Delegation of discovery functions in information management system

• US 8,868,720 B1
• Filed: 09/28/2007
• Issued: 10/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Nair, Manoj, Perrin, Stephen R.
• Primary Examiner(s): JEAN, FRANTZ B
• Application Number:
  US11/864,596
• Time in Patent Office: 2,580 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 718/104
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services

Abstract

Environment and/or file discovery operations are delegated by an information management service in a network to external computing resources. The external computing resource performs discovery operations to discover objects in the network, which may include discovering every object in the network, or discovering only new, changed, and/or deleted objects in the network. Discovery information identifying the discovered objects is reported back to the information management service. The information management service uses the discovery information to perform information management, including classification of discovered objects into categories, mapping categories to service level objectives that include one or more services, and orchestrating execution of the one or more services. Optionally, the information management service can delegate classification, service level management, and/or orchestration of services to one or more additional external computing resources.

Claims

1. In an information management service operating in a network, a method of improving information management efficiency, the method comprising:

an information management server offloading one or more information management operations by delegating the one or more information management operations to one or more external computing resources in a network, wherein the information management server provides intelligence to the one or more external computing resources to perform the one or more information management operations, wherein the one or more external computing resources perform the information management operations to collect information from objects in the network, the objects including at least data objects stored in the network;

the information management server receiving the collected information from the one or more external computing resources, the collected information identifying objects in the network;

the information management server identifying services for each object in the network, wherein the information management server uses the collected information to consider the objects individually when identifying the services; and

the information management and the external computing resources providing information management for each object individually within the network, wherein providing the information management to the objects includes classifying each data object based at least on the collected information in at least one category, assigning service levels to each data object based on the assigned categories, and orchestrating the services for the objects within the network based on the assigned service levels.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the intelligence includes instructions and instructs the external computing resource to discover and report changes in the network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein delegating one or more discovery operations to one or more external computing resources includes providing configuration data to the one or more external computing resources, the configuration data including at least one of user-defined and default configuration data.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising, providing an adapter to the one or more external computing resources such that the one or more external computing resources are able to implement the configuration data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the objects identified in the received information include one or more of data, applications, servers and services within the network.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein utilizing the received information to provide information management to the one or more objects within the network comprises one or more of:

using the received information to drive file discovery; and

using the received information to drive classification of the objects.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

using the received information to classify the objects by assigning one or more categories to each object;

assigning service levels to the objects based on the categories assigned to each object; and

orchestrating the services for the objects based on the assigned categories, the assigned service levels, or both.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more operations comprise environment discovery, information discovery, or both.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the one or more operations comprise at least environment discovery and the one or more external computing resources identify and collect information about one or more of:

file servers, service providers, and characteristics of file servers and service providers, in the network.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the service providers comprise one or more of backup servers, file movers, and encryption servers.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the one or more operations comprise information discovery and the one or more external computing resources identify and collect information about one or more of files and metadata about the files.

12. An information management service server for managing information in a computing environment, the service server comprising:

a storage device including;

an environment discovery module configured for discovering the configuration and state of environment objects within the computing environment;

a classification module configured for categorizing objects, including the environment objects and data objects within the computing environment; and

an orchestration module configured for executing policies in regard to the categorized objects to manage services provided to at least the data objects,

wherein instructions for performing a function of the environment discovery module and of the classification module are offloaded to an external computing source by delegating the function to the external computing resource device, wherein the external computing resource performs the instructions for the service server,

wherein the server operates with the external computing source to perform information management based on results of the instructions performed by the external computing resource to at least identify services for each object individually in the network.

13. The service of claim 12, wherein the external computing resource comprises a second server.

14. The service of claim 12, wherein the service server monitors the external computing resource to ensure that the external computing resource performs the function.

15. The service server of claim 12, further comprising one or more of:

a file discovery module configured for discovering data objects within the computing environment; and

a service level mapping module configured for assigning service levels to one or more of the objects based on the categories assigned to each object.

16. The service server of claim 15, wherein instructions for performing the function of the file discovery module are provided to an external computing resource such that the external computing resource can perform the function.

17. The service server of claim 12, further comprising an adapter for interfacing with the external computing resource.

18. The service server of claim 12, wherein environment objects include servers, services, and applications operating within the computing environment.