Systems and methods for differential health checking of an information management system

• US 9,590,886 B2
• Filed: 11/01/2013
• Issued: 03/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Kripalani, Sanjay Harakhchand, Gokhale, Parag
• Primary Examiner(s): Etienne, Ario
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kassa, Elizabeth
• Application Number:
  US14/069,745
• Publication Number:
  US 20150127804A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,222 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/302 where the computing system component is a software system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/32 with visual or acoustical indication of the functioning of the machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/34 Recording or statistical evaluation of computer activity, e.g. of down time, of input/output operation ; Recording or statistical evaluation of user activity, e.g. usability assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3485 for I/O devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/215 Improving data quality; Data cleansing, e.g. de-duplication, removing invalid entries or correcting typographical errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/88 Monitoring involving counting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

Differential health-check systems and accompanying methods provide health-checking and reporting of one or more information management systems in reference to a first time period before and a second time period after a triggering event. A triggering event may be an upgrade of at least part of the information management system, or a restore operation completed in the information management system for example following a disaster, or any number of other events, etc. The health-checking and reporting may comprise a comparison of one or more performance metrics of one or more components and/or operations of the information management system during the first and second time periods.

Claims

1. A method for differential health-checking of storage operations before and after a triggering event defined as a restore operation, the method comprising:

receiving, by a differential health-check module, a request for a differential health-check report for a timeframe comprising storage operations managed by a storage manager in an information management system,

wherein the timeframe comprises a triggering event defined as a restore operation that comprises recovering data from a secondary copy stored in the information management system using a first storage component of the information management system;

identifying, by the differential health-check module, a first time period that occurred before the triggering event defined as the restore operation,

wherein the first storage component participated in one or more of the storage operations managed by the storage manager during the first time period, and wherein the first storage component is one of;

(a) a data agent that arranged primary data into one or more secondary copy formats different from a primary data format and transmitted the arranged data to a media agent, and

(b) the media agent that created one or more secondary copies based on the arranged data received from the data agent and stored the one or more secondary copies to an associated secondary storage device;

identifying, by the differential health-check module, a second time period that occurred after completion of the triggering event defined as the restore operation;

generating, by the differential health-check module, one or more queries for the storage manager regarding the first storage component operating during the first time period and the second time period;

evaluating, by the differential health-check module, a first value of a first performance metric in the first time period,

wherein the first performance metric measures at least one characteristic of storage operations in which the first storage component participated before and after the triggering event defined as the restore operation;

evaluating, by the differential health-check module, a second value of the first performance metric in the second time period;

generating, by the differential health-check module, an indication to a user of a comparison of the second value of the first performance metric to the first value of the first performance metric,

wherein the comparison includes storage operations in which the first storage component participated during the first time period and the second time period but does not include the triggering event defined as the restore operation.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first performance metric measures, for the first storage component, one or more of:

how many storage operation jobs were completed, how many of the completed storage operation jobs had errors, the average data throughput for the completed storage operation jobs, the average duration of the completed storage operation jobs, the average number of attempts to complete a storage operation job, how much data was transferred in storage operations, how much disk space was consumed by the storage operations, and how much free disk space remains after the storage operations.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

detecting, by the differential health-check module, a change in performance of at least some of the storage operations in which the first storage component participated, based on the comparison of the second value of the first performance metric to the first value of the first performance metric.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the first value and the second value are further based on data extracted by the storage manager, in response to the one or more queries, from one or more indexes in a respective media agent component of the information management system.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the first value is based on information provided by the storage manager before the restore operation and the second value is based on information provided by the storage manager after the restore operation.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the first storage component is the media agent that executes on a secondary storage computing device in communication with the storage manager.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the first storage component is the media agent that executes on a secondary storage computing device in communication with the associated secondary storage device.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the differential health-check module is a computing device comprising one or more processors and corresponding computer memory for performing the functionality of the differential health-check module.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the differential health-check module is a computing device comprising circuitry for performing computer operations.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

requesting, by the differential health-check module before the restore operation, information about the information management system from the storage manager.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the information management system is a data backup system.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the restore operation comprises restoring a component of a primary storage subsystem in the information management system.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the restore operation comprises restoring a component of a primary storage subsystem in the information management system, and further wherein the component is restored from a first host computing device to a different second host computing device.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the restore operation comprises restoring a component of a secondary storage subsystem in the information management system.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the restore operation comprises restoring a component of a secondary storage subsystem in the information management system from a non-operational state to an operational state, and further wherein the component is restored from a first host computing device to a different second host computing device.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the restore operation comprises restoring at least part of the storage manager.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the restore operation comprises restoring at least part of the storage manager in the information management system, and further wherein the storage manager is restored from a first host computing device to a different second host computing device.

18. A system for reporting differential health-checks of storage operations before and after a triggering event defined as a restore operation, the system comprising:

a storage manager, wherein an information management system operates under the control of the storage manager,

wherein the storage manager is configured to initiate, perform, coordinate, and control data storage operations in the information management system, and

wherein the data storage operations comprise one or more of copying, archiving, migrating, and replicating;

a differential health-check component, which is in communication with the storage manager and which is configured to define, based on a received request for a differential health-check report having a report timeframe comprising data storage operations in the information management system,

(a) a first time period that occurred before at least part of the information management system underwent a triggering event defined as a restore operation, wherein the restore operation comprised recovering data from a secondary copy in the information management system using a first component of the information management system, and

(b) a second time period that occurred after the triggering event defined as the restore operation was completed;

wherein the differential health-check component is further configured to;

generate one or more queries for the storage manager regarding operational information about the first component operating during the first time period and the second time period;

wherein the differential health-check component is further configured to evaluate, based on the operational information received from the storage manager in response to the one or more queries, (i) a first value of a first performance metric for the first component operating in the first time period, and (ii) a second value of the first performance metric for the first component operating in the second time period,

wherein the first performance metric measures at least one characteristic of storage operations in which the first component participated; and

wherein the differential health-check component is further configured to generate the differential health-check report, based at least in part on comparing the second value of the first performance metric to the first value of the first performance metric, and

wherein the comparing includes storage operations in which the first component participated during the first time period and the second time period but does not include the triggering event defined as the restore operation.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the at least one characteristic of storage operations in which the first component participated as measured by the differential health-check module comprises one or more of:

how many storage operation jobs were completed, how many of the completed storage operation jobs had errors, the average data throughput for the completed storage operation jobs, the average duration of the completed storage operation jobs, the average number of attempts to complete a storage operation job, how much data was transferred in storage operations, how much disk space was consumed by the storage operations, and how much free disk space remains after the storage operations.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein the operational information is obtained by the storage manager from at least one of:

(A) an associated database, (B) the first component, and (C) a second component of the information management system that is associated with the first component for performing storage operations in the information management system.

21. The system of claim 18 wherein the first component is a data agent configured to arrange primary data into one or more secondary copy formats different from a primary data format and to transmit the arranged data to a media agent.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein the first component is a media agent configured to create one or more secondary copies based on the arranged data received from the data agent and to store the one or more secondary copies to an associated secondary storage device.