INFORMATION MANAGEMENT POLICY BASED ON RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF A FILE

• US 20130262418A1
• Filed: 07/19/2012
• Published: 10/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Bhasin, Gautam, Schroth, Albrecht, Subramanian, Kalambur
• Granted Patent: US 9,477,670 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/694
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/143 with loss of software functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/122 using management policies backup systems G06F11/1446; file migration policies for HSM systems G06F16/185

Abstract

The relative importance of a file is determined based on an importance parameter and an information management policy is caused to be applied to the file based on the determined relative importance of the file. The importance parameter may be the author of the file, the number of users with whom the file is shared, the relationship between the users with whom a file is shared, the uniqueness of the file, or the presence of particular keywords in the file.

Claims

1. A file management method comprising:

determining a relative importance of a file, wherein the file is stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, based on an importance parameter; and

causing an information management policy to be applied to the file based on the determined relative importance of the file,

wherein the importance parameter includes an author of the file, a number of users sharing the file, a relationship between the users, a uniqueness of the file, or a presence of particular keywords in the file.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein causing an information management policy to be applied to the file comprises:

assigning an information management policy to the file based on the determined relative importance of the file; and

causing the file to be archived, backed up, or have security measures applied in a manner in accordance with said information management policy.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the importance parameter is the author of the file.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the importance parameter is the uniqueness of the file compared to other files stored in a storage system and wherein the storage system is scanned to determine the uniqueness of the file.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein an operating system provides file access information, based on file system access or network access to the file, and wherein said importance parameter is determined from said file access information.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the relative importance of the file is determined based on a plurality of importance parameters.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein each importance parameter is associated with a weighting, and wherein the relative importance of the file is determined based on the plurality of importance parameters and respective weightings associated with each importance parameter.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the relative importance of the file is determined based on an importance parameter and a rule associated with said importance parameter.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the information management policy comprises a file back-up policy, a file archive policy, or a file encryption policy.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the relative importance of the file is expressed as an information management profile selected from a plurality of possible information management profiles.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein one of said information management profiles indicates that the file is confidential and wherein the method further comprises detecting that the file classified as confidential is accessed and logging or reporting that the file is accessed.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating a report on an amount of storage space occupied by files of different relative importance.

13. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing machine readable instructions which are executable by a processor to:

determine a relative importance of a file based on an importance parameter; and

assign an information management policy to said file based on said determined relative importance,

wherein the importance parameter includes an author of the file, a number of users sharing the file, a relationship between the users, or a uniqueness of the file compared to other files stored in a storage system.

14. An apparatus for file management comprising:

an importance classifier engine to determine a relative importance of a file which is stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, based on an importance parameter, and communicate said relative importance to an information management policy engine,

wherein the information management policy engine is to cause an information management policy to be applied to the file based on the relative importance of the file, and

wherein the importance parameter includes an author of the file, a number of users sharing the file, a relationship between the users, a uniqueness of the file, or a presence of particular keywords in the file.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the apparatus comprises a module to apply the information management policy to the file by interfacing with an information management system for file backup, archive, or security.

16. The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the apparatus comprises an attribute feeder to provide an importance parameter relating to the file to the importance classifier engine.