Comm Vault Systems, Inc.

Henry Wallace Dornemann

Rahul S Pawar

Ananda Venkatesha

Ashwin Gautamchand Sancheti

Amit Mitkar

Sumer Dilip Deshpande

Satish Chandra Kilaru

Paramasivam Kumarasamy

Jun H Ahn

Rajiv Kottomtharayil

Rajesh Polimera

Sri Karthik Bhagi

Brahmaiah Vallabhaneni

Ajay Venkat Nagrale

Sarath Cheriyan Joseph

Parag Gokhale

Sumedh Pramod Degaonkar

Sunil Kumar Gutta

Muthusamy Senthilnathan

Manas Bhikchand Mutha

Anup Kumar

Santhosh Sanakkayala

Deepak Raghunath Attarde

Amey Vijaykumar Karandikar

Prakash Varadharajan

Sanjay Kumar

Pratik S Rana

Kuldeep Kumar

Girish Ramohalli Gopala Rao

Jianwei Chen

Prasanna Kumar Thoppe Ravindran

Supreeth Sanur

Venkata Chalapathi Sucheth Ramgiri

Madhumitha Mani

Chitra Ramaswamy

Sagar Mardur Dasharatha

Anita Joseph

Sasikala Raju

Sandeep Prakash Nashikkar

Anand Kandasamy

Sri Manjari Vankayala

Mathew Ericson

Karthikeyan Natarajan

Uploads of restored virtual machine ('VM') data to cloud storage, e.g., VM restore-to-cloud operations, are performed without having to write whole restored virtual disk files to a proxy server before the virtual disk data begins uploading to cloud. Restored data blocks from a backup source are locally cached, staged for efficiency, and asynchronously uploaded to the cloud page-by-page without tapping mass storage resources on the proxy. Downloads of VM data from cloud storage, e.g., VM backup-from-cloud, are performed without having to download a virtual disk file in its entirety to the proxy server before the backup operation begins generating a backup copy. This speeds up “pulling” VM data from the cloud by pre-fetching and locally caching downloaded data blocks. The cached data blocks are processed for backup and stored page-by-page directly into a secondary copy of the cloud VM virtual-disk file without tapping mass storage resource at the proxy.

Restoring virtual machine data to cloud using a virtual server cloud file system

The methods and systems described herein provide a solution for protecting configuration data associated with a virtual private cloud. Network configurations, accounts, and/or security data may be collected from the host of the virtual private network using APIs provided by the host. The point-in-time configuration information of a VPC can be used in disaster recovery, migration to a new VPC host, or manage VPC configurations across accounts and regions. During a backup operation of a computing resource within a VPC, one or more processes requests security, network, and/or gateway configuration information from the VPC host. This information may be collected and requested for the entire VPC topology. The VPC configuration information, in the format/output received from the VPC host, is then backed up and stored with the backup of that computing resource in secondary storage.

Protection of virtual private cloud configurations

Virtual machine (VM) proliferation may be reduced through the use of Virtual Server Agents (VSAs) assigned to a group of VM hosts that may determine the availability of a VM to perform a task. Tasks may be assigned to existing VMs instead of creating a new VM to perform the task. Furthermore, a VSA coordinator may determine a grouping of VMs or VM hosts based on one or more factors associated with the VMs or the VM hosts, such as VM type or geographical location of the VM hosts. The VSA coordinator may also assign one or more VSAs to facilitate managing the group of VM hosts. In some embodiments, the VSA coordinators may facilitate load balancing of VSAs during operation, such as during a backup operation, a restore operation, or any other operation between a primary storage system and a secondary storage system.

Virtual server agent load balancing

Snapshot-based disaster recovery (DR) orchestration systems and methods for virtual machine (VM) failover and failback do not require that VMs or their corresponding datastores be actively operating at the DR site before a DR orchestration job is initiated, i.e., before failover. An illustrative data storage management system deploys proprietary components at source data center(s) and at DR site(s). The proprietary components (e.g., storage manager, data agents, media agents, backup nodes, etc.) interoperate with each other and with the source and DR components to ensure that VMs will successfully failover and/or failback. DR orchestration jobs are suitable for testing VM failover scenarios ('clone testing'), for conducting planned VM failovers, and for unplanned VM failovers. DR orchestration jobs also handle failback and integration of DR-generated data into the failback site, including restoring VMs that never failed over to fully re-populate the source/failback site.

Snapshot-based disaster recovery orchestration of virtual machine failover and failback operations

A data storage environment can include one or more virtual machines instantiated on a host computing device. Based on physical location data of the one or more virtual machines received from the host computing device, a storage manager can control the performance of a secondary copy operation on one or more storage units that store virtual machine data associated with the one or more virtual machines and/or the performance of a secondary copy operation on the one or more virtual machines.

