Accessing a file system using tiered deduplication

• US 9,575,673 B2
• Filed: 10/29/2014
• Issued: 02/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Mitkar, Amit, Kumarasamy, Paramasivam, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv
• Primary Examiner(s): Bragdon, Reginald
• Assistant Examiner(s): Namazi, Mehdi
• Application Number:
  US14/527,678
• Publication Number:
  US 20160124663A1
• Time in Patent Office: 846 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/102 where the programme performs an interfacing function, e.g. device driver G06F13/105 takes precedence; scheduling within device drivers G06F9/52; contention policies within device drivers G06F9/4881
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1727 Details of free space management performed by the file system saving storage space on storage systems G06F3/0608; management of blocks in storage devices G06F3/064
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1734 Details of monitoring file system events, e.g. by the use of hooks, filter drivers, logs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1748 De-duplication implemented within the file system, e.g. based on file segments de-duplication techniques in storage systems for the management of data blocks G06F3/0641
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/196 Specific adaptations of the file system to access devices and non-file objects via standard file system access operations, e.g. pseudo file systems dedicated interfaces to storage systems G06F3/0601
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0641 De-duplication techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0664 at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0667 at data level, e.g. file, record or object virtualisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices

Abstract

An illustrative pseudo-file-system driver uses deduplication functionality and resources in a storage management system to provide an application and/or a virtual machine with access to a locally-stored file system. From the perspective of the application/virtual machine, the file system appears to be of virtually unlimited capacity. The pseudo-file-system driver instantiates the file system in primary storage, e.g., configured on a local disk. The application/virtual machine requires no configured settings or limits for the file system'"'"'s storage capacity, and may thus treat the file system as “infinite.” The pseudo-file-system driver intercepts write requests and may use the deduplication infrastructure in the storage management system to offload excess data from local primary storage to deduplicated secondary storage, based on a deduplication database. The pseudo-file-system driver also intercepts read requests and in response may restore data from deduplicated secondary storage to primary storage, also based on the deduplication database.

Claims

1. A method for using deduplication in a storage management system to provide an application executing in the storage management system with access to a file system that appears to be of virtually unlimited capacity, the method comprising:

executing a pseudo-file-system driver on a client computing device that hosts a data agent component of the storage management system, wherein the data agent is associated with the application, which is installed on the client computing device;

instantiating the file system, by the pseudo-file-system driver, based on exposing a first mount point for the file system, wherein the file system is stored to a primary storage device associated with the client computing device;

configuring, by the pseudo-file-system driver, an association between the file system and a corresponding deduplication database component of the storage management system; and

executing the application, by the client computing device,

wherein the pseudo-file-system driver provides the application with access to the file system characterized by virtually unlimited capacity based at least in part on the pseudo-file-system driver invoking at least one deduplication job, and

wherein the at least one deduplication job (i) moves some data from the file system in the primary storage device to a secondary storage device component of the storage management system, and (ii) stores the moved data in deduplicated form thereto based at least in part on the deduplication database.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein executing the pseudo-file-system driver moots configuring the file system with a storage capacity relative to the application.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein executing the pseudo-file-system driver moots configuring the application with a storage capacity relative to the file system.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the pseudo-file-system driver identifies excess data in the file system before invoking the at least one deduplication job relative to the excess data.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one deduplication job is performed at least in part by a media agent component of the storage management system, and wherein the media agent component maintains the deduplication database.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one deduplication job is performed at least in part by a media agent component of the storage management system in conjunction with the data agent on the client computing device, and wherein the media agent component maintains the deduplication database.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein when the pseudo-file-system driver identifies data requested by the application that is not available from the file system in the primary storage device, the pseudo-file-system driver invokes a restore job that uses the deduplication database to retrieve the unavailable data from at least one of the deduplication database and a secondary storage device associated with a media agent component of the storage management system.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the restore job is performed at least in part by the media agent component of the storage management system, and wherein the media agent maintains the deduplication database.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the restore job is performed at least in part by the media agent component of the storage management system in conjunction with the data agent on the client computing device, and wherein the media agent maintains the deduplication database.

10. A method for using deduplication in a storage management system to provide a virtual machine executing in the storage management system with access to a file system, the method comprising:

executing a pseudo-file-system driver on a client computing device that hosts a data agent component of the storage management system, wherein the data agent is associated with the virtual machine, which is installed on the client computing device;

exposing to the virtual machine, by the pseudo-file-system driver, a first mount point for the file system;

instantiating the file system based on the exposing of the first mount point, wherein the file system is stored to a primary storage device associated with the client computing device;

configuring an association between the file system and a corresponding deduplication database component of the storage management system; and

invoking, by the pseudo-file-system driver, at least one deduplication job that moves some data from the file system in the primary storage device to a secondary storage device component of the storage management system, and stores the moved data in deduplicated form thereto based at least in part on the deduplication database.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the pseudo-file-system driver, based at least in part on the invoking of the at least one deduplication job, provides the virtual machine executing on the client computing with access to the file system.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the pseudo-file-system driver, based at least in part on the invoking of the at least one deduplication job, provides the virtual machine executing on the client computing with access to the file system, wherein the file system appears to the virtual machine to be of virtually unlimited capacity.

13. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

executing the virtual machine, by the client computing device, wherein the pseudo-file-system driver, based at least in part on the invoking of the at least one deduplication job, provides the virtual machine executing on the client computing with access to the file system, wherein the file system appears to the virtual machine to be of virtually unlimited capacity.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein the at least one deduplication job is performed at least in part by a media agent component of the storage management system, and wherein the media agent component maintains the deduplication database.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein the at least one deduplication job is performed at least in part by a media agent component of the storage management system in conjunction with the data agent on the client computing device, and wherein the media agent component maintains the deduplication database.

16. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

when the pseudo-file-system driver identifies data requested by the virtual machine that is not available from the file system in the primary storage device, invoking, by the pseudo-file-system driver, at least one restore job that moves the identified data from a secondary storage device component of the storage management system to the file system in the primary storage device,

wherein the restore job is based at least in part on the deduplication database, and

wherein the secondary storage device component of the storage management system is at least one of a media agent component and a secondary storage device associated with the media agent component.

17. A storage management system for using deduplication to provide an application in the storage management system with access to a file system, the storage management system comprising:

a client computing device comprising the application, a pseudo-file-system driver, and a mount point exposed by the pseudo-file-system driver to the application;

a primary storage device in communication with the client computing device, wherein the primary storage device comprises the file system;

a secondary storage computing device comprising a media agent and a deduplication database that is associated with the file system;

a secondary storage device in communication with the secondary storage computing device, wherein the secondary storage device stores data in deduplicated form based on the deduplication database;

wherein the pseudo-file-system driver is configured to provide the application with access to the file system characterized by virtually unlimited capacity, based on a restore job invoked by the pseudo-file-system driver to retrieve data requested by the application which data is not available from the primary storage device, wherein the requested data is retrieved, based on the deduplication database, from a secondary storage component, wherein the secondary storage component is at least one of the media agent and the secondary storage device.

18. The storage management system of claim 17 wherein the pseudo-file-system driver is configured to provide the application with access to the file system characterized by virtually unlimited capacity, further based on at least one deduplication job invoked by the pseudo-file-system driver (i) to move some data from the file system in the primary storage device to a secondary storage component and (ii) to store the moved data in deduplicated form thereto based at least in part on the deduplication database.

19. The storage management system of claim 17 wherein the application is configured without a storage-capacity limit relative to the file system.

20. The storage management system of claim 17 wherein the file system is configured without a storage-capacity limit relative to the application.