International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

James Patrick Smith

Avishai Haim Hochberg

David George Derk

David Maxwell Cannon

Christopher Zaremba

Robert Clair Edwards, Jr

Vadzim Ivanovich Piletski

Matthew Joseph Anglin

Mark L Yakushev

Thomas Franklin Ramke, Jr

Neeta Garimella

Stefan Bender

Glen Hattrup

Neil Gregory Rasmussen

Michael S Fruchtman

Wayne A Sawdon

Colin Scott Dawson

Dominic Mueller-Wicke

Joanne T Nguyen

Oliver Augenstein

Choonsu Peter Park

Kala Dutta

Nils Haustein

Michael Allen Kaczmarski

Toby Lyn Marek

Jean Xu Yu

Delbert B Hoobler, Iii

Jason Ferris Basler

Peter B Symonds

Barry Fruchtman

David Gregory Van Hise

Christian Bolik

Alexei Kojenov

Douglas Stephen Noddings

Zhengwen He

Steven M Berman

James Michael Dile

Dietmar Fischer

Mandeep Kaur Jandir

Avisbai Haim Hochberg

Ravi Nair

Eran Raichstein

Venkateswararao Jujjuri

Gregory John Tevis

Kevin Lee Gibble

Jason Christopher Young

Ninad S Palsule

James John Seeger, Jr

Malahal R Naineni

Thomas Prause

Mark Alan Haye

William Roy Yonker

Martine Bruce Wedlake

James J Myers

Kenneth Eugene Hannigan

Omar Bond Vargas

Oren Wolf

Tai Woo Nam

Edward M Collins

Lisa Anne Huston

Andrew M Smith

Gergana Vassileva Markova

Virginia R Lloyd

Peter Tanenhaus

Vadzim L Piletski

Lu Nugyen

Surya K Ghatty

Austen M Cook

Thu Nguyen

Jawed Iqbal

Chris Zaremba

Ashutosh Dhodapkar

Edward M Barton

Sean P Cox

Steven V Voyk

An inventory of computer resources requiring backup data protection including an estimate of future growth of storage resources along with a set of data retention policies, rules, and outcomes in conformance with business requirements, is created. An architecture for initial ingest of protected data and a backup execution approach is created, based on the resource inventory, a sizing and assumptions of resources and data, and the set of data retention policies, rules, and outcomes. An initial ingest copies the protected data to the backup storage. The initial ingest architecture is transformed to a steady-state ingest phase, by incrementally adjusting the resources based on progress of the initial ingest. Responsive to completing the initial ingest of protected data, a steady-state backup ingest is performed. A validity of the sizing and assumptions of architecture resources is determined and an adjustment to the resources is performed based on the validity determination.

Comprehensive data protection backup

Provided are techniques for exploiting object tags in order to produce a work order across several backup engines for a backup job. A selection of tags for an object is received. A work order for the object is created using the tags. The work order is stored with a virtual server that stores the object, wherein a data mover of a backup engine retrieves the work order from the virtual server to back up the object.

Exploiting object tags to produce a work order across backup engines for a backup job

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for hypervisor agnostic interchangeable backup recovery and file level recovery from virtual disks. Data is stored for a first virtual disk that represents data in a first format and metadata for the first virtual disk in a common data format in a storage having a fixed block length. A virtual disk file represents data in a second format that allows variable size blocks. Multiple instances of the fixed block length of blocks of data for the second virtual disk indicated in the virtual disk file are read. Each instance of the read fixed block length of blocks is written to the storage in the common data format with metadata describing the format of the blocks in the second virtual disk, and can be restored to a third virtual disk in the first or second format.

Backing-up blocks from virtual disks in different virtual machine environments having different block lengths to a common data format block length

For accessing files from block-level backups of a virtual disk, a system, method, computer program product and apparatus are disclosed. The system includes an apparatus with a changed block module that determines changed blocks between a previous and a current block-level backup of a virtual disk. A mapping module maps logical clusters of the virtual disk to the changed blocks and identifies files corresponding to the logical clusters. A changed file module designates files corresponding to the logical clusters as changed files, unless current attributes of files for the current backup match attributes of the files in a backup file index corresponding to the previous backup. The changed file module stores the current attributes and extents for changed files within blocks of a backup storage device for updating in the backup file index. The method and computer program product perform these functions and may use the system and the apparatus.

