from the backup utility to retain backup data, where a result of the process is used to control operation of the storage logic.

8. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

disguising a remote device as a local device to a client device;

identifying data designated for storage by a backup utility, where the backup utility designates the data for storage on the remote device disguised to the backup utility as being local to the client device;

transforming the data designated for storage by the backup utility from a format of the client device to a format of the remote device; and

transmitting the transformed data to the remote device to cause the remote device to retain the transformed data.

9. The method of claim 8, where the client device runs a client operating system, where the remote device runs a remote operating system, and where the client operating system and the remote operating system are incompatible with one another.

10. The method of claim 8, where the disguising is performed by a kernel extension of the client device.

11. The method of claim 8, where transforming the data designated for storage by the backup utility comprises converting the data from a logical block address format to a file offset format.

12. The method of claim 8, where the disguising to the backup utility comprises representing the remote device as a virtual block device.

13. The method of claim 8, where disguising the remote device as the local device comprises causing the backup utility to identify the remote device as a device local to the client device.

14. The method of claim 8, comprising:

recognizing an error associated with the remote device;

identifying an error message that corresponds to the recognized error, where the error message is in a format compatible with the remote device; and

converting the error message to a format compatible with the client device, where the converted error message is accessible to the backup utility.

15. The method of claim 8, where disguising to the backup utility comprises notifying to the backup utility that the remote device is local to the client device.

16. A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

representing to a backup utility of a client device running a client operating system that a remote server device running a server operating system is local to the client device;

recognizing an error associated with the remote server device;

identifying an error message that corresponds to the recognized error, where the error message is in a format consistent with the remote server device;

converting the error message to a format consistent with the client device where the error message appears as a local error message, and

notifying the backup utility of the error associated with the remote server device via the converted error message, where the converted error message is consistent with the representation to the backup utility that the remote server device is local to the client device.

17. The method of claim 16, where the error is a loss of connection to the remote server device.

18. The method of claim 16, where the client operating system is a non-Windows-based operating system.

19. The method of claim 16, where the server operating system is a Windows-based operating system.

20. The method of claim 16, comprising determining if the identified error message undermines the representation, where converting and notifying occur in response to a determination that the identified error message undermines the representation.