Network informed policy creation for optimizing multiple backup operations in a multiple source system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11748205-B2
Application number	US-202217721681-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 15, 2022
Priority date	Sep 30, 2021
Publication date	Sep 5, 2023
Grant date	Sep 5, 2023

Abstract

Optimizing multiple backup operations for multiple sources by discovering shared data routes between sources and targets for backup operations performed in a certain time period. Backups using shared routes use a Best Time Algorithm that determines a size of a dataset to be saved an available bandwidth in each transfer window of the time period, and then determines an order of the backup operations based on first ordering the backups based on decreasing dataset size and second ordering the transfer windows in order of decreasing bandwidth, and matching the backups to the transfer windows in accordance with the first ordering and second ordering. The optimum time represents a time to initiate each backup of the multiple backups that results in a shortest data transfer time over the entire time period.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method of optimizing backup operations for a data protection system having a plurality of sources backing up data to one or more targets through a plurality of backups, comprising:
determining if any two backup operations share a common route between a source and a target for transferring data within a defined data transfer period comprising one or more individual backup windows, and denoted as shared backups;
determining, for each shared backup:
a size of a dataset to be saved in each shared backup,
an available bandwidth in each transfer window of the one or more transfer windows for transfer data between the source and target,
an order of the backup operations based on first ordering the backups based on decreasing dataset size and second ordering the transfer windows in order of decreasing bandwidth; and

matching the backups to the transfer windows in accordance with the first ordering and second ordering.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising backing up at any time during the defined data transfer period, data for any backup operations not sharing a common route with any other backup.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising performing a network discovery operation to discover network hops between each source and corresponding target to identify and annotate the shared backups.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the network discovery operation comprises one of Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), Internet Router Discovery Protocol (ICMP), or traceroute, and wherein the network hops comprise links between network devices along a route or path from a source to a target.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:
determining, for each network device, device parameters including: available bandwidth, port speed, and historical transmission information; and
collecting network traffic information including network bandwidth, and a network uplink speed for each backup of the shared backups.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the data transfer period comprises a plurality of transfer windows defined by a network protection policy for performing backups at a specified time of day for a maximum period of time.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein each backup comprises a plurality of stages comprising:
taking a snapshot copy of a respective dataset from a source;
transferring the dataset to a specified target, tiering of the dataset to cloud storage, or replicating the dataset to secondary storage; and
initiating a corresponding backup after the snapshot copy taking step.

8. The method of claim 4 further comprising:
determining, for each backup of the plurality of backups, a size of each dataset to be backed up by the respective backup;
monitoring a flow of data between the source and target for the respective backup; and
determining an optimum time within the plurality of transfer windows based on the dataset size and the historical transmission information for each backup of the plurality of backups, wherein the historical information is used to establish bandwidth data used to derive the respective bandwidth capacities of each transfer window, and further wherein the optimum time represents a time to initiate the backup operation that results in a shortest data transfer time over the defined data transfer period.

9. A computer-implemented method of optimizing backup operations for multiple datasets from backed up from multiple sources to one or more targets in a data protection system, comprising:
discovering backup schedules and network links for the multiple sources backing up the multiple datasets;
first determining backups that share common network links within a scheduled backup to define shared backups;
determining a size of each dataset to be backed up in the shared backups;
iteratively ordering the shared backups within time windows of the scheduled backup based on respective dataset sizes and bandwidth capacities; and
determining an optimum time within each the time windows to initiate the shared backups based on an ordering that minimizes an overall backup time within the scheduled backup.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:
first ordering the backups based on decreasing backup dataset size, with largest dataset ordered first;
second ordering the backups based on transfer windows based on decreasing bandwidth capacity, with highest bandwidth capacity first; and
matching the largest dataset backup with the highest bandwidth capacity transfer window until at least one of: all of the plurality of backups are scheduled in at least one transfer window, or all transfer windows are occupied.

Assignees

• Dell Products Lp

Inventors

• Brenner Adam
• Murti Arun
• Malamut Mark

Classifications

• G06F11/1461 Primary

  Backup scheduling policy · CPC title

• G06F2201/84

  Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data · CPC title

• G06F11/1464

  for networked environments · CPC title