LIVE RESTORE FOR A DATA INTELLIGENT STORAGE SYSTEM

• US 20160170844A1
• Filed: 12/02/2015
• Published: 06/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Entrust Corp.
• Original Assignee: DataGravity, Inc. (Entrust Corp.)
• Inventors: Long, Paula, Zelikov, Misha, Panner, Bryan Keith, Gonczi, Istvan, McHale, Gregory James, Lacy, Janice Ann, Kanteti, Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 10,089,192 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1466 to make the backup process non-disruptive
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2056 by mirroring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/21 Design, administration or maintenance of databases

Abstract

A single system merges primary data storage, data protection, and intelligence. Intelligence is provided through in-line data analytics, and data intelligence and analytics are gathered on protected data and prior analytics, and stored in discovery points, all without impacting performance of primary storage. Real-time analysis is done in-line with the HA processing, enabling a variety of data analytics that are then used as part of a live restore operation. Data content can be live restored at an object or block level. Data recovery begins with metadata restoration, followed by near-instantaneous access to “hot” regions of data being restored, allowing site operation to continue or resume while a restore is ongoing.

Claims

1. A data analytics system comprising:

a. one or more processors programmed to operate primary node software, wherein the primary node software;

i. intercepts data access requests;

ii. mirrors data referenced in the data access requests to provide high availability for data included in the data access requests;

iii. executes in-line analytics on the data access requests to provide analytics metadata;

iv. forwards the analytics metadata to intelligence node software; and

v. directs the data access requests to a primary storage pool;

b. one or more processors programmed to operate the intelligence node software, wherein the intelligence node software;

vi. receives analytics metadata from the primary node software;

vii. stores the mirrored data to an intelligence storage pool;

viii. performs further analytics on mirrored data and/or previously executed in-line analytics

ix. creates discovery points within the intelligence pool; and

c. the primary node software and intelligence node software further, upon an indication of a need to restore data, cooperate to perform a live restore operation to the primary pool from the intelligence pool using the analytics metadata.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the live restore operation additionally:

a. restores only object metadata first as a foreground process;

b. allows user I/O access to objects prior to complete restoration of user data associated with the object metadata; and

c. restores user data as a background process.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

prioritize user data being restored based on the analytics metadata.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

use the analytics metadata and user I/O operations to prioritize regions of a user data object being restored.

5. The system of claim 3 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

a. restore multiple objects at a time; and

b. restore user data using the analytics metadata and user I/O to determine a priority for restoring the multiple objects.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

a. intercept subsequent live file requests; and

b. force live restore from a discovery point, wherein the discovery point further includes source data.

7. The system of claim 2 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

use a restore bitmap to track restore progress to allow random I/O to the object before the object is completely restored.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the restore bitmap represents regions that support automatic atomic restoration.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

a. obtain a size of a file to be restored from the intelligence pool;

b. create a new file in a RestorePath in the primary pool with an object identifier FIleOID;

c. restore metadata for a user data object to be restored;

d. create a RestoreLink file having an object identifier and a RestoreLinkOID;

e. save at least the restore size, FileOID and zero restore bitmap in the RestoreLink file; and

f. save the RestoreLinkOID on a corresponding attribute in new file being restored in the primary pool.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

perform a live restore operation on an individual file.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the file live restore operation further comprises:

a. restores metadata related to the file atomically;

b. allows user I/O to the file being restored;

c. continues to restore user data related to the file as a background task.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the file live restore operation further:

prioritizes restore of individual blocks within the file being restored based on user I/O and the previously gathered analytics.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the intelligence node software further performs a directory/file system live restore operation on a directory and/or file system level to restore multiple files and/or directories in parallel.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the directory/file system live restore operation further:

a. creates directory/file system metadata;

b. allows user I/O to the file system/directory being live restored as a background task; and

c. restores individual files as a file live restore operation.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the directory/file system live restore operation further:

prioritizes restoration of multiple files within a directory/file system based on user I/O and the previously gathered analytics.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

perform block level live restore for restoring data extents from a recovery site to a primary site.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the block level live restore further:

a. restores metadata for the site atomically, including system metadata for file systems and discovery points;

b. transfers an allocated extents map from a Virtual Disk Layer (VDL) on the recovery site to the VDL on the primary site; and

c. allows user I/O to the primary site while performing restore of user data each extent as a background task.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the primary node software or intelligence node software further:

a. prune resulting metadata; and

b. resolve TRIM operations to the VDL as result of either such pruning or as a result of allowing user I/O to the site while it is being restored.

19. The system of claim 16 wherein the block level live restore further:

prioritizes restore of each extent based on the user I/O and previously gathered analytics.