Data management system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10241691-B2
Application number	US-201514628001-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 20, 2015
Priority date	Nov 4, 2014
Publication date	Mar 26, 2019
Grant date	Mar 26, 2019

Abstract

Methods and systems for managing, storing, and serving data within a virtualized environment are described. In some embodiments, a data management system may manage the extraction and storage of virtual machine snapshots, provide near instantaneous restoration of a virtual machine or one or more files located on the virtual machine, and enable secondary workloads to directly use the data management system as a primary storage target to read or modify past versions of data. The data management system may allow a virtual machine snapshot of a virtual machine stored within the system to be directly mounted to enable substantially instantaneous virtual machine recovery of the virtual machine.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for operating a data management system, comprising:
acquiring a first snapshot of a virtual machine, the first snapshot corresponds with a first state of the virtual machine at a first point in time;
acquiring one or more snapshots of the virtual machine, the one or more snapshots correspond with one or more states of the virtual machine at one or more points in time prior to the first point in time;
storing the first snapshot as a first file of a set of files using a first storage device of a first type;
storing the one or more snapshots as one or more incremental files of the set of files using a second storage device of a second type different from the first storage device of the first type, the first storage device of the first type comprises a magnetic storage device and the second storage device of the second type comprises a solid-state storage device;
receiving an instruction to output a file associated with a second snapshot of the one or more snapshots from a computing device;
sequentially reading the first file associated with the first snapshot of the virtual machine at the first point in time from the magnetic storage device while reading two or more incremental files of the one or more incremental files associated with snapshots of the virtual machine prior to the first point in time from the solid-state storage device in response to receiving the instruction;
generating the file associated with the second snapshot using the first file and the two or more incremental files, the generating the file associated with the second snapshot includes patching the two or more incremental files to the first file; and
outputting the file associated with the second snapshot to the computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein;
the first file comprises a full image-level backup of the virtual machine at the first point in time; and
the first storage device of the first type has a first read speed and the second storage device of the second type has a second read speed that is greater than the first read speed.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the sequentially reading includes sequentially reacting the first file associated with the first snapshot of the virtual machine from the first storage device of the first type in parallel with reading the two or mote incremental files of the one or more incremental files associated with the second snapshot from the second storage device of the second type.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the one or more incremental files include a reverse incremental file.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the magnetic storage device comprises a hard disk drive; and
the solid-stale storage device includes a flash-based memory.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the first storage device of the first type has a first write speed; and
the second storage device of the second type has a second write speed that is taster than the first write speed.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
acquiring a merged file associated with the second snapshot of the virtual machine in response to receiving the instruction, the merged file includes a first pointer to the first file stored using the magnetic storage device and a second set of pointers to the two or more incremental files stored using the solid-state storage device; and
reading the first file pointed to by the first pointer from the magnetic storage device while reading the two or more incremental files pointed to by the second set of pointers from the solid-state storage device.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving an instruction to mount the second snapshot of the one or more snapshots from the computing device; and
allowing the computing device to access at least a portion of the second snapshot in response to receiving the instruction to mount the second snapshot.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the outputting the file associated with the second snapshot to the computing device includes transmitting the file associated with the second snapshot to the computing device.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
enabling the second snapshot of the one or more snapshots to be mounted by the computing device;
receiving a set of data associated with one or more data modifications made to the second snapshot from the computing device;
generating a cloned version oldie virtual machine that derives from the second snapshot;
storing the set of data as a new file; and
storing a snapshot of the clotted version subsequent to the receiving the set of data, the storing the snapshot of the cloned version includes storing a merged file that includes a pointer to the new file.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving an instruction to generate a derivative snapshot of the first snapshot;
generating a merged file corresponding with the derivative snapshot;
acquiring a set of data associated with one or more data modifications made to the derivative snapshot;
storing the set of data as a new file; and
updating the merged file with a pointer to the new file.

12. A data management system, comprising:
a first storage device of a first type;
a second storage device of a second type different from the first storage device of the first type, the first storage device of the first type has a first read speed and the second storage device of the second type has a second read speed that is greater than the first read speed, the first storage device of the first type comprises a magnetic storage device and the second storage device of the second type comprises a solid-stale storage device; and
one or more processors in communication with the first storage device and the second storage device, the one or more processors configured to acquire a first snapshot of a virtual machine, the first snapshot corresponds with a first state of the virtual machine at a first point in time, the one or more processors configured to acquire one or more snapshots of the virtual machine, the one or more snapshots correspond with one or more states of the virtual machine at one or more points in time prior to the first point in time, the one or more processors configured to cause the first snapshot to be stored as a first file of a set of files using the first storage device and cause the one or more snapshots to be stored as one or more incremental files of the set of files using the second storage device, the one or more processors configured to receive an instruction to output a file associated with a second snapshot of the one or more snapshots from a computing device and generate the file associated with the second snapshot using the first file and two or more incremental files of the one or more incremental files, the one or more processors configured to sequentially read the first file associated with the first snapshot of the virtual machine at the first point in time from the magnetic storage device while the two or more incremental files of the one or more incremental fifes associated with snapshots of the virtual machine prior to the first point in time are read from the solid-state storage device, the one or more processors configured to patch the two or more incremental files to the first file and output the file associated with the second snapshot to the computing device.

13. The data management system of claim 12 , wherein:
the first file comprises a full image-level backup of the virtual machine at the first point in time.

14. The data management system of claim 12 , wherein:
the one or more incremental files include a reverse incremental file.

Assignees

• Rubrik Inc

Inventors

• Jain Arvind
• Nithrakashyap Arvind
• Sinha Bipul
• Mazumdar Soham
• Gee Adam
• To Kenny
• Derryberry Jonathan

Classifications

• G06F2009/45579

  I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage · CPC title

• G06F16/27

  Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor · CPC title

• G06F11/1464

  for networked environments · CPC title

• H04L9/3242

  involving keyed hash functions, e.g. message authentication codes [MACs], CBC-MAC or HMAC · CPC title

• G06F3/0641

  De-duplication techniques · CPC title