INFORMATION MANAGEMENT CELL WITH FAILOVER MANAGEMENT CAPABILITY

• US 20140337663A1
• Filed: 05/07/2014
• Published: 11/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: GOKHALE, Parag, KOTTOMTHARAYIL, Rajiv, KARANDIKAR, Amey Vijaykumar, VIJAYAN, Manoj Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 9,483,361 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/6.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/006 Identification G06F11/2289 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1461 Backup scheduling policy
• 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 11/2092 Techniques of failing over between control units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

According to certain aspects, an information management cell with failover management capability can include secondary storage computing devices configured to conduct primary data from a primary storage device(s) to a secondary storage device(s) during secondary copy operations, at the direction of a remote storage manager, wherein a first secondary storage computing device implements a failover storage manager configured to, in the event of a loss of connectivity between the cell and the remote storage manager: access a stored storage policy; initiate a first secondary copy operation according to the storage policy in which the first secondary storage computing device is involved in the creation of a first secondary copy on the secondary storage device(s); and initiate a second secondary copy operation according to the storage policy in which a second secondary storage computing device is involved in the creation of a second secondary copy on the secondary storage device(s).

Claims

1. An information management cell with failover management capability, comprising:

a plurality of client computing devices comprising computer hardware, each of the client computing devices having one or more applications executing thereon generating primary data which is stored in one or more primary storage devices; and

a plurality of secondary storage computing devices each comprising computer hardware configured to conduct the primary data from the one or more primary storage devices to one or more secondary storage devices during secondary copy operations, at the direction of a remote storage manager that is geographically remote from the information management cell;

wherein a first secondary storage computing device of the plurality of secondary storage computing devices implements a failover storage manager configured to, in the event of a loss of connectivity between the information management cell and the remote storage manager;

access a stored storage policy; and

initiate a secondary copy operation according to the storage policy in which a second secondary storage computing device of the plurality of secondary storage computing devices is involved in the creation of a secondary copy on the one or more secondary storage devices.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is further configured to assign a temporary unique job ID for the secondary copy operation.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the temporary unique job ID is generated based on one or more of an identifier for the information management cell and a time at which the secondary copy operation is performed.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is further configured to provide to the first secondary storage computing device information that is used in performing the secondary copy operation, the information comprising one or more of:

global namespace, source location, and destination location.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the first secondary storage computing devices is further configured to detect loss of connectivity to the remote storage manager by polling the remote storage manager at an interval.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is further configured to obtain the storage policy from the remote storage manager.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is one of a plurality of failover storage managers in the information management cell, and the failover storage manager is selected for use in response to the loss of connectivity based at least in part on a pre-determined order of priority for activating the plurality of failover storage managers.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager has limited functionality in comparison to the remote storage manager.

9. A method of providing an information management cell with failover management capability, the method comprising:

implementing, by a first secondary storage computing device of a plurality of secondary storage computing devices, a failover storage manager configured to initiate secondary copy operations in the event of a loss of connectivity between an information management cell and a remote storage manager that is geographically remote from the information management cell, wherein the information management cell comprises;

a plurality of client computing devices comprising computer hardware, each of the client computing devices having one or more applications executing thereon generating primary data which is stored in one or more primary storage devices; and

a plurality of secondary storage computing devices each comprising computer hardware configured to conduct the primary data from the one or more primary storage devices to one or more secondary storage devices during secondary copy operations, at the direction of the remote storage manager;

detecting a loss of connectivity between the information management cell and the remote storage manager; and

in response to said detecting the loss of connectivity between the information management cell and the remote storage manager;

accessing, by the failover storage manager, a stored storage policy; and

initiating, by the failover storage manager, a secondary copy operation according to the storage policy in which a second secondary storage computing device of the plurality of secondary storage computing devices is involved in the creation of a secondary copy on the one or more secondary storage devices.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising assigning, by the failover storage manager, a temporary unique job ID for the secondary copy operation.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the temporary unique job ID is generated based on one or more of an identifier for the information management cell and a time at which the secondary copy operation is performed.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising providing, by the failover storage manager, to the first secondary storage computing device information that is used in performing the secondary copy operation, the information comprising one or more of:

global namespace, source location, and destination location.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein said detecting a loss of connectivity between the information management cell and the remote storage manager comprises polling the remote storage manager at an interval.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising obtaining, by the failover storage manager, the storage policy from the remote storage manager.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the failover storage manager is one of a plurality of failover storage managers in the information management cell, and the failover storage manager is selected for use in response to the loss of connectivity based at least in part on a pre-determined order of priority for activating the plurality of failover storage managers.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the failover storage manager has limited functionality in comparison to the remote storage manager.