System and method for rapid restoration of server from back up

• US 7,475,282 B2
• Filed: 02/03/2006
• Issued: 01/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MidCap Financial Trust
• Original Assignee: Acronis, Inc. (Acronis AG)
• Inventors: Beloussov, Serguei M., Tormasov, Alexander G., Lyadvinsky, Maxim V., Tsypliaev, Maxim V.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wilson; Yolanda L
• Application Number:
  US11/346,356
• Publication Number:
  US 20060143501A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,068 Days
• Field of Search: 714/6
• US Class Current: 714/6.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1417 Boot up procedures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques

Abstract

A method of restoring a storage device includes creating an image of the storage device of a computer system; during execution of a boot loader, starting an initialization application that at least partially restores to the storage device, operating system data from the image; modifying a disk driver of the operating system to form a driver that redirects unexecutable storage device read requests to the image; rebooting the computer system using the at least partially restored operating system data; and restoring unaltered portions of remaining data from the image as a background process.

Claims

1. A method of restoring a storage device, the method comprising:

creating an image of the storage device of a server;

during execution of a boot loader, starting an initialization application that partially restores, to the storage device, operating system data from the image;

modifying a disk driver of the operating system to redirect unexecutable storage device read requests to the image;

as a first restoration step, rebooting the computer system using the partially restored operating system data; and

as a second restoration step, restoring unaltered portions of remaining data from the image as an asynchronous background process, wherein the background process comprises copying data from a virtual hard disk drive to a local hard disk drive.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the restored server identification and authentication data is updated before the rebooting.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the image is unchanged until completion of the restoring steps.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein data corresponding to write requests to the image is backed up during the restoring steps.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein one partition of the storage device is used as the storage device while another partition of the storage device is used as a boot device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the restoring is performed over a network.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the image is created on at least one sewer connected to a network.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the restoration of the unaltered portions of remaining data based on a preassigned priority of blocks of the image.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the priority is preassigned based on performance of reading blocks from an image storage device.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a bitmap corresponding to blocks of the image, with unrestored blocks marked in the bitmap.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising at least one of unmarking, in the bitmap, blocks being updated after a local drive write request execution and unmarking, in the bitmap, the blocks being restored.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the modified driver considers the storage device read request as unexecutable if corresponding block has been marked in the bitmap.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising restoring the disk driver after all the blocks have been unmarked in the bitmap, the disk driver servicing all local drive access requests.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising restoring more than one storage device from the image.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein data transmission during the background process is executed as a low priority process.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the restoration process also employs an incremental image of the storage device.

17. A method of restoring a storage device of a server, the method comprising:

creating an image of the storage device;

during execution of a boot loader, starting an initialization application that partially restores to the storage device, operating system data from the image;

modifying a disk driver of the operating system to redirect unexecutable storage device read requests to the image;

copying portions of data needed for operation of the server operation from the image to the server on an on-demand basis,

as a first restoration step, restoring parts of the storage device corresponding to the data from the image; and

as a second restoration step, restoring remaining data of the storage device from the image as an asynchronous background process,

wherein the background process comprises copying data from a virtual hard disk drive to a local hard disk drive.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the image is created on at least one server connected to a network.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising saving updated sectors as an incremental backup.

20. A method of restoring a storage device, comprising:

booting up a server, including replacing a Master Boot Record and launching a dedicated driver that redirects unexecutable storage device read requests to a previously created image of the storage device;

copying, from the image to the server, a portion of the image;

as a first restoration step, restoring portions of the storage device corresponding to the portion of the image; and

as a second restoration step, restoring unaltered portions of remaining data of the storage device from the image as an asynchronous background process,

wherein the background process comprises copying data from a virtual hard disk drive to a local hard disk drive.

21. A method of restoring a storage device, the method comprising:

creating an image of the storage device of a server;

during execution of a boot loader, starting an initialization application that partially restores, to the storage device, operating system data from the image;

adding, to a disk driver of the operating system, a disk level filter that intercepts unexecutable storage device read requests and redirects them to the image;

as a first restoration step, rebooting the computer system using the partially restored operating system data; and

as a second restoration step, restoring unaltered portions of remaining data from the image as an asynchronous background process,

wherein the background process comprises copying data from a virtual hard disk drive to a local hard disk drive.