HIERARCHICAL SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PERFORMING DATA STORAGE OPERATIONS

• US 20110119235A1
• Filed: 01/21/2011
• Published: 05/19/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Kavuri, Srinivas, Oshinsky, David Alan, Crescenti, John, Prahlad, Anand
• Granted Patent: US 8,041,673 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/651
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/14 Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operation G06F11/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/20 using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/00 Accessing, addressing or allocating within memory systems or architectures digital input from, or digital output to record carriers, e.g. to disk storage units, G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/02 Addressing or allocation; Relocation program address sequencing G06F9/00; arrangements for selecting an address in a digital store G11C8/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99955 Archiving or backup

Abstract

The invention is a hierarchical backup system. The interconnected network computing devices are put into groups of backup cells. A backup cell has a manager software agent responsible maintaining and initiating a backup regime for the network computing devices in the backup cell. The backups are directed to backup devices within the backup cell. Several backup cells can be defined. A manager software agent for a particular cell may be placed into contact with the manager software agent of another cell, by which information about the cells may be passed back and forth. Additionally, one of the software agents may be given administrative control over another software agent with which it is in communication.

Claims

1. A hierarchical storage management system for storing data in a network environment, the storage management system comprising:

a plurality of backup cells comprising a first plurality of physical backup cells and a second plurality of virtual backup cells;

a first manager component comprising one or more computer processors associated with at least one network computing device of a plurality of network computing devices, the first manager component configured to manage backup operations for at least one of the first plurality of physical backup cells;

a second manager component associated with at least one of the second plurality of virtual backup cells, wherein the second manager component is configured to execute on at least one of the plurality of network computing devices and further configured to manage backup operations for at least one of the second plurality of virtual backup cells;

a media component configured to execute on at least one network computing device of a plurality of network computing devices and being communicatively coupled to at least one storage device to store data to the at least one storage device;

a client component configured to execute on at least one of the plurality of network computing devices and to obtain the data from at least one of the plurality of network computing devices according to first parameters maintained by the client component, the client component being further configured to transmit the data to the media component;

wherein the second manager component is configured to direct the client component to obtain the data according to second parameters maintained by the second manager component and to perform backup operations on the plurality of virtual backup cells; and

wherein the second manager is further controlled by the first manager component and performs backup operations on the plurality of virtual backup cells in response to the first manager component.

2. The storage management system of claim 1 wherein the media component further comprises an index of the physical location of the data stored on the at least one storage device.

3. The storage management system of claim 2 wherein the media component is configured to send at least a portion of the index to the second manager component.

4. The storage management system of claim 3 wherein the second manager component is configured to send the portion of the index to the first manager component.

5. The storage management system of claim 1 wherein the first manager component is configured to maintain information regarding an operational status of at least one of the second manager component, the at least one storage device, and the media component.

6. The storage management system of claim 1 wherein the at least one other of the plurality of backup cells further comprises:

a second media component configured to execute on one of the plurality of network computing devices and being communicatively coupled to a second storage device to store second data to the second storage device;

a second client component configured to execute on a network computing device of the plurality of network computing devices and to obtain and transmit the second data to the second media component; and

wherein at least one other of the plurality of physical backup cells is configured to be controlled by a third manager component.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the second parameters include at least one of a storage schedule, an aging policy and a pruning policy.

8. A method for performing a storage operation in a hierarchical storage management system, the method comprising:

processing backup operations with a first management component comprising one or more computer processors, wherein the first management component is associated with at least a first backup cell of a first plurality of physical backup cells;

processing backup operations with a second management component associated with at least a second virtual backup cell of a second plurality of virtual backup cells, wherein the second management component is hierarchically coupled to the first manager component;

instructing the second manager component with the first manager component to initiate the storage operation on the second virtual backup cell;

obtaining the data from the first client device with a client component configured to execute on the first client device;

storing the data to a storage device according to parameters maintained by the first manager component;

updating an index maintained by the media component, the index indicating a physical location of the data stored on the storage device.

9. The method of claim 8 additionally comprising initiating the request to perform the storage operation based at least on an aging policy.

10. The method of claim 8 additionally comprising alerting the first manager component with respect to operation of the second virtual backup cell.

11. The method of claim 8 additionally comprising receiving with the first manager component status information regarding the second manager component and a third manager component of a third backup cell.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein said instructing the second manager component to initiate the storage operation further comprises selecting the second manager component based on an availability of the second manager component and the third manager component.

13. The method of claim 8 further comprising maintaining an index of the physical location of the data stored on the at least one storage device.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising sending at least a portion of the index to the second manager component.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising sending the portion of the index to the first manager component.

16. The method of claim 8, further comprising maintaining information regarding an operational status of at least one of the second manager component, the at least one storage device, and the media component.

17. The method of claim 8, wherein the parameters include at least one of a storage schedule, an aging policy and a pruning policy.