Restoring a file to its proper storage tier in an information lifecycle management environment

• US 20070185934A1
• Filed: 02/03/2006
• Published: 08/09/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Young, Jason, Cannon, David, Correl, Stephen, Seeger, James, Young, Michael, Wolf, David, Clark, Thomas, Marek, Toby
• Granted Patent: US 8,229,897 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques

Abstract

A technique for implementing policy-aware backup and restore capability in a tiered storage system. If a data set'"'"'s contents are backed up from the tiered storage system to a backup storage system, metadata for the data set may also be backed up. Prior to the data set being restored from the backup storage system to the tiered storage system, the backed up metadata is restored and processed to determine a tier among the tiered storage pools to which the data set will be restored.

Claims

1. A method for implementing policy-aware backup and restore capability in a tiered storage system, comprising:

backing up metadata for a data set whose data set contents are backed up from said tiered storage system to a backup storage system; and

prior to said data set being restored from said backup storage system to said tiered storage system, restoring said backed up metadata to said tiered storage system and processing said metadata to determine a tier in said tiered storage system to which said data set will be restored.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said metadata comprises Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) metadata.

3. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said metadata comprises standard file metadata.

4. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said metadata back up comprises storing said metadata in persistent storage outside of said tiered storage system.

5. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said metadata backup comprises storing said metadata as a Binary Large OBject (BLOB).

6. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said metadata backup comprises providing said metadata from a file system on said tiered storage system to a backup application.

7. A method in accordance with claim 6 wherein said metadata is restored in response to a file system call issued by said backup application to said file system.

8. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said metadata restoring comprises providing said metadata from persistent storage outside of said tiered storage system to a file system on said tiered storage system and opening a data file associated with said metadata in said tiered storage system.

9. A method in accordance with claim 8 wherein said metadata is restored by way of a file system call issued by a restore application to said tiered storage file system.

10. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said metadata processing comprises applying policy placement rules to said metadata to determine said tier for said data set.

11. A computer program product, comprising:

one or more machine readable media;

means provided by said machine readable media for programming a data processing platform in a data storage network to implement a tiered storage file system with support for policy-aware backup and restore operations, as by;

maintaining metadata for data sets in said tiered storage system;

providing said metadata to a backup application for one of said data sets whose data is backed up from said tiered storage system to a backup storage system; and

prior to said data set being restored from said backup storage system to said tiered storage system, receiving said metadata from a restore application and processing said metadata to determine a tier in said tiered storage system to which said data set will be restored.

12. A program product in accordance with claim 11 wherein said metadata comprises Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) metadata.

13. A program product in accordance with claim 11 wherein said metadata comprises standard file metadata.

14. A program product in accordance with claim 11 wherein incremental metadata backup support is provided on behalf of said backup application for backup up metadata without a concurrent file backup.

15. A program product in accordance with claim 11 wherein said metadata is provided as a Binary Large OBject (BLOB) to said backup application.

16. A program product in accordance with claim 11 wherein said metadata is provided in response to a file system call issued by said backup application to said tiered storage file system.

17. A program product in accordance with claim 16 wherein said file system call comprises a pointer parameter, and processing of said system call comprises copying said metadata to a memory location associated with said pointer for consumption by said backup application.

18. A program product in accordance with claim 11 said metadata is received by way of a file system call issued by said restore application to said tiered storage file system.

19. A program product in accordance with claim 18 wherein said file system call comprises a pointer parameter, and processing of said system call comprises copying said metadata from a memory location associated with said pointer for consumption by said tiered storage file system.

20. A program product in accordance with claim 11 wherein said metadata processing comprises applying policy placement rules to said metadata to determine said tier for said data set.

21. A computer program product, comprising:

one or more machine readable media;

means provided by said machine readable media for programming a data processing platform in a data storage network to implement a backup/restore application with support for policy-aware backup and restore operations, as by;

backing up metadata for a data set in said tiered storage system whose data is backed up to a backup storage system;

maintaining said backup metadata in persistent storage; and

prior to said data set being restored from said backup storage system to said tiered storage system, restoring said backup metadata to a tiered storage file system on said tiered storage system for processing of said backup metadata to determine a tier in said tiered storage system to which said data set will be restored.

22. A program product in accordance with claim 21 wherein said backup metadata comprises Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) metadata.

23. A program product in accordance with claim 21 wherein said backup metadata comprises standard file metadata.

24. A program product in accordance with claim 21 further including periodically comparing said backup metadata to counterpart metadata maintained in said tiered storage system, and updating said backup metadata with said counterpart metadata if said counterpart metadata is more current, said updating being performed without backing up a data set associated with said backup metadata.

25. A program product in accordance with claim 21 wherein said metadata is backed up as a Binary Large OBject (BLOB).

26. A program product in accordance with claim 21 wherein said metadata back up comprises issuing a file system call to said tiered storage file system.

27. A program product in accordance with claim 26 wherein said system call comprises a pointer parameter to a memory location where said metadata is to be copied for consumption by said backup application.

28. A program product in accordance with claim 21 said metadata is restored by way of a file system call issued to said tiered storage file system.

29. A program product in accordance with claim 28 wherein said system call comprises a pointer parameter to a memory location where said metadata is to be copied for consumption by said tiered storage file system.

30. A program product in accordance with claim 21 wherein said metadata processing comprises said tiered storage file system applying policy placement rules to said metadata to determine said tier for said data set.

31. A metadata store for supporting policy-aware backup and restore operations in a tiered storage system, comprising:

a storage medium in said tiered storage system;

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) metadata stored on said storage medium;

said ILM metadata comprising one or more of a storage tier identifier, a service class identifier, and tiered storage attributes; and

said ILM metadata being exposed to a backup/restore application in support of metadata backup and restore operations.

32. A method for implementing policy-aware restore operations for restoring a data set from backup storage to a tiered storage system, comprising:

processing backup metadata provided by a restore application prior to restoring said data set to determine a storage tier target for said data set;

performing a first storage tier assignment if a version of said data set exists on said data set'"'"'s pre-backup storage tier;

said first storage tier assignment comprising assigning said backup data set to said pre-backup storage tier;

performing a second storage tier assignment if a version of said data set exists on a storage tier that is different from said data set'"'"'s pre-backup storage tier;

said second storage tier assignment comprising assigning said data set to said different storage tier;

performing a third storage tier assignment if said data set does not exist in said tiered storage system but said data set'"'"'s pre-backup storage tier exists;

said third storage tier assignment comprising assigning said data set to said data set'"'"'s pre-backup storage tier unless said pre-backup storage tier has a changed file system identifier, in which case said third storage tier assignment comprises applying policy placement rules to determine a new storage tier target and assigning said data set to said new storage tier target; and

performing a fourth storage tier assignment if said data set and said data set'"'"'s pre-backup storage tier do not exist in said tiered storage system; and

said fourth storage tier assignment comprising applying policy placement rules to determine a new storage tier target and assigning said backup data set to said new storage tier target.