CLIENT-SIDE REPOSITORY IN A NETWORKED DEDUPLICATED STORAGE SYSTEM

• US 20120150818A1
• Filed: 12/13/2011
• Published: 06/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Vijayan Retnamma, Manoj Kumar, Attarde, Deepak Raghunath, Joshi, Hetalkumar N.
• Application Number:
  US13/324,884
• Publication Number:
  US 20120150818A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/679
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1453 using de-duplication of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/80 Database-specific techniques

Abstract

A storage system according to certain embodiments includes a client-side repository (CSR). The CSR may communicate with a client at a higher data transfer rate than the rate used for communication between the client and secondary storage. During copy operations, for instance, some or all of the data being backed up or otherwise copied to secondary storage is stored in the CSR. During restore operations, copies of the data stored in the CSR is accessed from the CSR instead of from secondary storage, improving performance. Remaining data blocks not stored in the CSR can be restored from secondary storage.

Claims

1. A method of restoring deduplicated data from secondary storage to an information store associated with a client, the method comprising:

in response to instructions to copy data from an information store associated with a client system to secondary storage remote from the client system;

copying at least a portion of the data from the information store to a data repository of a client-side repository as a plurality of data blocks, the client-side repository being remote from the secondary storage, wherein the data from the information store is copied to the secondary storage according to a deduplication scheme; and

populating a signature repository of the client-side repository with a plurality of deduplication signatures corresponding to the data blocks stored in the data repository of the client-side repository; and

for a restore operation in which at least some of the copied data is restored from secondary storage to the client;

receiving a plurality of queries inquiring as to the presence of at least some of the plurality of data blocks in the client-side repository;

using one or more processors and in response to the queries, consulting the signature repository of the client-side repository to determine which of the data blocks are stored in the data repository of the client-side repository; and

restoring data blocks that are stored in the data repository of the client-side repository from the client-side repository to the information store associated with the client, the data blocks not stored in the data repository of the client-side repository being restored from the secondary storage to the information store associated with the client.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the client-side repository and the client communicate with one another over a different network topology than the network topology that the secondary storage and the client communicate with one another over.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the client-side repository and the client communicate via a local area network.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the secondary storage and the client communicate via a wide area network.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein before sending a query inquiring as to the presence of a data block, the secondary storage consults an identifier indicative of an age of the corresponding data block to determine whether to send the query.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein consulting the signature repository comprises comparing signatures stored in the client-side repository to signatures received in the queries.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying the size of the client-side repository in response to an amount of usage of the client-side repository as part of one or more restore operations.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising deleting one or more of the data blocks from the client-side repository based on a predetermined retention scheme.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the blocks are deleted based on a period of time that the data blocks have been stored in the client-side repository according to the retention scheme.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the blocks are deleted on a first-in, first-out basis according to the retention scheme.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the data was previously copied to the secondary storage as part of a backup operation.

12. A storage system, comprising:

a client-side repository, comprising;

a data repository storing a plurality of data blocks, the data blocks corresponding to at least a portion of data that has been previously copied from an information store of a client to secondary storage according to a deduplication scheme;

a signature repository storing signatures corresponding to the data blocks in the data repository, the data repository and the signature repository remote from the secondary storage; and

a control module executing in one or more processors and configured to;

receive one or more queries inquiring as to the presence of a plurality of data blocks in the data repository;

consult the signature repository in response to the one or more queries to determine which of the queried data blocks are stored in the data block repository; and

restore the data blocks that are stored in the data block repository from the data block repository to the information store of the client,

wherein data blocks that are not stored in the data block repository are restored from the secondary storage to the information store of the client.

13. The storage system of claim 12, wherein the client-side repository and the client communicate with one another over a different network topology than the network topology that the secondary storage and the client communicate with one another over.

14. The storage system of claim 12, wherein before sending a query inquiring as to the presence of a data block, the secondary storage consults an identifier indicative of an age of the corresponding data block to determine whether to send the query.

15. The storage system of claim 12, wherein the control module is configured to consult the signature repository by comparing signatures stored in the signature repository to signatures received in the queries.

16. The storage system of claim 12, further comprising deleting one or more of the data blocks from the client-side repository based on a predetermined retention scheme.

17. The storage system of claim 12, wherein the control module is configured to modify the size of the data repository of the client-side repository in response to an amount of usage of the client-side repository as part of one or more restore operations.

18. A method of restoring deduplicated data to an information store associated with a client from secondary storage, comprising:

sending one or more queries to a client-side repository inquiring as to the presence of a plurality of data blocks in the client-side repository, the data blocks corresponding to at least a portion of data that has been previously copied from an information store of a client to the secondary storage according to a deduplication scheme, the secondary storage remote from the client and the client-side repository;

receiving an indication as to which of the queried data blocks are stored in the client-side repository; and

restoring the data blocks that are not stored in the client-side repository from the secondary storage to the information store of the client,

wherein data blocks that are stored in the client-side repository are restored from the client-side repository to the information store of the client.