Resiliency of a data storage system by protecting its management database to meet a recovery point objective (RPO)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12248375-B2
Application number	US-202418672466-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 23, 2024
Priority date	Feb 9, 2022
Publication date	Mar 11, 2025
Grant date	Mar 11, 2025

Abstract

An illustrative data storage management system comprises a management database that stores administrative preferences and system configurations, as well as results and/or statistics of completed secondary storage operations, i.e., information needed by the system to protect customers' data and to track and recover the protected data, including secondary copies such as backup copies, archive copies, etc. The disclosed data storage management system is configured to protect its own system data subject to a very aggressive (short) Recovery Point Objective (RPO), by using an innovative infrastructure that enables the system's storage manager to fail over to any number of other failover destination storage managers, each one comprising a destination management database. An illustrative database granularly tracks whether each and every transaction log file has been successfully applied to each and every destination management database to synchronize with the source management database.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a first storage manager comprising a first computing device; and
a second computing device in communication with first data storage resources;
wherein the first storage manager is configured to:
manage storage operations in the system,
cause a first database of a first database management system to be populated with information about one or more of: the storage operations, and preferences associated with performing the storage operations,
at a first time frequency that is based on a recovery point objective (RPO) for the first database, cause the first database management system to write a first plurality of transaction log files to a data path at the first data storage resources,
wherein the first plurality of transaction log files correspond to changes in the first database that occurred since a preceding writing of transaction log files to the data path, by the first database management system, and
wherein the first plurality of transaction log files are written in a native format of the first database management system;

wherein the second computing device is configured to, at a second time frequency that is longer than the first time frequency:
from a set of transaction log files that are stored at the first data storage resources in the native format, wherein the set of transaction log files includes the first plurality of transaction log files, generate backup data, wherein the backup data is in a backup format that is different from the native format, and
store the backup data at one or more of: the first data storage resources, and second data storage resources that are distinct from the first data storage resources;

wherein a second storage manager comprising a third computing device is configured to:
cause the backup data to be restored, to a second database of a second database management system, wherein the backup data is restored in a native format of the second database management system, and
after the backup data has been restored to the second database, manage one or more storage operations based on information in the second database; and

wherein each of: the first computing device, and the second computing device, and the third computing device comprises one or more hardware processors.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the second storage manager is further configured to: track whether, for each transaction log file at the first data storage resources, one or more corresponding backup data have been successfully restored to the second database.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the second storage manager is further configured to cause the backup data to be restored to the second database based on an indication that the backup data has been stored at one or more of: the first data storage resources, and the second data storage resources.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the second storage manager is further configured to:
after the backup data has been restored to the second database, wherein the backup data correspond to the set of transaction log files, indicate, in a third database populated by the second computing device, that transaction logs files within the set of transaction log files have been synchronized to one or more of: the second storage manager, and the second database populated by the second storage manager.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the RPO is configured as a preference for the system, and wherein the first time frequency is shorter than performing a backup of the first database.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system is configured to record the RPO as having been met based on the first plurality of transaction log files having been stored at the first data storage resources within a time period corresponding to the RPO.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein a first data agent, which executes at the first computing device and is associated with the first database management system, is configured to cause the first database management system to write the first plurality of transaction log files to the data path at the first data storage resources.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein a first data agent, which executes at the first computing device and is associated with the first database management system, is configured to cause the first database management system to write the first plurality of transaction log files to the data path at the first data storage resources via a media agent that executes at the second computing device.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the second computing device is further configured to: execute a media agent that is configured to:
receive the set of transaction log files from a data agent that executes at the first computing device, and
transform the set of transaction log files from the native format of the first database management system to the backup data in the backup format.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the third computing device is further configured to:
execute a data agent that is in communication with the second database management system at the second storage manager, and
wherein the data agent is configured to transmit the restored backup data to the second database management system with instructions to apply the restored backup data to the second database.

11. A computer-implemented method comprising:
executing a first storage manager at a first computing device that comprises one or more first hardware processors;
by the first storage manager:
managing storage operations in a data storage system,
causing a first database of a first database management system to be populated with information about one or more of: the storage operations, and preferences associated with performing the storage operations,
at a first time frequency that is based on a recovery point objective (RPO) for the first database, causing the first database management system to write a first plurality of transaction log files to a data path configured at first data storage resources,
wherein the first plurality of transaction log files correspond to changes in the first database that occurred since a preceding writing of transaction log files to the data path, by the first database management system, and
wherein the first plurality of transaction log files are written in a native format of the first database management system;

by a second computing device that comprises one or more second hardware processors, at a second time frequency that is longer than the first time frequency:
generating backup data from a set of transaction log files that are stored at the first data storage resources in the native format, wherein the set of transaction log files includes the first plurality of transaction log files, wherein the backup data is in a backup format that is different from the native format, and
storing the backup data at one or more of: the first data storage resources, and second data storage resources that are distinct from the first data storage resources; and

executing a second storage manager at a third computing device that comprises one or more third hardware processors; and
by the second storage manager:
causing the backup data to be restored, to a second database of a second database management system, wherein the backup data is restored in a native format of the second database management system, and
after the backup data has been restored to the second database, managing one or more storage operations based on information in the second database.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11 further comprising: by the second storage manager, tracking whether, for each transaction log file at the first d

Assignees

• Commvault Systems Inc

Inventors

• Bhagi Sri Karthik
• Sabjan Check Abdoul Cader
• Ahn Jun H

Classifications

• G06F11/1474

  in transactions (updating of structured data in databases G06F16/23) · CPC title

• G06F2201/87

  Monitoring of transactions · CPC title

• G06F11/1471

  involving logging of persistent data for recovery · CPC title

• G06F2201/80

  Database-specific techniques · CPC title

• G06F11/1469 Primary

  Backup restoration techniques · CPC title