CLOUD-BASED DISASTER RECOVERY OF BACKUP DATA AND METADATA

• US 20120084261A1
• Filed: 09/30/2010
• Published: 04/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Riverbed Technology Incorporated
• Inventors: Parab, Nitin
• Granted Patent: US 9,501,365 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/654
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1453 using de-duplication of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1748 De-duplication implemented within the file system, e.g. based on file segments de-duplication techniques in storage systems for the management of data blocks G06F3/0641

Abstract

Cloud storage services can be used to facilitate secondary backup and disaster data recovery without the need for specialized backup servers at the secondary location or cloud storage service. Backup data streams are transferred to a cloud storage service. In addition to the backup data streams, backup metadata is generated for each backup data stream. The backup metadata is adapted to configure a backup server to retrieve and access data in the backup data stream. The backup metadata is also transferred to the cloud storage service. To access data from the backup data stream, a recovery backup system is connected with the cloud storage service. Backup metadata is transferred from the cloud storage service to the recovery backup system. The recovery backup system is updated with the backup metadata, which configures the recovery backup system to retrieve and access data in the backup data stream.

Claims

1. A method of creating redundant data backups, the method comprising:

receiving a backup data set and a backup metadata set from a backup system, wherein the backup metadata set is adapted to enable a backup system to restore data from the backup data set;

transferring the backup data set and the backup metadata set to a cloud data storage;

connecting a recovery backup system to the cloud data storage;

retrieving at least the backup metadata set from the cloud data storage; and

updating the recovery backup system with the backup metadata set to enable the recovery backup system to restore data from the backup data set.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

restoring at least a portion of the backup data set using the recovery backup system and the backup data set.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein restoring at least the portion of the backup data set is in response to receiving a user command.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the backup data set comprises first backup data and second backup data and the backup metadata set comprises first backup metadata and second backup metadata; and

updating the recovery backup system comprises updating the recovery backup system with the first backup metadata and second backup metadata.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the recovery backup system is updated with the first backup metadata and the second backup metadata in order of their creation.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein transferring the backup data set and the backup metadata set to the cloud data storage comprises:

deduplicating at least a portion of at least one of the backup data set and the backup metadata set; and

transferring the deduplicated version of the portion of at least one of the backup data set and the backup metadata set to the cloud data storage.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein retrieving at least the backup metadata set comprises:

reconstructing an undeduplicated version of the backup metadata set from a deduplicated version of the backup metadata set stored in the cloud data storage.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the backup metadata set includes a list the data in the backup data set.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the backup metadata set includes a log of backup operations considered complete by the backup system.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the backup operations include a backup replication.

11. The method of claim 9, comprising:

providing the backup system with an indication of completion of one of the backup operations upon transferring the backup data set to the cloud data storage;

accessing a log of the backup system to create the log of backup operations included in the backup metadata; and

transferring the backup metadata set to a cloud data storage.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein updating comprises:

replaying the log of backup operations to the recovery backup system.

13. A method of restoring data from a data backup set, the method comprising:

connecting a recovery backup system to the cloud data storage;

identifying a backup metadata set stored in the cloud data storage;

retrieving the identified backup metadata set from the cloud data storage;

updating the recovery backup system with the backup metadata set to enable the recovery backup system to restore data from a backup data set;

retrieving at least a portion of the backup data set from the cloud data storage; and

restoring at least the portion of data included in the backup data set using the recovery backup system.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the backup metadata set comprises a plurality of backup metadata, and updating the recovery backup system with the backup metadata set comprises:

updating the recovery backup system with the plurality of backup metadata in the order of its creation.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein updating the recovery backup system comprises:

determining an order of creation for a plurality of backup metadata files, wherein the plurality of backup metadata comprises the plurality of backup metadata files.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein retrieving at least a portion of the backup data set from the cloud data storage comprises:

reconstructing an undeduplicated version of the portion of the backup data set from a deduplicated version of the backup data set stored in the cloud data storage.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein retrieving the identified backup metadata set from the cloud data storage comprises:

reconstructing an undeduplicated version of the identified backup metadata set from a deduplicated version of the backup metadata set stored in the cloud data storage.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein restoring at least the portion of the data included in the backup data set is in response to receiving a user command.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein the backup metadata set includes a list of available data in the backup data set.

20. The method of claim 13, wherein the backup metadata set includes a log of backup operations considered complete by a primary backup system.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the backup operations include a backup replication by the primary backup system.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the log of backup operations is generated following a transfer of the backup data set from a primary backup site including the primary backup system to the cloud data storage.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein updating comprises:

replaying the log of backup operations to the recovery backup system.