File level access to block level incremental backups of a virtual disk

In an approach to maintain data integrity in a computer data storage system, a clone management table is generated for a clone file tree that includes a relationship between at least one parent file and a clone file. The parent file is restored by: (i) determining that the parent-child relationship exists between the parent file and the clone file based on an entry in the clone management table, (ii) restoring data blocks in the parent file to the file system based on an analysis of an entry in the clone management table for the parent file and an identification of data blocks included in the clone file, and (iii) generating a new instance of the parent file based on the data blocks included in the file system and the entry in the clone management table for the clone file tree.

Clone file backup and restore

Provided are techniques for providing and managing data protection by using incremental forever for storage to cloud object stores. An incremental offload is performed by using one or more extents to identify blocks of data for a version of a virtual machine in operational recovery storage to be offloaded to a cloud object store, wherein each of the one or more extents identifies locations of the blocks of data. The blocks of data are converted to objects in an incremental forever data format. The objects are offloaded to the cloud object store. The details of the offloading of the objects are stored in a local database in the operational recovery storage. The local database is copied from the operational recovery storage to the cloud object store as a database copy.

Providing and managing data protection by using incremental forever for storage to cloud object stores

Hypervisor agnostic interchangeable backup recovery and file level recovery from virtual disks

For accessing files from block-level backups of a virtual disk, an apparatus is disclosed. The apparatus includes a changed block module that obtains a list of changed blocks between a previous and a current backup of a virtual disk. The apparatus includes a mapping module that maps logical clusters of the virtual disk to the changed blocks and identifies files corresponding to the logical clusters. The apparatus further includes a changed file module that designates the files corresponding to the logical clusters as changed files, unless current attributes of the files for the current backup match attributes of the files in a backup file index corresponding to the previous backup of the virtual disk. The changed file module further stores the current attributes and extents for the changed files within blocks of a backup storage device for updating in the backup file index.

An apparatus, method and computer program product are disclosed. The apparatus includes a strategy module that determines restore information, writes the restore information into a restore information file, and writes the restore information file to a master volume containing target data; a snapshot module that creates a snapshot backup of the master volume; and a restoration module that restores the target data and restore information file, and restores application consistency of the target data. The method includes determining restore information, writing restore information to a file, writing the file to a volume containing data, backing up data by a snapshot backup of the volume, restoring data and the file, and restoring application consistency of the data. The computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium that stores code to perform determining a backup strategy, backing up data, and restoring data.

Snapshot backup with unified restore information

In an approach to backup and restore one or more clone file trees, one or more processors generate a clone management table. One or more processors record a clone management information in the clone management table about each clone file. To backup a clone file, one or more processors update the clone management information, and store one or more data blocks that are in the clone file trees. To restore a clone file, one or more processors analyze a clone management information and restore one or more data blocks in the clone file. To restore a clone file parent, one or more processors analyze a clone management information and restore one or more data blocks in the clone file parent. To restore a clone file tree, one or more processors analyze a clone management information and restore one or more data blocks in the clone file tree.

During a data protection operation, a system exploits a virtual hierarchy to centralize the configuration and management of operating system credentials of numerous virtual guests. For each virtual guest, the system uses the credential to collect a single Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) previously generated and stored in-guest by any data protection agent. The system stores the collected GUID as a custom property in the context of the virtual hierarchy. The system also exploits the virtual hierarchy custom properties to determine if GUIDs are copies due to virtual guest replication. The system ensures GUID uniqueness by requesting regeneration of the GUID by in-guest data protection agents. Using GUIDs that are unique across the virtual hierarchy, the system can correlate application data of multiple in-guest data protection agents.

Data protection backup agent management

Techniques for adjusting the frequency of data backups and initiating event-driven backups in a storage system are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a self-adjusting backup frequency, known as a 'Change Rate Objective,' is defined to conduct or delay backups for one or more volumes in the storage system on the basis of an associated policy value. The Change Rate Objective may be tied to one or more business or data activity events, such as the amount and type of data changes since a last backup. The storage system may also be tailored to conduct or delay full or incremental backups on the basis of a Change Rate Objective that measures whether a full or incremental or differential backup is more appropriate. Various data or system failures, or data or business events may also be used to adjust the retention periods of continuous data protection (CDP) data and delay a rollup of CDP data.

Automated and self-adjusting data protection driven by business and data activity events

Embodiments of the present invention provide efficient and cost-effective systems and methods for backing up and recovering a virtual machine and application data therein. Embodiments of the present invention can be used to satisfy near-zero RPOs by providing more recovery points for backups in virtual machine environments, while also providing increased granularity for recovery (i.e., single virtual disk, single file, etc.) and maintaining central management capabilities and back up efficiencies offered by virtual machine-level backups.

Back up and recovery in virtual machine environments

Growing community of inventors

Redwood City, CA, United States of America

James Patrick Smith