Incremental block based backup

• US 8,898,407 B1
• Filed: 09/30/2011
• Issued: 11/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Balasubramanian, Shankar, Mandic, Vladimir, Kasargod, Sriprasad Bhat, Raj, Anand
• Primary Examiner(s): CHOE, YONG J
• Application Number:
  US13/250,593
• Time in Patent Office: 1,152 Days
• Field of Search: 711/161, 711/162, 711/163, 711/E12.059, 711/12.103
• US Class Current: 711/161
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1453 using de-duplication of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual

Abstract

A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for protecting data. In some embodiments, this includes taking a snapshot of a physical volume with a native snapshot program, determining which blocks have changed since a previous snapshot with a change block tracker, creating a child virtual container, populating the child virtual container with the changed blocks, and linking the child virtual container with a parent virtual container.

Claims

1. A method for protecting data, comprising:

taking a snapshot of a physical volume with a native snapshot program;

identifying changed blocks with a change block tracker, wherein changed blocks are blocks that have changed since a previous snapshot;

determining, at a source, whether a deduplicated virtual storage device contains an instance of individuals of the changed blocks;

transmitting the individuals of the changed blocks to the deduplicated virtual storage device when the deduplicated virtual storage devices does not contain the instance of the individuals;

creating a child virtual container in the deduplicated virtual storage device;

populating the child virtual container with the individuals of the changed blocks; and

linking the child virtual container with a parent virtual container stored on the deduplicated virtual storage device.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the child virtual container and the parent virtual container are in VMDK format.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising taking a second snapshot of the physical volume with the native snapshot program, determining which blocks have changed since the previous snapshot with the change block tracker, creating a second child virtual container, populating the second child virtual container with the second set of changed blocks, and linking the second child virtual container with the parent virtual container.

4. A system for protecting data, comprising a physical volume, a deduplicated virtual storage device, and a processor configured to:

take a snapshot of a physical volume with a native snapshot program;

identify changed blocks with a change block tracker, wherein changed blocks are blocks that have changed since a previous snapshot;

determine, at a source, whether a deduplicated virtual storage device contains an instance of individuals of the changed blocks;

transmit the individuals of the changed blocks to the deduplicated virtual storage device when the deduplicated virtual storage devices does not contain the instance of the individuals;

create a child virtual container in the deduplicated virtual storage device;

populate the child virtual container with the individuals of the changed blocks; and

link the child virtual container with a parent virtual container stored on the virtual deduplicated virtual storage device.

5. A computer program product for protecting data, comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having program instructions embodied therein for:

taking a snapshot of a physical volume with a native snapshot program;

identifying changed blocks with a change block tracker, wherein changed blocks are blocks that have changed since a previous snapshot;

determining, at a source, whether a deduplicated virtual storage device contains an instance of individuals of the changed blocks;

transmitting the individuals of the changed blocks to the deduplicated virtual storage device when the deduplicated virtual storage devices does not contain the instance of the individuals;

creating a child virtual container in the deduplicated virtual storage device;

populating the child virtual container with the individuals of the changed blocks; and

linking the child virtual container with a parent virtual container stored on the deduplicated virtual storage device.