System for moving real-time data events across a plurality of devices in a network for simultaneous data protection, replication, and access services

• US 20050262097A1
• Filed: 05/06/2005
• Published: 11/24/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Fraisl, Daniel J., Sim-Tang, Siew Yong
• Granted Patent: US 8,108,429 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/125 characterised by the use of retention policies retention policies for HSM systems G06F16/185
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring

Abstract

A data management system or “DMS” provides a wide range of data services to data sources associated with a set of application host servers. The data management system typically comprises one or more regions, with each region having one or more clusters. A given cluster has one or more nodes that share storage. To facilitate the data service, a host driver embedded in an application server connects an application and its data to a cluster. The host driver provides a method and apparatus for capturing real-time data transactions in the form of an event journal that is provided to the data management system. The driver functions to translate traditional file/database/block I/O into a continuous, application-aware, output data stream. Using the streams generated in this manner, the DMS offers a wide range of data services that include, by way of example only: data protection (and recovery), disaster recovery (data distribution and data replication), data copy, and data query and access.

Claims

1. A data management system, comprising:

a host driver associated with each of a set of data sources, the host driver monitoring and capturing application events and data and, in response thereto, generating a continuous application-aware, data stream comprising data changes, events associated with data changes, and metadata associated with the data changes, the data stream representing a history of the data source; and

a set of one or more nodes each of which execute a data manager, the data manager receiving an application-aware data stream from a host driver and, in response thereto, storing the history in a data structure;

wherein a given node in the set uses the history to provide a given data service.

2. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the given data service is data protection.

3. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the given data service is data distribution.

4. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the given data service is data replication.

5. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the given data service is data copy.

6. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the given data service is policy-based archive management.

7. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the given data service is policy-based hierarchical management.

8. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the given data service is policy-based life-cycle management.

9. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the given data service is an auditing or compliance function.

10. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the data source is a file, a directory, or a database.

11. The data management system as described in claim 1 wherein the data structure is an object-oriented data store.

12. A data management system, comprising:

a set of one or more server nodes that share a data storage; and

a data manager executing on each server node, the data manager generating and storing an object-oriented data structure for use in providing a stream-based data service.

13. The data management system as described in claim 12 wherein a stream-based data service is a service that involves a pair of endpoints between which a stream of real-time application and data events are exchanged.

14. The data management system as described in claim 12 wherein the pair of endpoints comprise a data source and at given node in the set of nodes, and wherein the stream-based data service captures and protects a data history of the data source.

15. The data management system as described in claim 12 wherein the pair of endpoints comprise a node in the set of one or more nodes, and a node in another set of nodes, and wherein the stream-based data service distributes the stream of real-time application and data events between the pair of endpoints.

16. The data management system as described in claim 12 wherein the pair of endpoints comprise a node in the set of one or more nodes, and a external data source, and wherein the stream-based data services distributes the stream of real-time application and data events between the pair of endpoints.

17. The data management system as described in claim 12 wherein the stream-based data service is a data copy.

18. The data management system as described in claim 12 wherein the stream-based data service is an auditing or compliance function.

19. A data management method, comprising:

for each of a set of one or more data sources, receiving, as a continuous data history, given application events and data; and

storing the data history according to a given data structure and format; and

parsing the given data structure and format to reconstruct a point-in-time from the data history.

20. The data management method as described in claim 19 wherein the given data structure and format is an object-oriented data store.

21. Data management apparatus, comprising:

program code that receives from a data source a continuous application-aware, data stream, the data stream comprising data changes, events associated with data changes, and metadata associated with the data changes;

program code that stores the data stream in a data structure; and

program code that parses the data structure to provide one or more data services;

wherein the program code is executable in at least one processor.