Systems and methods for facilitating management of data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9298417-B1
Application number	US-93311107-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Oct 31, 2007
Priority date	Jul 25, 2007
Publication date	Mar 29, 2016
Grant date	Mar 29, 2016

Abstract

A system for facilitating management of content data contained in a plurality of files is disclosed. The system may include a data discovery program configured to scan context data pertaining to the content data. The system may also include logic (or a service profile program) configured to determine one or more service profiles. The one or more service profiles may be selected and/or determined by a user or determined based on one or more rules and the current state of the context data. The one or more service profiles may define one or more services to be performed on at least one of one or more files among the plurality of files and at least a portion of the content data and/or the context data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for facilitating management of content data contained in a plurality of files stored on a data storage server, the system comprising:
a server cluster that comprises one or more processors and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a plurality of instructions, which when executed, cause the one or more processors to:
implement a discovery program configured to scan an information object of each of the plurality of files, without accessing the content data of the information object of each of the plurality of files scanned, to obtain context data from the information object of each of the plurality of files scanned;
implement a service profile program configured to:
retrieve the plurality of files stored on the data storage server for servicing;
select one or more service profiles stored on the server cluster, the selecting of the one or more service profiles being based on one or more rules to identify and categorize the content data and the selecting being further based on a state of the context data, wherein each service profile defines a plurality of services to be performed on the retrieved plurality of files, the plurality of services being performed on at least a portion of the content data and at least a portion of the context data of each of the retrieved plurality of files, and wherein the plurality of services included in the selected one or more service profiles includes extracting metadata from the content data, database population, rule-based content extraction, transparent migration, and policy classification;
distribute each of the retrieved plurality of files at an object level to one of a plurality of nodes of the server cluster to perform the plurality of services included in the selected one or more service profiles, the services being performed sequentially on the same file and simultaneously on different files of the retrieved plurality of files;

implement one or more service provider programs configured to perform the one or more services; and
implement a search indexing program configured to generate search indexes using the context data,
wherein the data discovery program, the one of the one or more service provider programs, and the search indexing program operate on a same data batch sequentially and operate on different data batches simultaneously.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the discovery program is further configured to select the plurality of files.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the context data is configured to enable the content data to be found, and the context data is configured to be retrieved using at least one of a file name and a file path pertaining to the content data.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the context data comprises a context data set, the context data set being configured to point to a content data set in the content data.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the context data comprises a context data set, the context data set being configured to point to multiple files among the plurality of files.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the context data comprises a plurality of context data sets, the plurality of context data sets being configured to point to one content data set in the content data.

7. The system of claim 1 further comprising a policy engine configured to associate the one or more rules with the at least one of the one or more files among the plurality of files, the at least the portion of the content data, and the at least the portion of the context data.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the discovery program is configured to scan the context data with file paths associated with the content data being maintained and without any file path associated with the content data being changed.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more service provider programs are configured to perform the one or more services without any file path associated with the content data being changed.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more service provider programs operate in different nodes in a cluster.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more service provider programs include a first service provider residing in a first node for providing a first service and a second service provider residing in a second node for providing the first service.

12. The system of claim 1 further comprising:
a search user interface configured to receive the user input;
a search engine configured perform a search in a first set of files using at least one of the user input and one or more search indexes generated using the context data; and
search action logic configured to update one or more user defined attributes in the context data based on a result of the search.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the search action logic is further configured to update the search user interface based on the result of the search.

14. The system of claim 12 further comprising pattern logic configured to create a pattern based on the result of the search, wherein the search engine is further configured to perform another search in a second set of files using the pattern.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the metadata includes at least one or more of new context data, one or more search indexes, and one or more database indexes pertaining to the plurality of files.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the context data are associated with a group identifier associated with the content data without being directly associated with the content data.

17. The system of claim 1 wherein the context data include one or more policy group identifiers associated with one or more policy groups that the context data belong to.

18. The system of claim 1 wherein a first set of data required for configuring the discovery program is separated from a second set of data associated with accessing a storage that stores the plurality of files.

19. A computer-implemented method for facilitating management of content data contained in a plurality of files stored on a data storage server, the method comprising:
scanning, by a discovery program on a server cluster that comprises a processor and memory, an information object of each of the plurality of files, without accessing the content data of the information object of each of the plurality of files scanned, to obtain context data from the information object of each of the plurality of files scanned;
retrieving the plurality of files stored on the data storage server for servicing;
selecting, by the discovery program, one or more service profiles stored on the server cluster based on i) one or more rules to identify and categorize the content data and ii) a state of the context data, wherein each service profile defines a plurality of services to be performed on the retrieved plurality of files, the plurality of services being performed on at least a portion of the content data and at least a portion of the context data of each of the retrieved plurality of files, the plurality of services included in the selected one or more service profiles including extracting metadata from the content data, database population, rule-based content extraction, transparent migration, and policy classification;
distributing, by a queue manager program on the server cluster, each of the retrieved plurality of files at an object level to one of a plurality of nodes of the server cluster to perform the plurality of services included in the selected one or more service profiles, the services being performed sequentially on the same file and si

Assignees

• Muddu Sudhakar
• Tryfonas Christos
• Maunder Anurag
• Emc Corp

Inventors

• Muddu Sudhakar
• Tryfonas Christos
• Maunder Anurag

Classifications

• G06Q10/00 Primary

  Administration; Management · CPC title

• G06F7/00 Primary

  Methods or arrangements for processing data by operating upon the order or content of the data handled (logic circuits H03K19/00) · CPC title

• G06F17/30

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/00

  Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor · CPC title

• G06F16/122

  using management policies (point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data G06F11/1446; file migration policies for HSM systems G06F16/185) · CPC title