Information management cell with failover management capability

• US 9,483,361 B2
• Filed: 05/07/2014
• Issued: 11/01/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated, Tinton Falls Incorporated
• Inventors: Gokhale, Parag, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Karandikar, Amey Vijaykumar, Vijayan, Manoj Kumar
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Kamini
• Application Number:
  US14/272,253
• Publication Number:
  US 20140337663A1
• Time in Patent Office: 909 Days
• Field of Search: 714/4.11
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/006 Identification G06F11/2289 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1461 Backup scheduling policy
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1662 the resynchronized component or unit being a persistent storage device re-synchronization of failed mirror storage G06F11/2082; rebuild or reconstruction of parity RAID storage G06F11/1008
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2092 Techniques of failing over between control units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

According to certain aspects, an information management cell with failover management capability can include secondary storage computing devices configured to conduct primary data from a primary storage device(s) to a secondary storage device(s) during secondary copy operations, at the direction of a remote storage manager, wherein a first secondary storage computing device implements a failover storage manager configured to, in the event of a loss of connectivity between the cell and the remote storage manager: access a stored storage policy; initiate a first secondary copy operation according to the storage policy in which the first secondary storage computing device is involved in the creation of a first secondary copy on the secondary storage device(s); and initiate a second secondary copy operation according to the storage policy in which a second secondary storage computing device is involved in the creation of a second secondary copy on the secondary storage device(s).

Claims

1. An information management cell with failover management capability, comprising:

a plurality of computing devices comprising computer hardware, the plurality of computing devices including at least one client computing device and at least one secondary storage computing device;

the client computing device having installed thereon one or more applications, first data protection software, and second data protection software,

the computer hardware of the secondary storage computing device programmed to act as an interface between the client computing device and one or more secondary storage devices during secondary copy operations, at the direction of the remote storage manager that is geographically remote from the information management cell,

wherein the computer hardware of the client computing device is programmed via the first data protection software to, at the direction of a remote storage manager that is geographically remote from the client computing device, process data generated by the one or more applications according to a first secondary copy file format,

wherein the computer hardware of the client computing device is programmed via the second data protection software to, at the direction of a failover storage manager installed on a computing device of the plurality of computing devices of the information management cell, to process data generated by the one or more applications according to a second secondary copy file format,

wherein the failover storage manager is configured to, in the event of a loss of connectivity between the information management cell and the remote storage manager;

access a stored storage policy; and

cause the client computing device and the secondary storage computing device to perform a secondary copy operation according to the storage policy in which a secondary copy is written to the one or more secondary storage devices in the second secondary copy file format, using the second data protection software.

2. The information management cell of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is further configured to assign a temporary unique job ID for the secondary copy operation.

3. The information management cell of claim 2, wherein the temporary unique job ID is generated based on one or more of an identifier for the information management cell and a time at which the secondary copy operation is performed.

4. The information management cell of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is further configured to provide information that is used in performing the secondary copy operation, the information comprising one or more of:

global namespace, source location, and destination location.

5. The information management cell of claim 1, wherein a computing device of the plurality of computing devices of the information management cell is configured to detect loss of connectivity to the remote storage manager by polling the remote storage manager at an interval.

6. The information management cell of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is further configured to obtain the storage policy from the remote storage manager.

7. The information management cell of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is one of a plurality of failover storage managers in the information management cell, and the failover storage manager is selected for use in response to the loss of connectivity based at least in part on a pre-determined order of priority for activating the plurality of failover storage managers.

8. The information management cell of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager has limited functionality in comparison to the remote storage manager.

17. The information management cell of claim 1, wherein the plurality of computing devices of the information management cell are in networked communication with one another via a local area network, and wherein the information management cell is in networked communication with the remote storage manager via a wide area network.

18. The information management cell of claim 1, wherein the failover storage manager is implemented by the secondary storage computing device.

9. A method of providing failover management capability in an information management system, the method comprising:

with an information management cell, receiving an instruction to perform a first secondary copy operation from a remote storage manager that is geographically remote from the information management cell, wherein the information management cell comprises

a plurality of computing devices comprising computer hardware, the plurality of computing devices including at least one client computing device having installed thereon one or more applications, first data protection software, and second data protection software,

in response to the instruction received from the remote storage manager;

with the client computing device, executing the first data protection software to process data generated by the one or more applications; and

using one or more of the plurality of computing devices within the information management cell to create a first secondary copy on one or more secondary storage devices, the first secondary copy including at least some of the data processed by the first data protection software;

subsequent to creation of the first secondary copy, detecting a loss of connectivity between the information management cell and the remote storage manager;

in response to said detecting the loss of connectivity between the information management cell and the remote storage manager;

accessing, by a failover storage manager executing on one of the plurality of computing devices within the information management cell, a stored storage policy; and

initiating, by the failover storage manager, performance of a second secondary copy operation by the information management cell according to the storage policy; and

as part of performance of the second secondary copy operation;

executing the second data protection software to process data generated by the one or more applications; and

using one or more of the plurality of computing devices within the information management cell to create a second secondary copy on one or more secondary storage devices, the second secondary copy including the data processed by the second data protection software.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising assigning, by the failover storage manager, a temporary unique job ID for the second secondary copy operation.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the temporary unique job ID is generated based on one or more of an identifier for the information management cell and a time at which the second secondary copy operation is performed.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising providing, by the failover storage manager, information that is used in performing the second secondary copy operation, the information comprising one or more of:

global namespace, source location, and destination location.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein said detecting a loss of connectivity between the information management cell and the remote storage manager comprises polling the remote storage manager at an interval.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising obtaining, by the failover storage manager, the storage policy from the remote storage manager.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the failover storage manager is one of a plurality of failover storage managers in the information management cell, and the failover storage manager is selected for use in response to the loss of connectivity based at least in part on a pre-determined order of priority for activating the plurality of failover storage managers.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the failover storage manager has limited functionality in comparison to the remote storage manager.

19. The method of claim 9, wherein the plurality of computing devices of the information management cell are in networked communication with one another via a local area network, and wherein the information management cell is in networked communication with the remote storage manager via a wide area network.

20. The method of claim 9, wherein the computing device on which the failover storage manager is executed has a media agent installed thereon.