System, method and computer readable medium for file management

• US 8,977,661 B2
• Filed: 12/26/2012
• Issued: 03/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Barracuda Networks Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Sookasa, Inc. (Barracuda Networks Incorporated)
• Inventors: Cidon, Asaf, Prabandham, Gopal Madan, Cidon, Israel, Chandrashekhar, Shetty, Gavish, Lior, Srour, Barak
• Primary Examiner(s): LE, UYEN T
• Application Number:
  US13/726,643
• Publication Number:
  US 20140019498A1
• Time in Patent Office: 804 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/827
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/11 File system administration, e.g. details of archiving or snapshots file system backup G06F11/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/122 using management policies backup systems G06F11/1446; file migration policies for HSM systems G06F16/185
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems

Abstract

A method for file management, the method may include: calculating, by a management server that is located within a cloud computing environment, signatures of multiple files that are stored at multiple storage entities; and finding, by the management server, groups of similar files out of the multiple files, wherein the finding is in response to similarities between signatures of the multiple files; wherein the multiple storage entities comprise at least a first storage entity that is managed by a first management entity and a second storage entity that is managed by a second management entity that differs from the first management entity.

Claims

1. A method for file management, the method comprises:

calculating, by a management server that is located within a cloud computing environment, signatures of multiple files that are stored at multiple storage entities; and

finding, by the management server, groups of similar files out of the multiple files, wherein the finding is in response to similarities between signatures of the multiple files;

wherein the multiple storage entities comprise at least a first storage entity that is managed by a first management entity and a second storage entity that is managed by a second management entity that differs from the first management entity.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the first and second management entities are cloud storage services.

3. The method according to claim 1, comprising calculating, for each file of the multiple files, a signature of the file that is in response to a content of multiple segments of the file.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the calculating of the signature of the file comprises:

segmenting the file to provide the multiple segments of the file, and

calculating a unique file segment signature for each segment of the file based upon a content of the segment of the file, wherein unique file segment signatures of different values are calculated for segments of the file that differ from each other by content.

5. The method according to claim 4, comprising:

generating the signature of the file by compressing the unique file segment signatures to provide compressed file segment signatures and combining the compressed file signatures to provide the signature of the file.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein the compressed file signatures are at least fifty percent smaller than the unique file segment signatures.

7. The method according to claim 4, wherein the unique file segment signatures are at least thirty eight bytes long.

8. The method according to claim 4, wherein the unique file segment signature are at least forty eight bytes long.

9. The method according to claim 4, wherein the compressed file signatures are at least eighty percent smaller than the unique file segment signatures.

10. The method according to claim 4, wherein the compressed file signatures are at least ninety percent smaller than the unique file segment signatures.

11. The method according to claim 4, wherein the compressed file signatures are non-unique.

12. The method according to claim 4, wherein the segmenting maintains a separation between image content of the file and text content of the file.

13. The method according to claim 12, comprising segmenting only the text content of the file and preventing a segmentation of a single image of the file.

14. The method according to claim 1, further comprising replacing at least one file of a group of similar files by a more updated file of the group of similar files.

15. The method according to claim 1, further comprising deleting a majority of files of a group of similar files based upon usage patterns of multiple files of the group of similar files.

16. The method according to claim 15, comprising maintaining a most updated file of the group of similar files.

17. The method according to claim 15 comprising detecting files that belong to the group of similar files based upon the signatures of the files.

18. The method according to claim 15, further comprising monitoring a usage of the multiple files.

19. The method according to claim 18, further comprising generating a history of usage of files that belong to a group of similar files.

20. The method according to claim 18, comprising determining that different files of a group of similar files are either a same file or different version of the file, and generating a history of usage of that file.

21. The method according to claim 1, comprising enforcing a storage policy on a first file of a group of similar files based upon an compliance with the storage policy of a storage of a second file of the group of similar files.

22. The method according to claim 1, comprising defining a policy on a first file of a group of similar files based upon the policy of a folder of a second file of the same group of similar files.

23. The method according to claim 22, wherein the policy is a file access policy.

24. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one management entity is an enterprise file system.

25. A non-transitory computer readable medium that stores instructions for:

calculating, by a management server that is located within a cloud computing environment, signatures of multiple files that are stored at multiple storage entities; and

finding, by the management server, groups of similar files out of the multiple files, wherein the finding is in response to similarities between signatures of the multiple files;

wherein the multiple storage entities comprise at least a first storage entity that is managed by a first cloud storage service and a second storage entity that is managed by a second cloud storage service that differs from the first cloud storage service.