PERIODIC DATA REPLICATION

• US 20120136827A1
• Filed: 11/29/2010
• Published: 05/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhang, Haiyang, Li, Shaorong, Wang, Xiaopin
• Granted Patent: US 9,588,858 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/623
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1662 the resynchronized component or unit being a persistent storage device re-synchronization of failed mirror storage G06F11/2082; rebuild or reconstruction of parity RAID storage G06F11/1008
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2038 with a single idle spare processing component
• 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 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

Systems and methods for replicating data from a production server to a backup server include recording at least one operation on one or more data items stored in a volume of a production server. The operation may be recorded as at least one journal event in a memory. A determination may then be made regarding whether a system malfunction incident has occurred in the production server and if so, a first set of journal events may be transferred from the memory to an auxiliary storage at a first time instant. At a second time instant, a second set of journal events recorded in the memory between the first and second time instants may be transferred to the auxiliary storage. At one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit may then be sent for replication to a backup server.

Claims

1. A method for data replication from a production server to a backup server, comprising:

recording at least one operation performed on one or more data items stored in a volume of a production server, wherein the at least one operation is recorded as at least one journal event in a memory;

determining whether a system malfunction incident has occurred in the production server;

transferring the at least one journal event from the memory to an auxiliary storage unit at a first time instant, when it is determined that the system malfunction incident has occurred;

transferring, at a second time instant, one or more additional journal events recorded in the memory between the first and second time instants to the auxiliary storage unit; and

sending at least one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit for replication to a backup server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein recording further comprises consolidating the at least one journal event with one or more previously recorded journal events as each of the at least one journal event is recorded in the memory.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising

consolidating the at least one journal event and the one or more additional journal events in the auxiliary storage as an event sequence;

and

sending at least part of the event sequence for replication to a backup server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one operation is recorded as the at least one journal event without recording data content associated with the at least one operation.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one operation includes one or more of truncate, rename, remove, or create operations.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the system malfunction incident includes a storage capacity of the memory reaching a threshold.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the system malfunction incident includes failure of a connection between the production and backup servers.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising evaluating if the connection between the production and backup servers is re-established before sending the at least one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit to the backup server.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

capturing a snapshot of the volume of the production server; and

sending a point in time of the capturing of the snapshot to the backup server.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the system malfunction incident includes failure to capture the snapshot of the volume of the production server.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the capturing-a-snapshot step invokes the transferring step at the second time instant.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the capturing-a-snapshot step is performed periodically.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one operation includes one or more of write, change security, or change property operations.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

retrieving data associated with the at least one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit from the captured snapshot; and

sending the retrieved data along with the at least one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit to the backup server.

15. A system for data replication from a production server to a backup server, comprising:

one or more processors configured to;

record at least one operation on one or more data items stored in a volume of a production server, wherein the at least one operation is recorded as at least one journal event in a memory;

determine whether a system malfunction incident has occurred in the production server;

transfer the at least one journal event from the memory to an auxiliary storage unit at a first time instant, when it is determined that the system malfunction incident has occurred;

transfer, at a second time instant, one or more additional journal events recorded in the memory between the first and second time instants to the auxiliary storage unit; and

send at least one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit for replication to a backup server.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or processors are further configured to consolidate the at least one journal event with one or more previously recorded journal events as each of the at least one journal event is recorded in the memory.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or processors are further configured to:

consolidate the at least one journal event and the one or more additional journal events in the auxiliary storage as an event sequence; and

send at least part of the event sequence for replication to a backup server.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one operation is recorded as the at least one journal event without recording data content associated with the at least one operation.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one operation includes one or more of truncate, rename, remove, or create operations.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the system malfunction incident includes a storage capacity of the memory reaching a threshold.

21. The system of claim 15, wherein the system malfunction incident includes failure of a connection between the production and backup servers.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to evaluate if the connection between the production and backup servers is re-established before sending the at least part one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit to the backup server.

23. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

capture a snapshot of the volume of the production server; and

send a point in time of the capturing of the snapshot to the backup server.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the system malfunction incident includes failure to capture the snapshot of the volume of the production server.

25. The system of claim 23, wherein the one or more processors are configured to transfer the second set of journal events at the second time instant immediately after capturing a snapshot of the volume of the production server.

26. The system of claim 23, wherein the one or more processors are configured to capture a snapshot of the volume of the production server periodically.

27. The system of claim 23, wherein the at least one operation includes one or more of write, change security, or change property operations.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

retrieve data associated with at least one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit from the captured snapshot; and

send the retrieved data along with the at least one journal event stored in the auxiliary storage unit to the backup server.