Targeted snapshot based on virtual machine location

Systems described herein may dynamically add one or more proxy data protection agents to a cloud data storage system to process a data protection job. Upon completion of the job or at some other appropriate interval, the system can power down and decommission the proxy data protection agents and/or the virtual machines on which the data protection proxies reside according to a cleanup schedule (e.g., at hourly or minute intervals). In order to improve the allocation of computing resources, the system takes into account currently existing proxies or virtual machines when processing a backup request to determine the need for new proxies to service the backup request. In this manner the system can save costs and computing resources through efficient virtual machine deployment and retirement.

Data protection component scaling in a cloud- based data storage system

According to certain aspects, a system may include a data agent configured to: process a database file residing on a primary storage device(s) to identify a subset of data in the database file for archiving, the database file generated by a database application; and extract the subset of the data from the database file and store the subset of the data in an archive file on the primary storage device(s) as a plurality of blocks having a common size; and at least one secondary storage controller computer configured to, as part of a secondary copy operation in which the archive file is copied to a secondary storage device(s): copy the plurality of blocks to the secondary storage devices to create a secondary copy of the archive file; and create a table that provides a mapping between the copied plurality of blocks and corresponding locations in the secondary storage device(s).

Restoring archived database data

An illustrative approach accelerates file indexing operations for block-level backup copies in a data storage management system. A cache storage area is maintained for locally storing and serving key data blocks, thus relying less on retrieving data on demand from the backup copy. File indexing operations are used for populating the cache storage area for speedier retrieval during subsequent live browsing of the same backup copy, and vice versa. The key data blocks cached while file indexing and/or live browsing an earlier backup copy help to pre-fetch corresponding data blocks of later backup copies, thus producing a beneficial learning cycle. The approach is especially beneficial for cloud and tape backup media, and is available for a variety of data sources and backup copies, including block-level backup copies of virtual machines (VMs) and block-level backup copies of file systems, including UNIX-based and Windows-based operating systems and corresponding file systems.

Cache management for faster live browsing and file indexing of backup copies, including block-level backup copies of virtual machines and/or file systems

An illustrative file indexing approach enhances what was previously possible with hypervisor-free live browsing of virtual machine (VM) block-level backup copies. Capabilities are described for indexing files discovered in VM block-level backup copies, including file content. The illustrative file indexing functionality activates a live-browse session to discover files present within VM block-level backup copies and indexes file names and directory structures as created by an original source VM, resulting in an illustrative file index. The illustrative file indexing functionality optionally indexes file contents within VM block-level backup copies, resulting in an illustrative content index. The file index and content index are retained in persistent data structure(s) stored apart from the VM block-level backup copies. The indexes are searchable without mounting or live-browsing the VM block-level backup copies. In some embodiments the file index and the content index are consolidated. An enhanced storage manager is also disclosed.

File indexing for virtual machine backups in a data storage management system

According to certain aspects, a system includes a client device that includes a virtual machine (VM) executed by a hypervisor, a driver located within the hypervisor, and a data agent. The VM may include a virtual hard disk file and a change block bitmap file. According to some embodiments the driver intercepts write operations generated by the VM to store data in a sector, determines an identity of the sector based on the intercepted write operation, determines an entry in the change block bitmap file that corresponds with the first sector, and modifies the entry in the change block bitmap file to indicate that data in that sector has changed. The data agent may generate an incremental backup of the VM based on the change block bitmap file in response to an instruction from a storage manager, where the incremental backup includes the data in the sector where data was modified.

Virtual machine change block tracking

An information management system according to certain aspects may be configured to generate a snapshot of data relating to a plurality of applications. The system may include a plurality of data agents, wherein each data agent is associated with at least one of a plurality of applications, and data generated by the plurality of applications is stored in a logical volume in primary storage. The system may also include a snapshot manager configured to detect the plurality of applications; check with the plurality of data agents whether the associated applications are in consistent states; obtain a snapshot of the logical volume in response to receiving notifications from the plurality of data agents that the associated applications are in consistent states; and generate mapping information between a particular one of the plurality of applications and a portion of the snapshot relating to the particular one of the plurality of applications.

Single snapshot for multiple applications

Virtual server cloud file system for backing up cloud-based virtual machine data

Illustrative systems and methods enable a virtual machine ('VM') to be powered up at any hypervisor regardless of hypervisor type, based on live-mounting VM data that was originally backed up into a hypervisor-independent format by a block-level backup operation. Afterwards, the backed up VM executes anywhere anytime without needing to find a hypervisor that is the same as or compatible with the original source VM's hypervisor. The backed up VM payload data is rendered portable to any virtualized platform. Thus, a VM can be powered up at one or more test stations, data center or cloud recovery environments, and/or backup appliances, without the prior-art limitations of finding a same/compatible hypervisor for accessing and using backed up VM data. An illustrative media agent maintains cache storage that acts as a way station for data blocks retrieved from an original backup copy, and stores data blocks written by the live-mounted VM.

Cross-hypervisor live-mount of backed up virtual machine data

Enhanced file indexing, live browsing, and restoring of backup copies of virtual machines and/or file systems by populating and tracking a cache storage area and a backup index

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Eatontown, NJ, United States of America

Henry Wallace Dornemann