INSTANT DATA RESTORATION

• US 20120254535A1
• Filed: 06/11/2012
• Published: 10/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: HAY, Gadi, RAICHSTEIN, Eran, TEVIS, Gregory J., VAN HISE, Gregory D.
• Granted Patent: US 9,983,946 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/114
• 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 11/2076 Synchronous techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data

Abstract

An exposed Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) target of a backup repository is defined as a source of, and a storage volume to be recovered as a target of, a mirrored pair of storage resources. The iSCSI target represents a point-in-time backup snapshot. Data from the iSCSI target is synchronized to the storage volume. The mechanisms of the illustrated embodiments leverage iSCSI with Instant Restore to reduce a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and provide a secure transport when recovering a volume over a WAN.

Claims

1. A method for restoring data by a processor, comprising:

defining an exposed Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) target of a backup repository as a source of, and a storage volume to be recovered as a target of, a mirrored pair of storage resources, the iSCSI target representing a point-in-time backup snapshot; and

synchronizing data from the iSCSI target to the storage volume.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein defining the storage volume to be recovered as the target of a mirrored pair of storage resources includes defining the storage volume to be recovered as the target of a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) 1 mirror pair.

3. The method of claim 1, further including connecting to the iSCSI target.

4. The method of claim 1, further including exposing the iSCSI target in a read/write mode to a remote machine, wherein a write cache is established for the iSCSI target.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein exposing the iSCSI target includes issuing an iSCSI initiator command to perform at least one of discover a Logical Unit Number (LUN) for the iSCSI target and make the iSCSI target available as a block device.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein defining the exposed iSCSI target and the storage volume as the mirrored pair of storage resources further includes, from the remote machine:

issuing a command from a common utility mirroring application to create a mirror device on the exposed iSCSI target, and

issuing a mount command from the common utility mirroring application to expose file level information from the mirrored pair of storage resources to a production application.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein prior to a completion of the synchronization of the data:

an application write operation is performed to the storage volume and the write cache,

an application read operation for data not yet synched with the storage volume is performed from the iSCSI target, and

an application read operation for data having been synched with the storage volume is performed from one of the storage volume or a physical disk associated with the storage volume.

8. The method of claim 7, whereby allowing the application read operations for the data not yet synched and the data having synched to be performed from the iSCSI target, a volume-level restore operation over a Wide Area Network (WAN) is facilitated.

9. The method of claim 1, further including, subsequent to a completion of the synchronizing the data, splitting the mirrored pair of storage resources, wherein application read operations are performed from the storage volume and application write operations are performed to the storage volume.

10. The method of claim 4, further including, subsequent to a completion of the synchronizing the data, deleting the write cache and placing the storage volume in a fully functional mode of operation.