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System and method for providing access to consistent point-in-time file versions

  • US 7,529,778 B1
  • Filed: 12/12/2001
  • Issued: 05/05/2009
  • Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2001
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

  • receiving a first request to locate information corresponding to prior versions of a file or folder, the file or folder is stored in a computer storage medium;

    in response to the first request to locate the information, automatically obtaining a set of a plurality of timestamps, each timestamp of the plurality of timestamps corresponding to each shadow volume of a plurality of shadow volumes that have a prior version of the file or folder maintained therein, wherein said each shadow volume of the plurality of shadow volumes is a different point in time read-only copy of a logical volume at different times, said each shadow volume of the plurality of shadow volumes having a corresponding differential file, wherein the obtaining the set of the plurality of timestamps comprises communicating with at least one remote file server device having at least one shadow volume;

    receiving an indication of whether a filtering process for the shadow volumes should be performed;

    determining whether the indication indicates that unique file filtering is active;

    when the unique file filtering is not active, generating a list from a set of timestamps;

    when the unique file filtering is active;

    for each timestamp in the set of timestamps, sending a request for file or folder attributes from a corresponding shadow volume by embedding a timestamp as a token in a path such that a distributed file server changes at distributed file system junction points do not affect the timestamp;

    generating a list of timestamps based on each response to the request for the file or folder attributes, each entry in list indicative of accessibility of the file or folder associated with said each entry, wherein the request for the file or folder attributes comprises setting a special parsing bit in a header of the request such that the request is flagged and the remote file server device detects the embedded timestamp; and

    filtering from the generated list of timestamps an entry of a prior version of the file that is not unique with respect to another prior version of the file already represented in the list of timestamps; and

    providing the filtered list of timestamps in response to the first request to locate the information such that the information enables retrieval of a corresponding version of a file or folder in the filtered list of timestamps, and wherein selection of a prior version of a file replaces a most current version of the file.

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