International Business Machines Corporation

Symantec Operating Corporation

Michael C Timpanaro-Perrotta

Ketury Ann Stein

Par Botes

Michelle Lisa Lohn

John Colgrove

Peter Vajgel

Charles Silvers

Scott Douglas Kaiser

Mlchelle Lisa Lohn

Steven K Masters

System and method for performing optimized restores of a multi-class file system. More actively accessed data may be assigned to higher storage classes and less actively accessed data may be assigned to lower storage classes in the multi-class file system. In a restore, the higher storage class(es) including more actively accessed data may be restored first. The multi-class file system may then be brought online for access by application(s). The lower storage class(es) may then be restored. In one embodiment, if a request for data that have not been restored is received, the file system may obtain an estimated time until restore of the requested data from the restore mechanism. The file system may then notify the application of the estimated time until restore. The application may notify a user of the estimated time, and may generate another request for the data after the estimated time has elapsed.

Restore mechanism for a multi-class file system

System and method for providing immutable data containers in tiered storage hierarchies. Embodiments may allow fulfillment of regulatory requirements for retaining certain data through management of a user-defined policy. The policy may specify what data in the file system needs to be stored as immutable data to the immutable data container in the file system. File system data may be tracked, and data specified by the policy may be transparently and automatically stored to the immutable data container within the file system. Updates to the data specified by the policy may also be stored to the immutable data container. This may be performed without overwriting or modifying the earlier version(s) of the data stored to the immutable data container, and thus every version of the data specified by the policy may be stored to and, if necessary, reconstructed from the immutable data container.

Immutable data containers in tiered storage hierarchies

Provided is a system and program for automatically handling an error when retrieving a file for an application. An error is detected while the application retrieves a file from the storage device. A user defined policy is checked to determine whether a backup copy should be restored, and the file is restored from the backup copy if the user defined policy indicates that the backup copy should be used.

System and article of manufacture for transparent file restore

Systems, methods, apparatus and software can provide the capability of grouping related files together so as to optimize placement of the files on the physical media. Consequently, certain system operations (e.g., backup, defragmentation and the like) can be performed on the group of files, as opposed to a single file or the entire filesystem.

System and method for grouping files

Provided is a method, system, and program for automatically handling an error when retrieving a file for an application. An error is detected while the application retrieves a file from the storage device. A user defined policy is checked to determine whether a backup copy should be restored, and the file is restored from the backup copy if the user defined policy indicates that the backup copy should be used.

Transparent file restore

Method, system, and program for a transparent file restore

Provided is a system, method, and program for maintaining a backup copy of files in a primary storage device in a backup storage device. The files in the primary storage device are capable of being restored from the backup copy of the files in the backup storage device. An association of one of a plurality of priority values is maintained for each file in the backup copy in the backup storage device. The priority value associated with each file in the backup copy of the files is used to determine the order in which the files in the backup copy are restored from the backup storage device to the primary storage device.

Method, system, and program for maintaining backup copies of files in a backup storage device

Provided is a method, system, and program for maintaining status information on data transmitted to an output device. Data is transmitted to an Input/Output (I/O) device. The I/O device stores the transmitted data in a computer readable medium memory. A determination is made as to whether a fixed amount of data exceeding a threshold was transmitted. An indication is made that transmitted data equivalent to the fixed amount was successfully outputted from the computer readable medium after determining that the fixed amount of data exceeding the threshold was transmitted.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Michael C Timpanaro-Perrotta