Stubbing systems and methods in a data replication environment

• US 9,483,511 B2
• Filed: 03/12/2015
• Issued: 11/01/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Prahlad, Anand, Agrawal, Vijay H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ruiz, Angelica
• Application Number:
  US14/645,982
• Publication Number:
  US 20150248444A1
• Time in Patent Office: 600 Days
• Field of Search: 707600-831, 707/899, 707999001-999206
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1734 Details of monitoring file system events, e.g. by the use of hooks, filter drivers, logs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1748 De-duplication implemented within the file system, e.g. based on file segments de-duplication techniques in storage systems for the management of data blocks G06F3/0641
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/81 Indexing, e.g. XML tags; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/80 Database-specific techniques

Abstract

Stubbing systems and methods are provided for intelligent data management in a replication environment, such as by reducing the space occupied by replication data on a destination system. In certain examples, stub files or like objects replace migrated, de-duplicated or otherwise copied data that has been moved from the destination system to secondary storage. Access is further provided to the replication data in a manner that is transparent to the user and/or without substantially impacting the base replication process. In order to distinguish stub files representing migrated replication data from replicated stub files, priority tags or like identifiers can be used. Thus, when accessing a stub file on the destination system, such as to modify replication data or perform a restore process, the tagged stub files can be used to recall archived data prior to performing the requested operation so that an accurate copy of the source data is generated.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, in response to a communication from a first computing device, a modification instruction to modify a first portion of data at a second computing device, at least a portion of the first portion of data received from the first computing device at a point in time prior to receiving the communication from the first computing device, the first portion of data including a stub file;

determining, based at least in part on whether the stub file includes a tag value, whether the stub file is of a first type of stub file or a second type of stub file, wherein the first type of stub file indicates that the stub file was received with the first portion of data from the first computing device and wherein the second type of stub file indicates that the stub file was created at the second computing device after the first portion of data was received from the first computing device;

in response to determining that the stub file is of the second type of stub file;

retrieving a data block from a secondary storage of the second computing device;

replacing the stub file with the data block to obtain a restored first portion of data; and

modifying the restored first portion of data based on the modification instruction.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, in response to a second communication from the first computing device, a second modification instruction to modify a second portion of data at the second computing device, the second portion of data received from the first computing device at a point in time prior to receiving the second communication from the first computing device, the second portion of data including a second stub file;

determining whether the second stub file is of the first type or the second type; and

in response to determining that the second stub file is of the first type, modifying the second portion of data based on the modification instruction, wherein the second stub file does not correspond to data blocks stored at the secondary storage of the second computing device.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the said determining comprises:

accessing an index of stub files; and

determining whether the stub file is identified in the index.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a duplicate of the stub file is included in a second portion of data at the second computing device.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said retrieving the data block is prioritized over other data replication operations.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the stub file of the second type is associated with a tag, the tag used to distinguish stub files of the first type from stub files of the second type.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the stub file comprises a self-describing stub file that identifies a type of the stub file and a location of the data block.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the data block referenced by the stub file corresponds to a file.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the communication from the first computing device comprises a log file indicative of modification to data at the first computing device corresponding to the first portion of data.

10. A system comprising:

a secondary storage device configured to store one or more common data blocks, the one or more common data blocks comprising data blocks included in multiple portions of data stored at a destination computing device;

the destination computing device in communication with the secondary storage device and configured to;

receive, from a source computing device, an indication to modify a first portion of data at the destination computing device, at least a portion of the first portion of data received from the source computing device;

determine whether the first portion of data includes a stub file;

in response to determining that the first portion of data includes the stub file, determine, based at least in part on whether the stub file includes a tab value, whether the stub file was received from the source computing device or generated by a migration module of the destination computing device;

in response to determining that the stub file was generated by the destination computing device, the destination computing device is further configured to;

restore a common data block from the one or more common data blocks stored at the secondary storage device, the common data block corresponding to the stub file;

replace the stub file with the common data block to obtain a restored first portion of data; and

modify the restored first portion of data based on the indication to modify the first portion of data.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the destination computing device is further configured to determine whether the stub file was generated by the destination computing device by accessing an index of stub files.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the destination computing device is further configured to prioritize restoring the common data block over operations performed by the migration module.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the stub file is associated with a tag when the stub file is generated by the destination computing device.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the indication to modify the first portion of data is included in a log file received from the source computing device, the log file indicative of changes to source data at the source computing device, the source data corresponding to the first portion of data.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the destination computing device is further configured to:

receive a second portion of data from the source computing device;

identify an occurrence of the common data block in the second portion of data; and

replace the common data block in the second portion of data with a copy of the stub file.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the second portion of data includes a second stub file received from the source computing device, the second stub file of a different type than the stub file.

17. A computer-readable, non-transitory storage medium storing computer executable instructions that, when executed by one or more computing devices, configure the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:

receiving an identification of a modification to a first portion of data stored at a second computing device, at least a portion of the first portion of data received from a first computing device, the first portion of data including a stub file, and the modification occurring at the first computing device;

determining, based at least in part on whether the stub file includes a tab value, whether the stub file is of a first type of stub file or a second type of stub file, wherein the first type of stub file indicates that the stub file was included with the first portion of data when the first portion of data was received from the first computing device and wherein the second type of stub file indicates that the stub file was created at the second computing device after the first portion of data was received from the first computing device; and

in response to determining that the stub file is of the second type of stub file;

accessing a data block from a secondary storage of the second computing device;

replacing the stub file with the data block to obtain a restored first portion of data; and

modifying the restored first portion of data based on the indication of the modification.

18. The computer-readable, non-transitory storage medium of claim 17, wherein the said determining comprises:

accessing an index of stub files; and

determining whether the stub file is referenced in the index.

19. The computer-readable, non-transitory storage medium of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a second portion of data from the source computing device;

identifying an occurrence of the data block in the second portion of data; and

replacing the data block in the second portion of data with a copy of the stub file.

20. The computer-readable, non-transitory storage medium of claim 19, wherein the second portion of data includes a second stub file, wherein the second stub file is of the first type.