Instant data center recovery

• US 9,983,951 B2
• Filed: 05/26/2016
• Issued: 05/29/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Catalogic Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Catalogic Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Lad, Kamlesh, Liu, Peter Chi-Hsiung
• Primary Examiner(s): Ly, Anh
• Application Number:
  US15/165,717
• Publication Number:
  US 20160274982A1
• Time in Patent Office: 733 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0661 by reconfiguring faulty entities
• 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

Facility for providing backup and restore of all data center components including physical machines, virtual machines, routers, networks, sub-networks, switches, firewall, directory lookup, DNS, DHCP and internet access. Virtual or physical machines are associated to data center components and a software defined network, storage, and compute infrastructure is provided.

Claims

1. A method of virtualization of a source data center, comprising:

creating a backup image of each of a plurality of computers in a source data center, the plurality of computers being connected to a network having a network topology, each backup image comprising a snapshot of the corresponding computer, the snapshot comprising an application-consistent image as of a specific point in time of primary storage of the corresponding computer;

collecting network connection state information of each of the plurality of computers by a plurality of metadata collection agents, each of the plurality of metadata collection agents being resident on one of the plurality of computers;

saving together with each backup image, supplemental to each backup image, the network connection state information of the corresponding computer;

loading the backup images as virtual machines in a cloud computing node;

creating a software defined network, wherein creating the software defined network comprises creating vendor-specific configuration or image files adapted for instantiating cloud resources;

loading the network connection state information saved together with the backup images, and using the network connection state information to recreate the network connections of each of the plurality of computers; and

emulating the source data center with said virtual machines, thereby providing a substitute data center.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

collecting network configuration information of each of the plurality of computers by the plurality of metadata collection agents;

saving together with each backup image, supplemental to each backup image, the network configuration information of the corresponding computer.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the network configuration information comprises router configuration information, firewall configuration information, switch configuration information, or network topology information.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein collecting network configuration information comprises:

probing the network.

5. A computer program product for data center recovery, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to perform a method comprising:

creating a backup image of each of a plurality of computers in a source data center, the plurality of computers being connected to a network having a network topology, each backup image comprising a snapshot of the corresponding computer, the snapshot comprising an application-consistent image as of a specific point in time of primary storage of the corresponding computer;

collecting network connection state information of each of the plurality of computers by a plurality of metadata collection agents, each of the plurality of metadata collection agents being resident on one of the plurality of computers;

saving together with each backup image, supplemental to each backup image, the network connection state information of the corresponding computer;

loading the backup images as virtual machines in a cloud computing node;

creating a software defined network, wherein creating the software defined network comprises creating vendor-specific configuration or image files adapted for instantiating cloud resources;

loading the network connection state information saved together with the backup images, and using the network connection state information to recreate the network connections of each of the plurality of computers; and

emulating the source data center with said virtual machines, thereby providing a substitute data center.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, the method further comprising:

collecting network configuration information of each of the plurality of computers by the plurality of metadata collection agents;

saving together with each backup image, supplemental to each backup image, the network configuration information of the corresponding computer.

7. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein the network configuration information comprises router configuration information, firewall configuration information, switch configuration information, or network topology information.

8. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein collecting network configuration information comprises:

probing the network.