BROWSE AND RESTORE FOR BLOCK-LEVEL BACKUPS

• US 20170024152A1
• Filed: 07/22/2015
• Published: 01/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/22/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Gutta, Sunil Kumar, Bhagi, Sri Karthik, Agrawal, Vijay H., Pawar, Rahul S.
• Granted Patent: US 9,766,825 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• 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 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

Systems and methods for performing file-level restore operations for block-level data volumes are described. In some embodiments, the systems and methods restore data from a block-level data volume contained in secondary storage by receiving a request to restore one or more files from the block-level data volume, mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume, accessing one or more mount paths established by the virtual GPT disk between the data agent and the block-level data volume, and browsing data from one or more files within the block-level data volume via the established one or more mount paths provided by the virtual GPT disk.

Claims

1. A method performed by a data agent of an information management system for restoring data from a block-level data volume contained in at least one secondary data storage device, the method comprising:

receiving a user-based request to restore one or more files from the block-level data volume;

mounting at least one virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume;

accessing one or more mount paths established by the virtual GPT disk between the data agent and the block-level data volume; and

browsing data from one or more files within the block-level data volume via the established one or more mount paths provided by the virtual GPT disk, wherein the browsing comprises;

identifying clusters within the block-level data volume that are associated with the one or more files;

translating the identified clusters into disk sectors;

transferring a read request of the disk sectors to a virtual disk driver;

receiving from the virtual disk driver, volume extent information (i) associated with volume extents for the one or more files within the block-level disk volume and (ii) converted by the virtual disk driver from disk extent information that was based on size and offset information associated with the disk sectors; and

accessing data associated with the one or more files within the block-level data volume using the received volume extent information associated with the volume extents for the one or more files within the block-level disk volume.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume includes creating a pseudo mount point to the block-level disk volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume includes launching a pseudo mount server having a client interface that mounts the virtual GPT disk to the block-level data volume.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume includes identifying a currently operating pseudo mount server having a client interface that mounts the virtual GPT disk to the block-level data volume.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume includes mounting the virtual GPT disk based on information contained in a file restore configuration file of an index cache associated with the block-level data volume.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume includes mounting a virtual GPT disk that includes a single partition based on a size of the block-level data volume to the block-level data volume.

7. A system for restoring data contained in a block-level data volume, the system comprising:

at least one processor;

at least one data storage device coupled to the at least one processor and storing instructions for implementing a process to restore data contained in a block-level data volume, wherein the process comprises;

receiving, via a request component, a request to perform a file-level restore of the block-level data volume;

mounting, via a pseudo mount component, a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume; and

restoring, via a restore component, data from one or more files within the block-level data volume via one or more mount paths provided by the virtual GPT disk.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the restore component is configured to:

identify clusters within the block-level data volume that are associated with the one or more files;

translate the identified clusters into disk sectors;

transfer a read request of the disk sectors to a virtual disk driver;

receive, from the virtual disk driver, volume extent information associated with volume extents for the one or more files within the block-level disk volume and converted by the virtual disk driver from disk extent information that was based on size and offset information associated with the disk sectors; and

access data from the one or more files within the block-level data volume using the received volume extent information associated with the volume extents for the one or more files within the block-level disk volume.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the pseudo mount component creates a pseudo mount point to the block-level disk volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the pseudo mount component launches a pseudo mount server having a client interface that mounts the virtual GPT disk to the block-level data volume.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the pseudo mount component identifies a currently operating pseudo mount server having a client interface that mounts the virtual GPT disk to the block-level data volume.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the pseudo mount component mounts the virtual GPT disk based on information contained in a file restore configuration file of an index cache associated with the block-level data volume.

13. The system of claim 7, wherein the pseudo mount component mounts a virtual GPT disk that includes a single partition based on a size of the block-level data volume to the block-level data volume.

14. The system of claim 7, wherein the restore component is configured to:

translating, via the virtual GPT disk and a virtual disk driver, a received file restore request into a volume extent request; and

restore data associated with the volume extent request.

15. A computer-readable medium, excluding transitory propagating signals, storing instructions that, when executed by a pseudo mount server, causes the pseudo mount server to perform a method for facilitating file-level browsing of a block-level data volume, the method comprising:

generating a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume;

translating, via the pseudo mount point, a file restore request into a volume extent request; and

restoring data associated with the volume extent request.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein generating a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume includes creating and mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein generating a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume includes accessing a running virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk and mounting the running virtual GPT disk to the block-level data volume.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein generating a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume includes mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk that includes a single partition based on a size of the block-level data volume to the block-level data volume.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein generating a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume includes creating a GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk that wraps the block-level data volume into a partition of the GPT disk.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the block-level data volume is a secondary storage data volume that contains backup data of primary data at a block-level.