Nutanix, Inc.

Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Angshuman Bezbaruah

Karan Gupta

John Andrew Starks

Lars Reuther

Artem Yevgenyevich Livshits

Abhishek Gupta

Brajesh Kumar Shrivastava

Prakash Narayanasamy

Andrey Alexseyevich Pyatkov

Kiran Tatiparthi

Praveen Kumar Padia

Pranay Ega

Taylor O'Neil Brown

Mahesh Venkataramaiah

Sudhir Ravi

Ramya Bolla

An indexing technique provides an index data structure for efficient retrieval of a snapshot from a long-term storage service (LTSS) of an archival storage system. The snapshot is generated from typed data of a logical entity, such as a virtual disk (vdisk). The data of the snapshot is replicated to a frontend data service of the LTSS sequentially and organized as one or more data objects for storage by a backend data service of LTSS in an object store of the archival storage system. Metadata associated with the snapshot (i.e., snapshot metadata) is recorded as a log and persistently stored on storage media local to the frontend data service. The snapshot metadata includes information describing the snapshot data, e.g., a logical offset range of a snapshot of the vdisk and, thus, is used to construct the index data structure. Notably, construction of the index data structure is deferred until after the entirety of the snapshot data has been replicated and received by the frontend data service.

Technique for efficiently indexing data of an archival storage system

A high frequency snapshot technique improves data replication in a disaster recovery (DR) environment. A base snapshot is generated from failover data at a primary site and replicated to a placeholder file at a secondary site. Upon commencement of the base snapshot generation and replication, incremental light weight snapshots (LWSs) of the failover data are captured and replicated to the secondary site. A staging file at the secondary site accumulates the replicated LWSs ('high-frequency snapshots'). The staging file is populated with the LWSs in parallel with the replication of the base snapshot at the placeholder file. At a subsequent predetermined time interval, the accumulated LWSs are synthesized to capture a “checkpoint” snapshot by applying and pruning the accumulated LWSs at the staging file. Once the base snapshot is fully replicated, the pruned LWSs are merged to the base snapshot to synchronize the replicated failover data.

High frequency snapshot technique for improving data replication in disaster recovery environment

A technique improves storage efficiency of an object store configured to maintain numerous snapshots for long-term storage in an archival storage system by efficiently determining data that is exclusively owned by an expiring snapshot to allow deletion of the expiring snapshot from the object store. The technique involves managing index data structures to enable efficient garbage collection across a very large number of data objects. When a snapshot expires, the technique obviates the need to scan the numerous snapshot data objects to determine which index structures are no longer needed and can be reclaimed (garbage collected). The technique is directed to management of underlying storage based on different sets of policies. When certain snapshots expire and are ready for deletion, the technique is directed to finding those data blocks that are no longer referenced (used) by any valid snapshots.

Garbage collection from archival of storage snapshots

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Angshuman Bezbaruah