Systems and methods for protecting email data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2020356525-A1
Application number	US-202016858316-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Apr 24, 2020
Priority date	Mar 13, 2014
Publication date	Nov 12, 2020
Grant date	—

Abstract

Aspects of this disclosure relate to protecting email data. For example, email protection rules can instruct an email server to route an email to an email protection module. The one or more email rules can identify a group of one or more email addresses. The email protection module can receive an email from the email server that has an email address of the group as an intended receipt. The email protection module can route the email to secondary storage and store the email in secondary storage to create a secondary copy of the email. The secondary copy can be stored inline to persistent memory of secondary storage, according to certain embodiments. Access to the backup copy of the email stored to the persistent memory can be controlled, for example, based on whether a user had permission to access to the email when the email was sent.

First claim

1 . (canceled)

2 . A networked data storage system for protecting electronic message data, the system comprising:
a first computing device comprising one or more hardware processors; one or more protection rules provided in at least one storage device, wherein a server application transmits electronic messages generated by a first application executing on at least one client device to electronic message recipients, and additionally transmits at least some of the electronic messages generated by the first application for processing by the one or more hardware processors of the first computing device, wherein the one or more hardware processors of the first computing device are programmed to:
receive at least a first electronic message from the server application; and
based at least partly on the protection rules, identify a secondary storage computing device to which to transmit the first electronic message received from the server application,
wherein subsequent to identification of the secondary storage computing device by the one or more hardware processors of the first computing device, the first electronic message is transmitted to the identified secondary storage computing device for processing as part of an operation in which a secondary copy of the first electronic message is created and stored.

3 . The system of claim 2 , further comprising an application-specific data agent that interfaces with the first application of the client device to perform information management operations on files generated by the client device.

4 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the first electronic message is sent to an address associated with the first computing device using an electronic messaging protocol, and the first electronic message is transmitted to the identified secondary storage computing device without using an electronic messaging protocol.

5 . The system of claim 2 , wherein user access to the secondary copy of the first electronic message is based at least partly on whether a user had permission to access the first electronic message when the first electronic message was received by the one or more hardware processors of the first computing device.

6 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the secondary copy of the first electronic message is stored in-line with transmission of the first electronic message to the one or more recipients of the first electronic message.

7 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the server application is not involved in creation or storage of the secondary copy of the first electronic message subsequent to transmitting the first electronic message for processing by the one or more hardware processors of the first computing device.

8 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the secondary copy of the first electronic message is created and stored transparent to the server application.

9 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the server application does not reside on the first computing device.

10 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the protection rules include a list of a group of addresses and specifies that only electronic messages associated with the group of addresses will be transmitted for processing by the one or more hardware processors of the first computing device.

11 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the client device and the first computing device reside in a primary storage subsystem of the data storage system, and wherein the secondary storage computing device resides in a secondary storage subsystem of the data storage system.

12 . A computer-implemented method of protecting electronic message data, the method comprising:
with a server application, transmitting electronic messages generated by a first application executing on at least one client device to one or more recipients of the electronic messages; transmitting with the server application a subset of the electronic messages generated by the first application to a first computing device; with the first computing device, receiving from the server application at least a first electronic message of the subset of electronic messages; accessing from at least one storage device a set of protection rules comprising; based at least partly on the protection rules, identifying with the first computing device a secondary storage computing device to which to transmit the first electronic message received from the server application, wherein subsequent to identification of the secondary storage computing device by the first computing device, the first electronic message is transmitted to the identified secondary storage computing device for processing as part of an operation in which a secondary copy of the first electronic message is created and stored.

13 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , further comprising interfacing with the first application using an application-specific data agent to perform information management operations on files generated by the client device.

14 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein said transmitting with the server application the subset of the electronic messages comprises transmitting the first electronic message to an address associated with the first computing device using an electronic messaging protocol, and wherein the first electronic message is transmitted to the identified secondary storage computing device without using an electronic messaging protocol.

15 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein user access to the secondary copy of the first electronic message is based at least partly on whether a user had permission to access the first electronic message when the first electronic message was received by the first computing device.

16 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the secondary copy of the first electronic message is stored in-line with transmission of the first electronic message to the one or more recipients of the first electronic message.

17 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the server application is not involved in creation or storage of the secondary copy of the first electronic message subsequent to transmission of the first electronic message to the first computing device.

18 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the secondary copy of the first electronic message is created and stored transparent to the server application.

19 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the server application does not reside on the first computing device.

20 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the protection rules include a list of addresses and specifies that only electronic messages associated with the list of addresses will be transmitted to the first computing device.

21 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the client device and the first computing device reside in a primary storage subsystem, and wherein the secondary storage computing device resides in a secondary storage subsystem.

Assignees

• Commvault Systems Inc

Inventors

• Ahn Jun H
• Krishnan Sesha N
• Liu Yan

Classifications

• H04L51/212

  using filtering or selective blocking · CPC title

• H04L63/10

  for controlling access to devices or network resources · CPC title

• G06F16/113

  Details of archiving (lifecycle management in storage systems G06F3/0649; point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data G06F11/1446) · CPC title

• G06F16/125 Primary

  characterised by the use of retention policies (retention policies for HSM systems G06F16/185) · CPC title

• G06F21/6209

  to a single file or object, e.g. in a secure envelope, encrypted and accessed using a key, or with access control rules appended to the object itself · CPC title