Cloud-based disaster recovery of backup data and metadata

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9501365-B2
Application number	US-89583510-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2010
Priority date	Dec 28, 2009
Publication date	Nov 22, 2016
Grant date	Nov 22, 2016

Abstract

Cloud storage services can be used to facilitate secondary backup and disaster data recovery without the need for specialized backup servers at the secondary location or cloud storage service. Backup data streams are transferred to a cloud storage service. In addition to the backup data streams, backup metadata is generated for each backup data stream. The backup metadata is adapted to configure a backup server to retrieve and access data in the backup data stream. The backup metadata is also transferred to the cloud storage service. To access data from the backup data stream, a recovery backup system is connected with the cloud storage service. Backup metadata is transferred from the cloud storage service to the recovery backup system. The recovery backup system is updated with the backup metadata, which configures the recovery backup system to retrieve and access data in the backup data stream.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving a plurality of incremental backups from a client of a backup system in response to initiation of backup;
maintaining, by the backup system, backup information comprising backup times and dependency relationships among the plurality of incremental backups;
generating, for each of the plurality of incremental backups, a plurality of identifiers for locating data of an incremental backup;
transmitting the plurality of incremental backups and the plurality of identifiers to a cloud data storage;
in response to a request to generate in the cloud data storage a synthetic backup corresponding to a restore time,
identifying, by the backup system, a set of the plurality of incremental backups to be included in the synthetic backup based, at least in part, on the backup information, wherein identifying, by the backup system, the set of incremental backups to be included in the synthetic backup based, at least in part, on the backup information comprises:
analyzing the backup times to identify one or more of the plurality of incremental backups that occurred on or prior to the restore time;
analyzing the dependency relationships to identify those of the plurality of incremental backups on which the one or more of the plurality of incremental backups depend; and
indicating in the set of incremental backups the one or more of the plurality of incremental backups and those of the plurality of incremental backups on which the one or more of the plurality of incremental backups depend;

creating, by the backup system, a representation of the synthetic backup comprising a set of identifiers, wherein creating the representation of the synthetic backup comprises determining from the plurality of identifiers for each of the set of incremental backups the set of identifiers that correspond to data to be included in the synthetic backup; and
transmitting the representation of the synthetic backup to the cloud data storage for generation of the synthetic backup.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
deduplicating a first of the plurality of incremental backups; and
associating a first of the plurality of identifiers with at least a first deduplicated portion and a second deduplicated portion of the deduplicated first incremental backup;
wherein transmitting the plurality of incremental backups and the plurality of identifiers comprises transmitting the deduplicated first incremental backup and the first identifier for the first incremental backup to the cloud data storage.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating, for each of the plurality of incremental backups, the plurality of identifiers for locating data of an incremental backup comprises:
for each of the plurality of incremental backups,
dividing data of the incremental backups into a plurality of data segments; and
associating the plurality of identifiers with the plurality of data segments, wherein each of the plurality of identifiers is unique.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein determining from the plurality of identifiers for each of the set of incremental backups the set of identifiers that correspond to data to be included in the synthetic backup comprises:
determining that only a portion of a data segment associated with a first of the plurality of identifiers for a first of the plurality of incremental backups is to be included in the synthetic backup; and
in response to determining that only the portion of the data segment associated with the first identifier is to be included in the synthetic backup,
determining a first offset and a second offset for the portion of the data segment, wherein the first offset indicates a beginning of the portion and the second offset indicates an end of the portion within the data segment; and
modifying in the representation of the synthetic backup the first identifier to indicate the first offset and the second offset for the data segment.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising after transmitting the representation of the synthetic backup, supplying, by the backup system to the client, a plurality of shell files associated with data of the synthetic backup in the cloud data storage.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising:
receiving, from the client, an indication of a first of the plurality of shell files;
determining, by the backup system, a first identifier of the set of identifiers that corresponds to data of the first shell file;
transmitting the first identifier to the cloud data storage; and
after transmitting the first identifier to the cloud data storage, supplying the data of the first shell file that corresponds to the first identifier to the client.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the backup information is maintained locally by the backup system and is not transmitted to the cloud data storage.

8. One or more non-transitory computer readable media having program code stored therein, the program code to:
receive a plurality of incremental backups from a client of a backup system in response to initiation of backup;
maintain backup information comprising backup times and dependency relationships among the plurality of incremental backups;
generate, for each of the plurality of incremental backups, a plurality of identifiers for locating data of an incremental backup;
transmit the plurality of incremental backups and the plurality of identifiers to a cloud data storage;
in response to a request to generate in the cloud data storage a synthetic backup corresponding to a restore time,
identify a set of the plurality of incremental backups to be included in the synthetic backup based, at least in part, on the backup information, wherein the program code to identify the set of incremental backups to be included in the synthetic backup based, at least in part, on the backup information comprises program code to:
analyze the backup times to identify one or more of the plurality of incremental backups that occurred on or prior to the restore time;
analyze the dependency relationships to identify those of the plurality of incremental backups on which the one or more of the plurality of incremental backups depend; and
indicate in the set of incremental backups the one or more of the plurality of incremental backups and those of the plurality of incremental backups on which the one or more of the plurality of incremental backups depend;

create a representation of the synthetic backup comprising a set of identifiers, wherein the program code to create the representation of the synthetic backup comprises program code to determine from the plurality of identifiers for each of the set of incremental backups the set of identifiers that correspond to data to be included in the synthetic backup; and
transmit the representation of the synthetic backup to the cloud data storage for generation of the synthetic backup.

9. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 8 further comprising program code to:
deduplicate a first of the plurality of incremental backups; and
associate a first of the plurality of identifiers with at least a first deduplicated portion and a second deduplicated portion of the deduplicated first incremental backup;
wherein the program code to transmit the plurality of incremental backups and the plurality of identifiers comprises program code to transmit the deduplicated first incremental backup and the first identifier for the first incremental backup to the cloud data storage.

10. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 8 , wherein the program code to generate, for each of the plurality of incremental backups, the plurality of identifiers for locating data of an incremental

Assignees

• Parab Nitin
• Netapp Inc

Inventors

• Parab Nitin

Classifications

• G06F11/1469

  Backup restoration techniques · CPC title

• G06F11/1453

  using de-duplication of the data · CPC title

• G06F11/1464 Primary

  for networked environments · CPC title

• G06F11/1458

  Management of the backup or restore process · CPC title

• G06F11/1451

  by selection of backup contents · CPC title