CLIENT-SIDE REPOSITORY IN A NETWORKED DEDUPLICATED STORAGE SYSTEM

• US 20120150949A1
• Filed: 12/13/2011
• Published: 06/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Vijayan Retnamma, Manoj Kumar, Attarde, Deepak Raghunath, Joshi, Hetalkumar N.
• Granted Patent: US 8,954,446 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• 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 modifying a client-side repository usable for restore operations in a de-duplicated storage system, the method comprising:

populating the client-side repository with a plurality of data blocks, the data blocks corresponding to at least a portion of data that is copied from a client system to secondary storage according to a deduplication scheme;

populating the client-side repository with deduplication signatures corresponding to the data blocks that are stored in the client-side repository;

for at least one restore operation in which at least some of the copied data is restored to the client system;

using one or more processors and at least in part based on the deduplication signatures stored in the client-side repository, determining which of the plurality of data blocks are stored in the client-side repository; and

accessing the client-side repository to restore the data blocks that are stored in the client-side repository from the client-side repository to the client system, wherein the data blocks that are not stored in the client-side repository are restored from the secondary storage to the client system;

generating a metric relating to the usage of the client side repository; and

modifying a parameter associated with the client-side repository in response to the performance metric.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the secondary storage is remote from the client system and the client-side repository.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the usage metric is related to at least one of an amount of data transmitted between the client-side repository and the client system during the at least one restore operation and an amount of data transmitted between the client system and the secondary storage during the at least one restore operation.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the usage metric is related to at least one of network bandwidth utilization during the at least one restore operation and an amount of time consumed during the at least one restore operation.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the parameter comprises increasing the storage capacity of the client-side repository.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the client system communicates with the client-side repository via a local area network and the client system communicates with the secondary storage via a wide area network.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein queries associated with at least some of the data blocks involved in the restore operation are sent to the client-side repository to determine whether or not the respective data blocks are stored in the client-side repository.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the queries are sent only for data blocks that were copied to the secondary storage within a predetermined time period prior to the restore operation.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein at least some of the queries are transmitted to the client-side repository together in groups of more than one query.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining which of the plurality of data blocks are stored in the client-side repository comprises comparing the deduplication signatures stored in the client-side repository with deduplication signatures received during the at least one restore operation.

11. 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 a client system 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;

monitor the use of the client-side repository for at least one restore operation, wherein the restore operation includes restoring the data blocks not stored in the client-side repository from the secondary storage to the client system and restoring the data blocks stored in the client-side repository from the client-side repository to the client system;

in response to the monitoring, determining a usage metric associated with the amount of use of the client-side repository; and

in response to the determined usage metric, tuning a client-side repository parameter.

12. The storage system of claim 11, wherein the usage metric is related to at least one of an amount of data transmitted between the client-side repository and the client system during the at least one restore operation and an amount of data transmitted between the client system and the secondary storage during the at least one restore operation.

13. The storage system of claim 11, wherein the usage metric is related to at least one of network bandwidth utilization during the at least one restore operation and an amount of time consumed during the at least one restore operation.

14. The storage system of claim 11, wherein the client system communicates with the client-side repository via a local area network and the client system communicates with the secondary storage via a wide area network.

15. The storage system of claim 11, wherein the control module tunes the client-side repository parameter at least in part by increasing the storage capacity of the client-side repository.

16. The storage system of claim 11, wherein queries associated with at least some of the data blocks involved in the restore operation are sent to the client-side repository to determine whether or not the respective data blocks are stored in the client-side repository

17. The storage system of claim 16, wherein the queries are sent only for data blocks that were copied to the secondary storage within a predetermined time period prior to the restore operation.

18. The storage system of claim 16, wherein at least some of the queries are transmitted to the client-side repository together in groups of more than one query.

19. The storage system of claim 11, wherein the control module determines which of the plurality of data blocks are stored in the client-side repository at least in part by comparing the deduplication signatures stored in the client-side repository with deduplication signatures received during the at least one restore operation.

20. A method of modifying a client-side repository usable during restore operations in a deduplicated storage system, the method comprising:

using one or more processors, monitoring the use of a client-side repository in a storage system, the client-side repository usable for copy operations from a client system associated with the client-side repository to secondary storage and for restore operations from the secondary storage to the client system,

the copy operations including storing data blocks and signatures corresponding to the data blocks in the client-side repository, the data blocks corresponding to at least a portion of data that is copied from the client system to the secondary storage according to a deduplication scheme, and

the restore operations including restoring the data blocks not stored in the client-side repository from the secondary storage to the client system and restoring the data blocks stored in the client-side repository from the client-side repository to the client system;

in response to the monitoring, determining a metric associated with the use of the client-side repository; and

in response to the determined metric, tuning a parameter associated with the client-side repository.