Browse and restore for block-level backups

• US 10,168,929 B2
• Filed: 09/15/2017
• Issued: 01/01/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/22/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Bhagi, Sri Karthik, Gutta, Sunil Kumar, Agrawal, Vijay H., Pawar, Rahul S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Hiep T
• Application Number:
  US15/705,629
• Publication Number:
  US 20180129435A1
• Time in Patent Office: 473 Days
• 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 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• 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 2201/815 Virtual middleware or OS functionality using virtual machines to implement generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking G06F11/1484
• 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 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

Systems and methods for performing file-level restore operations for block-level data volumes are described. In some embodiments, the systems and methods restore data from a block-level data volume contained in secondary storage by receiving a request to restore one or more files from the block-level data volume, mounting a virtual GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk to the block-level data volume, accessing one or more mount paths established by the virtual GPT disk between the data agent and the block-level data volume, and browsing data from one or more files within the block-level data volume via the established one or more mount paths provided by the virtual GPT disk.

Claims

1. A system for browsing and restoring data contained in a block-level data volume, the system comprising:

at least one processor;

at least one data storage device coupled to the at least one processor and storing instructions for implementing a process to restore data contained in a block-level data volume, wherein the process comprises;

receiving a request to perform a file-level restore of the block-level data volume;

mounting, via a pseudo mount component, a virtual disk to the block-level data volume; and

restoring, via a restore component, data from one or more files within the block-level data volume via one or more mount paths provided by the virtual disk.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the restore component is configured to:

identify clusters within the block-level data volume associated with the one or more files;

translate the identified clusters into disk sectors;

transfer a read request of the disk sectors to a virtual disk driver;

receive, from the virtual disk driver, volume extent information associated with volume extents for the one or more files within the block-level data volume and converted by the virtual disk driver from disk extent information that was based on size and offset information associated with the disk sectors; and

access data from the one or more files within the block-level data volume using the received volume extent information associated with the volume extents for the one or more files within the block-level data volume.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the pseudo mount component creates a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the pseudo mount component launches a pseudo mount server having a client interface that mounts the virtual disk to the block-level data volume.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the data from one or more files within the block-level data volume is indexed with at least one of the following:

a) one or more mount points,

b) one or more file extents,

c) one or more file offsets, or

d) one or more archive file identifiers.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the pseudo mount component mounts the virtual disk based on information contained in a file restore configuration file of an index cache associated with the block-level data volume.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the pseudo mount component mounts a virtual disk that includes a single partition based on a relative size of the block-level data volume to the block-level data volume.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the restore component is configured to:

translate, via the virtual disk and a virtual disk driver, a received file restore request into a volume extent request; and

restore data associated with the volume extent request.

9. A computer-readable medium, excluding transitory propagating signals, storing instructions that, when executed by a pseudo mount server, causes the pseudo mount server to perform a method for facilitating file-level browsing of a block-level data volume, the method comprising:

generating a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume,

wherein generating the pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume includes mounting a virtual disk to the block-level data volume;

translating, via the pseudo mount point, a file restore request into a volume extent request; and

restoring data associated with the volume extent request via one or more mount paths provided by the virtual disk.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein generating a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume includes creating the virtual disk.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein generating a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume includes accessing a running virtual disk and mounting the running virtual disk to the block-level data volume.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the virtual disk includes a single partition based on a relative size of the block-level data volume to the block-level data volume.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the virtual disk wraps the block-level data volume into a partition of the virtual disk.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the data from one or more files within the block-level data volume is indexed with at least one of the following:

a) one or more mount points,

b) one or more file extents,

c) one or more file offsets, or

d) one or more archive file identifiers.

15. A method for browsing and restoring data contained in a block-level data volume performed by at least one data storage device coupled to at least one processor, the method comprising:

receiving a request to perform a file-level restore of the block-level data volume;

mounting, via a pseudo mount component, a virtual disk to the block-level data volume; and

accessing data from one or more files within the block-level data volume via one or more mount paths provided by the virtual disk, wherein accessing data includes

identifying clusters within the block-level data volume associated with the one or more files;

translating the identified clusters into disk sectors;

transferring a read request of the disk sectors to a virtual disk driver;

receiving, from the virtual disk driver, volume extent information associated with volume extents for the one or more files within the block-level data volume and converted by the virtual disk driver from disk extent information that was based on size and offset information associated with the disk sectors; and

accessing data from the one or more files within the block-level data volume using the received volume extent information associated with the volume extents for the one or more files within the block-level data volume.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the pseudo mount component creates a pseudo mount point to the block-level data volume that represents a point in time image of the block-level data volume.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the pseudo mount component launches a pseudo mount server having a client interface that mounts the virtual disk to the block-level data volume.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the pseudo mount component mounts the virtual disk based on information contained in a file restore configuration file of an index cache associated with the block-level data volume.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the method further comprises:

translating, via the virtual disk and a virtual disk driver, a received file restore request into a volume extent request; and

restore data associated with the volume extent request.