Self-healing data protection system matching system attributes to relevant scripts using multiple scripts

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12189489-B2
Application number	US-202217971167-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 21, 2022
Priority date	Jul 27, 2022
Publication date	Jan 7, 2025
Grant date	Jan 7, 2025

Abstract

Embodiments automate the timely remediation of issues by matching failed operations to a script or set of scripts that is configured to fix the problem. A method detects a backup operation alert message sent from a data manager or storage system that encodes one or more attributes affected by the backup operation, wherein the attributes are weighted to reflect a percentage importance of the a corresponding script to fix the problem. A script library is scanned to identify scripts that match the alert message. A component generates a score for each script, where the score factors the relevance of the script to the backup operation based on the weighted attributes. Scores for each single script each possible combination of multiple scripts are computed and compared, and the script or script combination with the highest score is executed by the self-healing process.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of remediating issues encountered in a data protection system, comprising:
detecting a backup operation alert message sent from one of a data manager or storage system, wherein the alert message encodes one or more attributes affected by the backup operation;
scanning a script library to identify a plurality of scripts that match the alert message, wherein each script defines attributes that are weighted with an assigned value to reflect a percentage importance of a corresponding script to resolve a problem causing the alert message, and produce a weighted attribute, and further wherein each script contains a header listing weighted attributes of backup operations affected by the script;
determining a combination of scripts among the plurality of scripts to define one or more script combinations;
first generating a score for each single script of the identified scripts and second generating a score for each script combination, wherein the score factors the relevance of the script or script combination to the backup operation using the weighted attributes; and
executing the script or script combination with the highest score, as the script most likely to remediate the issue causing the alert message.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein a maximum score for any single script is of value 100, the method further comprising normalizing a weight associated with each script of the script combination so that the sum of normalized weights for the script combination equals 100.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising matching the weighted attributes encoded in the alert message with weighted attributes in the headers of each of the identified scripts.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein, for each script, the score calculates a ratio of a total number of weighted attributes in the backup operation over a number of weighted attributes in the script that are also listed in the backup operation.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the script also calculates a penalty value that subtracts from the ratio, a number of weighted attributes in the script that are not listed in the backup operation, and wherein the penalty value is a configurable value that reduces the score of a script to avoid a possibility of an additional issue being caused by a penalized script.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising randomly executing a highest scoring script of a plurality of scripts having an equal highest score, or randomly selecting a highest scoring script to execute if two or more scripts have a same highest score.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the weighted attributes comprise at least one of: storage utilization, CPU utilization, device status as online, offline, or locked, and storage unit status as non-existent/full/unavailable.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the alert message comprises a text message indicating an action needed and a weighted attribute associated with the issue.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein data protection system comprises a deduplicated backup system including a Data Domain file system (DDFS).

10. A method of remediating issues encountered in a data protection system, comprising:
encoding one or more attributes in an alert messages to be generated by one of a data manager or storage system in the event of attempted execution of a failed backup operation, wherein the attributes represent system resources affected by the backup operation;
weighting each attribute to produce weighted attributes, wherein a weight comprises an assigned value between 0 to 100 to reflect a percentage importance of a corresponding script to resolve a problem causing the alert message;
storing a plurality of scripts, each script encoded with weighted attributes affected by a respective script;
identifying, in the event of a detected alert message, one or more scripts that match the alert message through matching weighted attributes within the alert message and the one or more scripts;
first calculating a score for each single script of the one or more messages, and second calculating a score for each permutation of script combinations of the one or more scripts, wherein the score equals a number of matching weighted attributes and least number of non-matching weighted attributes, as the script most likely to remediate the issue causing the alert message; and
selecting for execution, the script or script combination with the highest score.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein a maximum score for any single script is of value 100, the method further comprising normalizing a weight associated with each permutation of script combinations so that the sum of normalized weights for a script combination equals 100.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein each script contains a header listing weighted attributes of backup operations affected by the script followed by executable code processing the listed weighted attributes.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising, calculating, for each script, a score having a ratio of a total number of attributes in the backup operation over a number of weighted attributes in the script that are also listed in the backup operation, and a penalty value that subtracts from the ratio, a number of weighted attributes in the script that are not listed in the backup operation, wherein the penalty value reduces the score of a script to avoid a possibility of an additional issue being caused by a penalized script.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the weighted attributes comprise at least one of: storage utilization, CPU utilization, device status as one of online/offline/locked), and storage unit status as one of non-existent/full/unavailable, and further wherein the alert message comprises a text message indicating an action needed and an attribute associated with the issue.

15. A method of remediating issues encountered in a data protection system, comprising:
receiving a system alert message sent encoding one or more attributes affected in the data protection system;
scanning a script library to identify a plurality of scripts that match the alert message, wherein each script defines weighted attributes and is configured to resolve a problem causing the alert message;
first calculating a score for each single script of the identified scripts;
determining a combination of scripts among the plurality of scripts to define one or more script combinations;
second generating a score for each script combination, wherein the score for each individual script and each script combination factors the relevance of the respective script or script combination to the backup operation using the weighted attributes; and
executing the script or script combination with the highest score, as the script most likely to remediate the issue causing the alert message, wherein the weighted attributes are weighted with an assigned value to reflect a percentage importance of a corresponding script to resolve the problem causing the alert message, and wherein a weight comprises an assigned value between 0 to 100 to reflect a percentage importance of a corresponding script to resolve the problem, the weighted attributes comprising at least one of: storage utilization, CPU utilization, device status as one of online/offline/locked), and storage unit status as one of non-existent/full/unavailable, and further wherein the alert message comprises a text message indicating an action needed and a weighted attribute associated with the issue.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein a maximum score for any single script is of value 100, the method further comprising normalizing a weight as

Assignees

• Dell Products Lp

Inventors

• Malamut Mark
• Brenner Adam
• Murti Arun

Classifications

• G06F2201/84

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

• G06F11/1453

  using de-duplication of the data · CPC title

• G06F11/1446

  Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data · CPC title

• G06F11/1458 Primary

  Management of the backup or restore process · CPC title

• G06F11/0793 Primary

  Remedial or corrective actions (recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40) · CPC title