Differential health checking of an information management system

• US 9,928,258 B2
• Filed: 01/06/2017
• Issued: 03/27/2018
• 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): Meky, Moustafa M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kassa, Elizabeth
• Application Number:
  US15/400,830
• Publication Number:
  US 20170116231A1
• Time in Patent Office: 445 Days
• Field of Search: 709224
• 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 comprising:

receiving, by a differential health-check module executing on a computing device, a request for a differential health-check report for a timeframe comprising storage operations that occurred in an information management system,

wherein the timeframe comprises a triggering event defined as a change in configuration of a first storage component of the information management system;

identifying by the differential health-check module a first time period comprising a first plurality of storage operations that occurred before the triggering event,

wherein the first storage component participated in one or more of the first plurality of storage operations;

identifying, by the differential health-check module, a second time period comprising a second plurality of storage operations that occurred after completion of the triggering event,

wherein the first storage component participated in one or more of the second plurality of storage operations, 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,

(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, and

(c) a storage manager that controlled the first plurality and the second plurality of storage operations in the information management system, and

(d) a data storage device associated with at least one of the data agent and the media agent;

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

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

generating, by the differential health-check module, 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 during the second time period but does not include the triggering event.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the change in configuration of the first storage component triggers the request for the differential health-check report.

3. 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.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

based on the comparison of the second value of the first performance metric to the first value of the first performance metric, detecting, by the differential health-check module, a change in performance of the first storage component after the triggering event as compared to before the triggering event.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the first value and the second value of the first performance metric are further based on data extracted by the storage manager from one or more indexes of a respective media agent component of the information management system, wherein the respective media agent participated in at least one of the first plurality of storage operations and the second plurality of storage operations.

6. A computer-readable medium, excluding transitory propagating signals, storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device comprising one or more processors and corresponding computer memory, cause the computing device to execute a method comprising:

receiving, by a differential health-check module executing on the computing device, a request for a differential health-check report for a timeframe comprising storage operations that occurred in an information management system,

wherein the timeframe comprises a triggering event defined as a restore operation that used at least a first storage component of the information management system to recover data from a secondary copy stored in the information management system;

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

wherein the first storage component participated in one or more of the first plurality of storage operations that occurred 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 comprising a second plurality of storage operations that occurred after completion of the triggering event defined as the restore operation,

wherein the first storage component participated in one or more of the second plurality of storage operations that occurred during the second time period;

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

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

generating, by the differential health-check module, 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 during the second time period but does not include the triggering event defined as the restore operation.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein the restore operation triggers the request for the differential health-check report.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 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.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 further comprising:

based on the comparison of the second value of the first performance metric to the first value of the first performance metric, detecting, by the differential health-check module, a change in performance of the first storage component after the triggering event as compared to before the triggering event.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein the first value and the second value of the first performance metric are further based on data extracted by a storage manager that manages the first plurality and the second plurality of storage operations from one or more indexes in a respective media agent component of the information management system, wherein the respective media agent participated in at least one of the first plurality and the second plurality of storage operations.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 6 further comprising:

requesting, by the differential health-check module before the restore operation, information about the information management system from a storage manager that manages the first plurality and the second plurality of storage operations in the information management system.

12. A system comprising:

a storage manager configured to control data storage operations in an information management system,

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 is configured to define, based on a timeframe comprising some of the data storage operations in the information management system;

(a) a first time period that occurred before a triggering event defined as a restore operation that 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 completion of the triggering event defined as the restore operation;

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

query the storage manager about the first component operating during the first time period and during the second time period,

evaluate, based on responses received from the storage manager;

(i) a first value of a first performance metric for the first component operating during the first time period, and (ii) a second value of the first performance metric for the first component operating during the second time period,

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

generate a 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,

wherein the comparing includes the first time period and the second time period but does not include the triggering event defined as the restore operation.

13. The system of claim 12 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.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the storage manager obtains information for the responses 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.

15. The system of claim 12 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.

16. The system of claim 15 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.

17. The system of claim 12 wherein the first component is a media agent configured to create one or more secondary copies and to store the one or more secondary copies to an associated data storage device.