Versatile information management

• US 9,454,440 B2
• Filed: 03/18/2005
• Issued: 09/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Kushwah, Ajay Pratap Singh, Kaushik, Akhil, Xing, Jian, Joshi, Mayank, Kumar, Pashupati, Periyagaram, Subramaniam, Suryanarayanan, Rangarajan, Bijani, Yogita
• Primary Examiner(s): Tiv, Backhean
• Application Number:
  US11/084,679
• Publication Number:
  US 20080162719A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,211 Days
• Field of Search: 718/1, 709/224, 707/602, 707/640, 707/661, 707/674
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

A method for information management comprises intercepting an output from an application; distributing packets according to a routing scheme, wherein the packets are associated with the output, and wherein distributing the packets may occur when the application is associated with a first operating system, and may also occur when the application is associated with a second operating system; and storing the packets.

Claims

1. A system for information management comprising:

a processor configured to;

intercept an output received from an application;

generate one or more packets that include the intercepted output;

distribute a first set of packets according to a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) routing scheme, wherein the first set of packets are in TCP/IP format;

distribute a second set of packets according to a storage area network (SAN) routing scheme;

transform the first set of packets from TCP/IP format into a common format associated with a markup language;

transform the second set of packets into the common format;

store the first set of packets transformed into the common format and the second set of packets transformed into the common format;

in the event an indication is received to restore data to a state it was in at a previous point in time, retrieving at least some of the first set of packets transformed into the common format or at least some of the second set of packets transformed into the common format and use the retrieved information to restore the data to the state it was in at the previous point in time;

insert one or more recovery points in the event it is a scheduled time to insert a recovery point or in the event substantially all applications are in a quiescent state, wherein the inserted one or more recovery points are included in the one or more generated packets and are distributed and stored;

in response to receiving an indication perform a back up, locate the inserted recovery points;

receive a selection from the located recovery points of a recovery point to back up; and

access stored metadata to obtain the location of stored data corresponding to the selected recovery point to back up; and

a memory configured to provide the processor with instructions.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to generate a milestone marker packet in the event the output is associated with creating a file, the output is associated with deleting a file, or the output is associated with a backup milestone marker inserted according to a preset schedule;

and wherein the packets distributed and stored include the milestone marker packet.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein:

in the event the processor configured to intercept the output is on a network attached storage (NAS) device, the processor is configured to intercept the output using a protocol packet interceptor which is configured to intercept packets in an Internet Protocol (IP) format; and

in the event the processor configured to intercept the output is on a storage area network (SAN) device, the processor is configured to intercept the output using a block interceptor which is configured to intercept changes to one or more selected data blocks independent of which files those data blocks are associated with.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein intercepting occurs before an operating system writes to a storage.

5. A computer program product for information management, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:

intercepting an output received from an application;

generating one or more packets that include the intercepted output;

distributing a first set of packets according to a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) routing scheme, wherein the first set of packets are in TCP/IP format;

distributing a second set of packets according to a storage area network (SAN) routing scheme;

transforming the first set of packets from TCP/IP format into a common format associated with a markup language;

transforming the second set of packets into the common format;

storing the first set of packets transformed into the common format and the second set of packets transformed into the common format;

in the event an indication is received to restore data to a state it was in at a previous point in time, retrieving at least some of the first set of packets transformed into the common format or at least some of the second set of packets transformed into the common format and using the retrieved information to restore the data to the state it was in at the previous point in time;

inserting one or more recovery points in the event it is a scheduled time to insert a recovery point or in the event substantially all applications are in a quiescent state, wherein the inserted one or more recovery points are included in the one or more generated packets and are distributed and stored;

in response to receiving an indication perform a back up, locating the inserted recovery points;

receiving a selection from the located recovery points of a recovery point to back up; and

accessing stored metadata to obtain the location of stored data corresponding to the selected recovery point to back up.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, further comprising computer instructions for generating a milestone marker packet in the event the output is associated with creating a file, the output is associated with deleting a file, or the output is associated with a backup milestone marker inserted according to a preset schedule;

and

wherein the packets distributed and stored include the milestone marker packet.

7. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein intercepting occurs before an operating system writes to a storage.

8. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein:

in the event intercepting the output occurs on a network attached storage (NAS) device, the computer instructions for intercepting the output include computer instructions for using a protocol packet interceptor which is configured to intercept packets in an Internet Protocol (IP) format; and

in the event intercepting the output occurs on a storage area network (SAN) device, the computer instructions for intercepting the output include computer instructions for using a block interceptor which is configured to intercept changes to one or more selected data blocks independent of which files those data blocks are associated with.

9. A system for information management comprising:

a processor configured to;

intercept an output received from an application, including by;

in the event a configuration setting associated with file versioning is received, use a file interceptor which is configured to intercept changes to one or more selected files; and

in the event a configuration setting associated with block versioning is received, use a block interceptor which is configured to intercept changes to one or more selected data blocks independent of which files those data blocks are associated with;

generate one or more packets that include the intercepted output

distribute a first set of packets according to a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) routing scheme, wherein the first set of packets are in TCP/IP format

distribute a second set of packets according to a storage area network (SAN) routing scheme;

transform the first set of packets from TCP/IP format into a common format associated with a markup language;

transform the second set of packets into the common format;

store the first set of packets transformed into the common format and the second set of packets transformed into the common format; and

in the event an indication is received to restore data to a state it was in at a previous point in time, retrieving at least some of the first set of packets transformed into the common format or at least some of the second set of packets transformed into the common format and use the retrieved information to restore the data to the state it was in at the previous point in time; and

a memory configured to provide the processor with instructions.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the processor is further configured to generate a milestone marker packet in the event the output is associated with creating a file, the output is associated with deleting a file, or the output is associated with a backup milestone marker inserted according to a preset schedule;

and wherein the packets distributed and stored include the milestone marker packet.

11. The system program product of claim 9, wherein intercepting occurs before an operating system writes to a storage.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein:

in the event the processor configured to intercept the output is on a network attached storage (NAS) device, the processor is configured to intercept the output using a protocol packet interceptor which is configured to intercept packets in an Internet Protocol (IP) format; and

in the event the processor configured to intercept the output is on a storage area network (SAN) device, the processor is configured to intercept the output using a block interceptor which is configured to intercept changes to one or more selected data blocks independent of which files those data blocks are associated with.

13. A computer program product for information management, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:

intercepting an output received from an application, including by;

in the event a configuration setting associated with file versioning is received, using a file interceptor which is configured to intercept changes to one or more selected files; and

in the event a configuration setting associated with block versioning is received, using a block interceptor which is configured to intercept changes to one or more selected data blocks independent of which files those data blocks are associated with;

generating one or more packets that include the intercepted output

distributing a first set of packets according to a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) routing scheme, wherein the first set of packets are in TCP/IP format;

distributing a second set of packets according to a storage area network (SAN) routing scheme;

transforming the first set of packets from TCP/IP format into a common format associated with a markup language;

transforming the second set of packets into the common format;

storing the first set of packets transformed into the common format and the second set of packets transformed into the common format; and

in the event an indication is received to restore data to a state it was in at a previous point in time, retrieving at least some of the first set of packets transformed into the common format or at least some of the second set of packets transformed into the common format and using the retrieved information to restore the data to the state it was in at the previous point in time.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, further comprising computer instructions for generating a milestone marker packet in the event the output is associated with creating a file, the output is associated with deleting a file, or the output is associated with a backup milestone marker inserted according to a preset schedule;

and wherein the packets distributed and stored include the milestone marker packet.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein intercepting occurs before an operating system writes to a storage.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein:

in the event intercepting the output occurs on a network attached storage (NAS) device, the computer instructions for intercepting the output include computer instructions for using a protocol packet interceptor which is configured to intercept packets in an Internet Protocol (IP) format; and

in the event intercepting the output occurs on a storage area network (SAN) device, the computer instructions for intercepting the output include computer instructions for using a block interceptor which is configured to intercept changes to one or more selected data blocks independent of which files those data blocks are associated with.