Synthetic block based backup

• US 9,483,358 B1
• Filed: 09/30/2011
• Issued: 11/01/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Balasubramanian, Shankar, Mandic, Vladimir, Kasargod, Sriprasad Bhat, Raj, Anand
• Primary Examiner(s): Rutz, Jared
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ayash, Marwan
• Application Number:
  US13/250,692
• Time in Patent Office: 1,859 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1446 Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• 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 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data

Abstract

A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for protecting data. In some embodiments, this includes identifying a parent virtual container, identifying a linked child virtual container, creating a fast copy of the parent virtual container and the linked child virtual container, and consolidating the copy of the parent virtual container and the copy of the linked child virtual container based on the format of the parent virtual container.

Claims

1. A method for protecting data, comprising:

taking a first snapshot of a physical volume using a native snapshot program, wherein the first snapshot comprises a plurality of data blocks;

transmitting the plurality of data blocks from the physical volume to a deduplicated storage device;

identifying a parent virtual container stored on the deduplicated storage device, wherein the parent virtual container comprises a blank virtual machine disk (“

VMDK”

) file;

populating the parent virtual container block-by-block with the plurality of data blocks received from the physical volume;

taking a second snapshot of the physical volume using the native snapshot program, wherein the second snapshot comprises a second plurality of blocks;

identifying a plurality of changed blocks from the second plurality of blocks, wherein the changed blocks comprise blocks that have changed since taking the first snapshot of the physical volume;

identifying a child virtual container linked to the parent virtual container, wherein the child virtual container is stored on the deduplicated storage device;

transmitting the plurality of changed blocks to deduplicated storage device;

populating the child virtual container with the plurality of changed blocks;

creating a fast copy of the parent virtual container and the linked child virtual container;

consolidating the copy of the parent virtual container and the copy of the linked child virtual container based on the format of the parent virtual container to form a consolidated copy on the deduplicated storage device;

deleting the parent virtual container and the child virtual container linked to the parent in accordance with a policy identifying an amount of restore points; and

mounting the consolidated copy from the deduplicated storage device.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein consolidating the copy based on the format includes using VMWare products to consolidate parent and child VMDK files.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating a fast copy includes creating pointers to parent virtual container blocks and linked child virtual container blocks.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein deleting the parent virtual container and the linked child virtual container is based on a retention policy.

5. A system for protecting data, comprising a non-transitory deduplicated storage device, and a processor configured to:

take a first snapshot of a physical volume using a native snapshot program, wherein the first snapshot comprises a plurality of data blocks;

transmit the plurality of data blocks from the physical volume to a deduplicated storage device;

identify a parent virtual container stored on the deduplicated storage device, wherein the parent virtual container comprises a blank virtual machine disk (“

VMDK”

) file;

populate the parent virtual container block-by-block with the plurality of data blocks received from the physical volume;

take a second snapshot of the physical volume using the native snapshot program, wherein the second snapshot comprises a second plurality of blocks;

identify a plurality of changed blocks from the second plurality of blocks, wherein the changed blocks comprise blocks that have changed since taking the first snapshot of the physical volume;

identify a child virtual container linked to the parent virtual container, wherein the child virtual container is stored on the deduplicated storage device;

transmit the plurality of changed blocks to deduplicated storage device;

populate the child virtual container with the plurality of changed blocks;

create a fast copy of the parent virtual container and the linked child virtual container;

consolidate the copy of the parent virtual container and the copy of the linked child virtual container based on the format of the parent virtual container to form a consolidated copy on the deduplicated storage device;

delete the parent virtual container and the child virtual container linked to the parent in accordance with a policy identifying an amount of restore points; and

mount the consolidated copy from the deduplicated storage device.

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

taking a first snapshot of a physical volume using a native snapshot program, wherein the first snapshot comprises a plurality of data blocks;

transmitting the plurality of data blocks from the physical volume to a deduplicated storage device;

identifying a parent virtual container stored on the deduplicated storage device, wherein the parent virtual container comprises a blank virtual machine disk (“

VMDK”

) file;

populating the parent virtual container block-by-block with the plurality of data blocks received from the physical volume;

taking a second snapshot of the physical volume using the native snapshot program, wherein the second snapshot comprises a second plurality of blocks;

identifying a plurality of changed blocks from the second plurality of blocks, wherein the changed blocks comprise blocks that have changed since taking the first snapshot of the physical volume;

identifying a child virtual container linked to the parent virtual container, wherein the child virtual container is stored on the deduplicated storage device;

transmitting the plurality of changed blocks to deduplicated storage device;

populating the child virtual container with the plurality of changed blocks;

creating a fast copy of the parent virtual container and the linked child virtual container;

consolidating the copy of the parent virtual container and the copy of the linked child virtual container based on the format of the parent virtual container to form a consolidated copy on the deduplicated storage device;

deleting the parent virtual container and the child virtual container linked to the parent in accordance with a policy identifying an amount of restore points; and

mounting the consolidated copy from the deduplicated storage device.