Accessing a file system using tiered deduplication
First Claim
1. A computer-readable medium, excluding transitory propagating signals, storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device having one or more processors and corresponding computer-readable memory, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:
- executing a pseudo-file-system driver on the computing device, which hosts an application and an associated data agent component of a storage management system that comprises the computing device;
instantiating a file system, by the pseudo-file-system driver, based on exposing a first mount point for the file system,wherein the file system resides in a primary storage device in communication with the 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,wherein the pseudo-file system driver invokes at least one deduplication job, which (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, andwherein based at least in part on invoking the at least one deduplication job the pseudo-file-system driver provides the application with access to the file system configured without a storage-capacity limit.
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Accused Products
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.
547 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A computer-readable medium, excluding transitory propagating signals, storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device having one or more processors and corresponding computer-readable memory, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:
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executing a pseudo-file-system driver on the computing device, which hosts an application and an associated data agent component of a storage management system that comprises the computing device; instantiating a file system, by the pseudo-file-system driver, based on exposing a first mount point for the file system, wherein the file system resides in a primary storage device in communication with the 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, wherein the pseudo-file system driver invokes at least one deduplication job, which (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, and wherein based at least in part on invoking the at least one deduplication job the pseudo-file-system driver provides the application with access to the file system configured without a storage-capacity limit. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A computer-readable medium, excluding transitory propagating signals, storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device having one or more processors and corresponding computer-readable memory, cause the computing device to perform a method for using deduplication in a storage management system to provide a virtual machine on the computing device with access to a file system, the method comprising:
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executing a pseudo-file-system driver on the computing device, which hosts the virtual machine and an associated data agent component of the storage management system; based on exposing a first mount point for the file system to the virtual machine, instantiating the file system, wherein the file system is stored in a primary storage device in communication with the computing device; and invoking, by the pseudo-file-system driver, at least one deduplication job that; (a) moves some data from the file system in the primary storage device to a secondary storage device component of the storage management system, (b) stores the moved data in deduplicated form thereto based at least in part on a deduplication database component of the storage management system, and thereby providing the virtual machine with access to the file system without a predefined limit on storage capacity for the file system. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A storage management system for using deduplication to provide a virtual machine with access to a file system of seemingly unlimited storage capacity, the system comprising:
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a first computing device comprising the virtual machine, a data agent, a pseudo-file-system driver, and a mount point exposed by the pseudo-file-system driver to the virtual machine, wherein the first computing device comprises one or more processors and corresponding computer-readable memory; a primary storage device in communication with the first computing device, wherein the primary storage device comprises data of the file system; a second computing device comprising a media agent and a deduplication database that is associated with the file system, wherein the second computing device comprises one or more processors and corresponding computer-readable memory; a secondary storage device in communication with the second computing device, wherein the secondary storage device comprises data stored in deduplicated form based on the deduplication database; wherein the pseudo-file-system driver is configured to provide the virtual machine with access to the file system appearing to lack a storage-capacity limit, based at least in part on at least one deduplication job invoked by the pseudo-file-system driver to; (a) move some data from the file system in the primary storage device to at least one of the media agent and the secondary storage device, and (b) store the moved data in deduplicated form thereto based at least in part on the deduplication database. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification