Search filtered file system using secondary storage, including multi-dimensional indexing and searching of archived files

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9367548-B2
Application number	US-201514717255-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 20, 2015
Priority date	Mar 30, 2012
Publication date	Jun 14, 2016
Grant date	Jun 14, 2016

Abstract

Techniques for enabling user search of content stored in a file archive include providing a search interface comprising a search rules portion and an action rules portion, receiving a file archive search criterion comprising at least one search rule, and searching the file archive using the search criterion. The techniques also include generating a set of files filtered using the search criterion and performing an action specified in the action rules portion on a file included in the set of files.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of archiving a file to secondary storage in an information management system, the method comprising:
archiving a file to secondary storage, by a media agent component of the information management system that has been identified for archiving the file, wherein the archiving comprises:
(a) dividing the file being archived into a plurality of independently accessible smaller portions of an archive copy of the file, and
(b) multi-dimensional indexing of the file being archived, wherein the multi-dimensional indexing comprises:
(i) generating a file attribute index, which includes extrinsic information about the file being archived that is independent of file contents, and
(ii) generating a content index of at least one of: text content, picture content, video content, and audio content of the file being archived, and

(c) wherein each independently accessible smaller portion in the plurality of independently accessible smaller portions of the archive copy is identified at least once in at least one of the file attribute index and the content index;

providing to a user of the information management system a fast-forward progression through the plurality of independently accessible smaller portions of the archive copy without restoring each independently accessible smaller portion from secondary storage,
wherein the fast-forward progression is based on searching at least one of the file attribute index and the content index; and

restoring a first independently accessible portion of the archive copy to a user-device component of the information management system without having to also restore the other independently accessible smaller portions of the archive copy,
wherein the first independently accessible smaller portion of the archive copy is found by a search filter searching at least one of the file attribute index and the content index within the information management system.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
providing a user of the information management system with a search utility coupled to the search filter, wherein the search utility is based on multi-dimensional indexing performed in the course of archiving a plurality of files in the information management system; and
restoring from secondary storage only those archive copies or independently accessible smaller portions thereof that satisfy the user's search criteria, based on a respective file attribute index and content index associated with each archive copy.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the file attribute index and the content index are located on the user-device component of the information management system; and
wherein the archive copy is located on a secondary storage component which is distinct from the user-device component.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the content index comprises pattern recognition that extracts content information about one or more images in the file being archived.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the content index comprises pattern recognition that extracts content information about one or more audio sequences in the file being archived.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the content index comprises pattern recognition that extracts content information about one or more video sequences in the file being archived.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the multi-dimensional indexing comprises generating pointers to the locations in the secondary storage of each respective independently accessible smaller portion of the archive copy.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
storing the content index to a first location where the content index may be searched by the search filter, wherein the first location is in the primary storage; and
storing the file attribute index to a second location where the file attribute index may be searched by the search filter, wherein the second location is also in the primary storage.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
storing the content index to a first location where the content index may be searched by the search filter, wherein the first location is associated with the media agent; and
storing the file attribute index to a second location where the file attribute index may be searched by the search filter, wherein the second location is also associated with the media agent.

10. A method comprising:
multi-dimensional indexing of a file being archived to secondary storage in an information management system, by a multi-dimensional indexer,
wherein the file being archived is stored in primary storage which is in communication with a user computing device, and
wherein the multi-dimensional indexing comprises:
(a) generating a file attribute index, which includes extrinsic information about the file being archived that is independent of contents of the file, and
(b) generating a content index based on at least one of: text content, picture content, video content, and audio content of the file being archived;

archiving the file to secondary storage, by a media agent component of the information management system,
wherein the file archiving includes dividing the file into a plurality of independently accessible smaller portions of an archive copy of the file being archived, and
wherein each independently accessible smaller portion in the plurality of independently accessible smaller portions of the archive copy is identified at least once in at least one of the file attribute index and the content index;

providing to a user of the information management system a fast-forward progression through the plurality of the independently accessible smaller portions of the archive copy without restoring from the secondary storage each independently accessible smaller portion,
wherein the fast-forward progression is based on searching at least one of the file attribute index and the content index;

restoring a first independently accessible smaller portion of the archive copy to the primary storage in communication with the user computing device, without also restoring from the secondary storage the other independently accessible smaller portions in the plurality of independently accessible smaller portions of the archive copy; and
wherein the multi-dimensional indexer executes as computer-executable instructions on a hardware processor coupled to non-transitory computer memory storing the instructions.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the hardware processor is part of the user computing device that is in communication with the primary storage.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the hardware processor is part of a secondary storage computing device that executes the media agent component of the information management system.

13. The method of claim 10 further comprising:
accessing, by the user computing device, the restored first independently accessible smaller portion of the archive copy in the primary storage.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the restoring is performed by a media agent component of the information management system.

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the restoring is performed by a media agent component of the information management system in response to an indication received from the user computing device searching at least one of the file attribute index and the content index.

16. The method of claim 10 wherein the file being archived is a media file, and wherein the restored first independently accessible smaller portion of the archive copy comprises a picture that satisfies a search criterion.

Assignees

• Commvault Systems Inc

Inventors

• Kumarasamy Paramasivam
• Varadharajan Prakash
• Attarde Deepak Raghunath
• Bedadala Pavan Kumar Reddy
• Kilaru Satish Chandra

Classifications

• G06F16/11 Primary

  File system administration, e.g. details of archiving or snapshots (error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operations G06F11/14) · CPC title

• G06F17/30073 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30091

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30333

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/13 Primary

  File access structures, e.g. distributed indices (arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06) · CPC title