Cluster file server proxy server for backup and recovery

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016110267-A1
Application number	US-201514919039-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 21, 2015
Priority date	Mar 30, 2012
Publication date	Apr 21, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A remote snapshot is taken of a data associated with a node within a cluster of nodes by using a snapshot facility of an operating system. A set of backup data components is recorded. The data is remotely restored by interpreting the remote snapshot with the set of backup data components.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method, comprising:
taking a remote snapshot of a data associated with a node within a cluster of nodes by using a snapshot facility of an operating system; wherein:
the cluster of nodes provides a failover clustering service provided by an operating system for the cluster of nodes; and
the snapshot facility does not need to be installed on top of any software provided by a standard distribution of the operating system;
recording a set of backup data components; and remotely restoring the data by interpreting the remote snapshot with the set of backup data components.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising provisioning a node proxy from amongst the cluster of nodes to reconstruct.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the node proxy may be one or more of: a physical node within the cluster of nodes; and a proxy virtual machine on a node within the cluster of nodes.

4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the cluster is a Microsoft Windows 8 Cluster.

5 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the node is a certain node that is not the node proxy.

6 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the node proxy can backup and restore for any node in the cluster.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining whether the data is served by a Scale Out file server.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein
the snapshot facility used is a Microsoft Cluster Shared Volume Shadow Provider if the data is served by a Scale Out file server, and wherein the snapshot facility used is a Microsoft File Share Shadow Copy Provider if the data is served by a generic file server.

9 . The method of claim 1 , where in the snapshot facility is configured for a local node to take a snapshot in order to restore the snapshot locally.

10 . The method of claim 1 , where in the snapshot facility is configured for a local node to take a snapshot of data that the local node is an owner for.

11 . The method of claim 1 , where in the snapshot is one or more of: a copy-on-write snapshot; and a shadow snapshot.

12 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising deduplicating the snapshot using a deduplication engine.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the data comprises one or more of: a file in a file share; and an entire file share.

14 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising establishing credentials for the node for reconstruction and wherein the set of data components comprises the credentials.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein establishing credentials for the node comprises providing a helper service running with a desired Microsoft Cluster Administration credentials.

16 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising interfacing with a Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (“WMI”) management API to determine ownership of the data.

17 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising provisioning a node proxy from amongst the cluster of nodes to reconstruct, and wherein:
the snapshot facility used is a Microsoft CSV Shadow Copy Provider if the data is served by a Scale Out file server; the snapshot facility used is a local file system backup if the node proxy is an owner of the data and the data is served by a generic server; and the snapshot facility used is a Microsoft File Share Shadow Copy Provider if the node proxy is not an owner of the data and the data is served by a generic file server.

18 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the node does not have one or more of: a restore agent; a backup client; and dedicated backup software.

19 . A system, comprising:
a processor configured to: take a remote snapshot of a data associated with a node within a cluster of nodes by using a snapshot facility of an operating system; wherein:
the cluster of nodes provides a failover clustering service provided by an operating system for the cluster of nodes; and
the snapshot facility does not need to be installed on top of any software provided by a standard distribution of the operating system;
record a set of backup data components; and remotely restore the data by using the remote snapshot with the set of backup data components; and a memory coupled to the processor and configured to provide the processor with instructions.

20 . A computer program product, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and comprising computer instructions for:
taking a remote snapshot of a data associated with a node within a cluster of nodes by using a snapshot facility of an operating system; wherein:
the cluster of nodes provides a failover clustering service provided by an operating system for the cluster of nodes; and
the snapshot facility does not need to be installed on top of any software provided by a standard distribution of the operating system;
recording a set of backup data components; and remotely restoring the data by using the remote snapshot with the set of backup data components.

Assignees

• Emc Corp

Inventors

• Earl Min-Chih Lu
• Boda Koteswara R
• Gruszka Jerzy
• Buchman Matthew D

Classifications

• G06F9/45533

  Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors · CPC title

• G06F2201/84

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

• G06F16/128 Primary

  Details of file system snapshots on the file-level, e.g. snapshot creation, administration, deletion (error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operations or in hardware G06F11/14, G06F11/16) · CPC title

• G06F11/1451

  by selection of backup contents · CPC title

• G06F9/5077

  Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources (specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455) · CPC title