Synchronization operations for network-accessible folders

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10949398-B2
Application number	US-201815937529-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 27, 2018
Priority date	Mar 29, 2017
Publication date	Mar 16, 2021
Grant date	Mar 16, 2021

Abstract

An information management system is provided herein that combines data backup and data migration operations such that data appears available in a network-accessible folder when in fact the data is stored as a secondary copy in a secondary storage device. For example, a user can indicate that a first file should be added to the network-accessible folder. A client computing device can transmit the first file to a secondary storage computing device that performs a backup operation to store a backup copy of the first file in the secondary storage device. The secondary storage computing device can also generate an index of the first file, which includes a location of the backup copy of the first file, and transmit the index to a server that manages the network-accessible folder. Thus, the backup copy of the first file can be retrieved if the first file is selected via the network-accessible folder.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A networked information management system for managing a first network-accessible folder, the networked information management system comprising:
a client computing device having one or more first hardware processors, wherein the client computing device is configured with first computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the client computing device to:
receive an indication that a first file is added to a first folder local to the client computing device, wherein the first folder is associated with the first network-accessible folder, and wherein the first network-accessible folder is managed by a server remote from the client computing device;
transmit the first file for storage in secondary memory comprising one or more secondary storage devices remote from the server, wherein the first network-accessible folder managed by the server lists the first file as being stored in the first network-accessible folder in response to the first file being transmitted for storage in the secondary memory;
receive an indication that the first file is deleted from the first folder; and
prevent synchronization with the first network-accessible folder such that the first file is not deleted from the first network-accessible folder; and

one or more computing devices in communication with the client computing device, wherein the one or more computing devices each have one or more second hardware processors, wherein the one or more computing devices are configured with second computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more computing devices to:
receive the first file from the client computing device in response to the first file being added to the first folder and prior to the first file being deleted from the first folder, wherein the first file is in a native format;
convert the first file from the native format to a backup format to form a backup copy of the first file; and
store the backup copy of the first file in the secondary memory.

2. The networked information management system of claim 1 , wherein the second computer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause the one or more computing devices to:
generate an index associated with the first file, wherein the index comprises a location of the backup copy of the first file in the secondary memory; and
transmit the index to the server.

3. The networked information management system of claim 2 , wherein the location of the backup copy of the first file comprises an archive file offset that identifies a location within a data chunk stored in the secondary memory in which the backup copy of the first file is stored.

4. The networked information management system of claim 1 , wherein the first network-accessible folder comprises a link to the backup copy of the first file.

5. The networked information management system of claim 4 , wherein selection of the link via a second client computing device causes the server to transmit a location of the backup copy of the first file to the second client computing device.

6. The networked information management system of claim 5 , wherein the second computer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause the one or more computing devices to:
receive the location of the backup copy of the first file from the second client computing device;
retrieve the backup copy of the first file from the secondary storage device using the received location of the secondary copy of the first file;
convert the backup copy of the first file from the backup format to the native format to form a copy of the first file; and
transmit the copy of the first file to the second client computing device to satisfy a request for the first file by the second client computing device indicated by the selection of the link.

7. The networked information management system of claim 1 , wherein the first network-accessible folder lists the first file as being stored in the first network-accessible folder without the server storing a copy of the first file.

8. The networked information management system of claim 1 , wherein the first folder comprises a second file, and wherein the second file is listed as being stored in the first network-accessible folder.

9. The networked information management system of claim 8 , wherein the second file is not deleted from the first folder when the second file is deleted from the network-accessible folder.

10. The networked information management system of claim 8 , wherein the second file stored in the first folder is modified.

11. The networked information management system of claim 10 , wherein the first computer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause the client computing device to transmit the modified second file to the one or more computing devices for storage in the secondary memory such that the first network-accessible folder lists the modified second file as being stored in the first network-accessible folder.

12. A computer-implemented method for managing a first network-accessible folder, the computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving an indication that a first file is added to a first folder local to a client computing device, wherein the first folder is associated with the first network-accessible folder, and wherein the first network-accessible folder is managed by a server remote from the client computing device;
transmitting the first file to one or more computing devices for conversion of the first file from a native format to a backup format to form a backup copy of the first file that is stored in secondary memory remote from the server, wherein the first network-accessible folder managed by the server lists the first file as being stored in the first network-accessible folder in response to the first file being transmitted to the one or more computing devices;
receiving an indication that the first file is deleted from the first folder; and
preventing synchronization with the first network-accessible folder such that the first file is not deleted from the first network-accessible folder.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the one or more computing devices generates an index associated with the first file, wherein the index comprises a location of the backup copy of the first file in the secondary memory, and wherein the one or more computing devices transmits the index to the server.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , wherein the location of the backup copy of the first file comprises an archive file offset that identifies a location within a data chunk stored in the secondary memory in which the backup copy of the first file is stored.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the first network-accessible folder comprises a link to the backup copy of the first file.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15 , wherein selection of the link via a second client computing device causes the server to transmit a location of the backup copy of the first file to the second client computing device.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the first network-accessible folder lists the first file as being stored in the first network-accessible folder without the server storing a copy of the first file.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the first folder comprises a second file, and wherein the second file is listed as being stored in the first network-accessible folder.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , wherein the seco

Assignees

• Commvault Systems Inc

Inventors

• Mehta Bhavyan Bharatkumar
• Gokhale Parag
• Bhagi Sri Karthik
• Sinha Prosenjit
• PRADHAN Manoj Kumar

Classifications

• H04L67/53

  using third party service providers · CPC title

• H04L67/60

  Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources (admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70) · CPC title

• H04L67/01

  Protocols · CPC title

• G06F16/951

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · 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