SAVE SET BUNDLING FOR STAGING

• US 20110302141A1
• Filed: 08/22/2011
• Published: 12/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Nadathur, Anand, Owens, Ken, Ugur Ozekinci, Yasemin
• Granted Patent: US 8,234,475 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/646
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore

Abstract

Backing up data blocks is disclosed, including: receiving an indication that a first backed up data block is to be processed; determining that the first backed up data block and a second backed up data block are related at an application level and are to remain stored together; and processing together the first and second backed up data blocks based at least in part on the determination that the first and second backed up data blocks are related at an application level and are to remain stored together.

Claims

1. A method of processing backed up data blocks, comprising:

receiving an indication that a first backed up data block is to be processed;

determining that the first backed up data block and a second backed up data block are related at an application level and are to remain stored together; and

processing together the first and second backed up data blocks based at least in part on the determination that the first and second backed up data blocks are related at an application level and are to remain stored together.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining that the first backed up data block and the second backed up data block are related is based at least in part on an associating data indicating that the first and second backed up data blocks are related at an application level and are to remain stored together.

3. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein the associating data associates at the application-level the first backed up data block, the second backed up data block, and one or more other backed up data blocks and ensures that the first backed up data block, the second backed up data block, and the other backed up data blocks remain stored together.

4. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein the first backed up data block is included in a first set of backed up data blocks and the second backed up data block is included in a second set of backed up data blocks, and wherein the associating data indicates that the first set and second of backed up data blocks are to remain stored together.

5. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the associating data ensures that the first set and the second set remain stored together by ensuring that the first set and the second set are stored on a same volume of backup media.

6. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the associating data ensures that the first set and the second set remain stored together by ensuring that the first set and the second set are stored in a contiguous set of storage locations on a backup storage.

7. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the associating data ensures that the first set and the second set remain stored together by ensuring that the first set is not migrated unless the second set is migrated as well.

8. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein the associating data associates the first backed up data block with the second backed up data block by including in a backup index, for the first backed up data block and the second backed up data block, an identifier that indicates that the backed up data blocks are related at the application-level.

9. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein the associating data associates the first backed up data block with the second backed up data block by including in a backup index, an identifier that indicates that the blocks are related at the application-level.

10. A method as recited in claim 9, wherein the index includes information identifying a file system attribute of the first and second backed up data blocks.

11. A method as recited in claim 9, wherein the index includes information identifying a storage location of the first and second backed up data blocks.

12. A method as recited in claim 11, wherein the storage location includes an identification of a specific backup storage media from a plurality of backup storage medias.

13. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the first set includes one or more blocks that not related at the application-level to one or more other blocks in the first set or to one or more other blocks in the second set.

14. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the application-level association includes an association indicated by an application but not indicated by a file system level association.

15. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein the associating data was at least in part determined using a specification of application-level data to be backed up.

16. A method as recited in claim 15, wherein the specification of application-level data includes or more of the following:

a specification of one or more application-level related files, a specification of one or more database objects, a specification of an incremental backup, and a specification of a backup version.

17. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the application-level relationship between the first and second backed up data blocks is determined at least in part by determining that the first and second data blocks are associated with a same identifier in an index.

18. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein the associating data can be used to determine an attribute of the application-level relationship.

19. A method as recited in claim 18, wherein the attribute includes one or more of the following:

a type of the application-level association and a version information.

20. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the processing the first backed up data block includes performing one or more of the following:

copying the first backed up data block, moving the first backed up data block, modifying first the backed up data block, restoring first the backed up data block, staging the first backed up data block, and performing an incremental backup operation associated with the first backed up data block.

21. A system for processing backed up data blocks, comprising:

a processor configured to;

receive an indication that a first backed up data block is to be processed;

determine that the first backed up data block and a second backed up data block are related at an application level and are to remain stored together; and

process together the first and second backed up data blocks based at least in part on the determination that the first and second backed up data blocks are related at an application level and are to remain stored together; and

a memory coupled with the processor, wherein the memory is configured to provide the processor with instructions.

22. A computer readable medium embodying computer instructions, which when executed cause a processor to:

receive an indication that a first backed up data block is to be processed;

determine that the first backed up data block and a second backed up data block are related at an application level and are to remain stored together; and

process together the first and second backed up data blocks based at least in part on the determination that the first and second backed up data blocks are related at an application level and are to remain stored together.