Methods and systems for clone management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016188415-A1
Application number	US-201514695356-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Apr 24, 2015
Priority date	Dec 31, 2014
Publication date	Jun 30, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Methods and systems for storage services is provided. An inventory view listing a plurality of application objects of an application from among a plurality of applications is provided on a display device by a management device that interfaces with a plurality of application plugins executed by one or more host computing devices that interface with the plurality of applications for managing backup, restore and clone operations involving objects that are stored on behalf of the plurality of applications by a storage system. A clone dataset object for an application object is selected from the plurality of application objects of the application. A clone lifecycle option for the clone dataset object is selected for managing lifecycle of a clone of a backup of the selected application object.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A machine implemented method, comprising:
providing an inventory listing of a plurality of application objects of an application from among a plurality of applications on a display device by a management device that interfaces with a plurality of application plugins executed by one or more computing devices interfacing with the plurality of applications for managing backup, restore and cloning operations involving objects that are stored on behalf of the plurality of applications by a storage system; generating a clone dataset object for an application object selected from among the plurality of application objects of the application, where the clone dataset object format is the same regardless of any application object type maintained by the plurality of applications; selecting a clone lifecycle option for the clone dataset object for managing lifecycle of a clone of a backup of the selected application object, where clone lifecycle involves taking the clone of the backup of the selected application object, deleting the clone and refreshing the clone; associating the clone dataset object with a policy object identifying clone lifecycle preferences, where the policy object format for the plurality of applications and associated application objects is the same; and executing operations associated with the clone lifecycle based on the clone dataset and the policy object, where the management device manages clone lifecycle operations interfacing with the application plugin.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the selected application object is a database from among a plurality of databases managed by a database application.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the selected application object is a virtual machine and any data associated with the virtual machine from among a plurality of virtual machines.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein for managing clone lifecycle operations, the management device interfaces with a management layer executed by a computing device that executes the application plugin and the application.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the clone lifecycle operations include taking a backup, generating a clone, deleting a cloning, taking another backup and then generating another clone based on the clone dataset.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein application objects may be added or removed from the clone dataset object enabling clone cycle management based on user preferences.

7 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the clone life cycle operations, comprising:
obtaining metadata associated with a backup of the selected application object by a cloning module executed by the management device; and requesting clone creation by the cloning module to the management layer and the management layer coordinating clone creation with the application plugin.

8 . A non-transitory, machine readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions for performing a method, comprising machine executable code which when executed by at least one machine, causes the machine to:
provide an inventory view listing of a plurality of application objects of an application from among a plurality of applications on a display device by a management device that interfaces with a plurality of application plugins executed by one or more computing devices interfacing with the plurality of applications for managing backup, restore and cloning operations involving objects that are stored on behalf of the plurality of applications by a storage system; generate a clone dataset object for an application object selected from among the plurality of application objects of the application, where the clone dataset object format is the same regardless of any application object type maintained by the plurality of applications; select a clone lifecycle option for the clone dataset object for managing lifecycle of a clone of a backup of the selected application object, where clone lifecycle involves taking the clone of the backup of the selected application object, deleting the clone and refreshing the clone; associate the clone dataset object with a policy object identifying clone lifecycle preferences, where the policy object format for the plurality of applications and associated application objects is the same; and execute operations associated with the clone lifecycle based on the clone dataset and the policy object, where the management device manages clone lifecycle operations interfacing with the application plugin.

9 . The storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the selected application object is a database from among a plurality of databases managed by a database application.

10 . The storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the selected application object is a virtual machine and any data associated with the virtual machine from among a plurality of virtual machines.

11 . The storage medium of claim 8 , wherein for managing clone lifecycle operations, the management device interfaces with a management layer executed by a computing device that executes the application plugin and the application.

12 . The storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the clone lifecycle operations include taking a backup, generating a clone, deleting a cloning, taking another backup and then generating another clone based on the clone dataset.

13 . The storage medium of claim 8 , wherein application objects may be added or removed from the clone dataset object enabling clone cycle management based on user preferences.

14 . The storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the machine executable code further causes the machine to:
obtain metadata associated with a backup of the selected application object by a cloning module executed by the management device; and request clone creation by the cloning module to the management layer and the management layer coordinates clone creation with the application plugin.

15 . A system, comprising:
a memory containing machine readable medium comprising machine executable code having stored thereon instructions; and a processor module of a management device coupled to the memory, the processor module configured to execute the machine executable code to: provide an inventory listing of a plurality of application objects of an application from among a plurality of applications on a display device by the management device that interfaces with a plurality of application plugins executed by one or more computing devices that interface with the plurality of applications for managing backup, restore and cloning operations involving objects that are stored on behalf of the plurality of applications by a storage system; generate a clone dataset object for an application object selected from among the plurality of application objects of the application, where the clone dataset object format is the same regardless of any application object type maintained by the plurality of applications; select a clone lifecycle option for the clone dataset object for managing lifecycle of a clone of a backup of the selected application object, where clone lifecycle involves taking the clone of the backup of the selected application object, deleting the clone and refreshing the clone; associate the clone dataset object with a policy object identifying clone lifecycle preferences, where the policy object format for the plurality of applications and associated application objects is the same; and execute operations associated with the clone lifecycle based on the clone dataset and the policy object, where the management device manages clone lifecycle operations interfacing with the application plugin.

Assignees

• Netapp Inc
• Netapp Inc

Inventors

• Karinta Vineeth
• Lolayekar Santosh C
• Thorat Vrishali Namdeo

Classifications

• G06F2201/80

  Database-specific techniques · CPC title

• G06F16/188

  Virtual file systems · CPC title

• G06F2201/815

  Virtual · CPC title

• G06F16/172

  Caching, prefetching or hoarding of files · CPC title

• G06F16/951

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title