INFORMATION BACKUP/RESTORATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND INFORMATION BACKUP/RESTORATION PROCESSING SYSTEM

• US 20110022811A1
• Filed: 08/21/2009
• Published: 01/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: KIRIHATA, Yasuhiro, Gondou, Kouichi, Hashimoto, Toru, Sameshima, Yoshiki
• Application Number:
  US12/935,291
• Publication Number:
  US 20110022811A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/162
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/061 Improving I/O performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0641 De-duplication techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

To reduce the size of backup data, increase the backup speed, and solve a problem that the amount of unnecessary writing could undesirably increase in a restoration process, which would otherwise require physical disks with a capacity greater than the size of a virtual volume. On a backup server having mounted thereon a virtual volume that is the target to be backed up and restored, read/write access to only the blocks of data areas is performed by a device driver that filters I/O access to a device from a file system on the basis of the data mapping information of the virtual volume, whereby read/write access to unnecessary portions is avoided. Thus, it is possible to reduce the size of backup data, increase the backup speed, and prevent an increase in the amount of unnecessary writing to the virtual volume in a restoration process.

Claims

1. An information backup/restoration processing apparatus connected to a storage system that manages as a single logical volume a group of partial storage areas allocated in a distributed manner to a plurality of disk devices, the information backup/restoration processing apparatus being configured to execute backup and restoration processes of the logical volume, and comprising:

logical volume configuration information acquisition means for acquiring data configuration information including a block address of significant data in the logical volume;

backup means for backing up the significant data corresponding to the block address to storage means; and

volume control means for, when the backup means accesses the logical volume, hooking read/write access to the logical volume, reading from the logical volume the significant data corresponding to the block address on the basis of the data configuration information, and providing the read significant data to the backup means.

2. The information backup/restoration processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the logical volume configuration information acquisition means acquires the data configuration information by inquiring of a mounted file system about a file format of the logical volume.

3. The information backup/restoration processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the logical volume configuration information acquisition means acquires the data configuration information from a logical volume mapping information storage unit that is included in the storage system.

4. The information backup/restoration processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the volume control means complements a block other than the block having the significant data allocated thereto with a NULL value, and provides to the backup means a backup image composed of the significant data and the NULL value.

5. The information backup/restoration processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, in a restoration process,

the backup means acquires from the storage means backup data including the significant data,

the volume control means writes only the significant data to a corresponding block of a new logical volume that is initialized with a NULL value, and

the new logical volume to which the significant data has been successfully written is switched into a normal volume within the storage system.

6. An information backup/restoration processing system comprising:

a storage system configured to manage as a single logical volume a group of partial storage areas allocated in a distributed manner to a plurality of disk devices; and

a backup server connected to the storage system and configured to execute backup and restoration processes of the logical volume, wherein

the storage system includes a first virtual volume corresponding to the logical volume, and creates a secondary volume that is a duplicate of the first virtual volume in a backup process, and

the backup server includes;

volume configuration information acquisition means for acquiring data configuration information including a block address of significant data in the secondary volume;

backup means for backing up the significant data corresponding to the block address to storage means; and

volume control means for, when the backup means accesses the secondary volume, hooking read/write access to the secondary volume, reading from the secondary volume the significant data corresponding to the block address on the basis of the data configuration information, and providing the read significant data to the backup means.

7. The information backup/restoration processing system according to claim 6, wherein the volume configuration information acquisition means acquires the data configuration information by inquiring of a mounted file system about a file format of the secondary volume.

8. The information backup/restoration processing system according to claim 6, wherein the volume configuration information acquisition means acquires the data configuration information from a logical volume mapping information storage unit that is included in the storage system.

9. The information backup/restoration processing system according to claim 6, wherein the volume control means complements a block other than the block having the significant data allocated thereto with a NULL value, and provides to the backup means a backup image composed of the significant data and the NULL value.

10. The information backup/restoration processing system according to claim 6, wherein, in a restoration process,

the storage system creates a second virtual volume that is a new logical volume initialized with a NULL value,

the backup means acquires from the storage means backup data including the significant data,

the volume control means writes only the significant data to a corresponding block of the second virtual volume, and

the storage system is capable of switching the second virtual volume to which the significant data has been successfully written into a normal volume within the storage system.