Migration of data storage

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9596291-B1
Application number	US-201615063636-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Mar 8, 2016
Priority date	Nov 30, 2015
Publication date	Mar 14, 2017
Grant date	Mar 14, 2017

Abstract

An operable mechanism implements a stub utility to facilitate the migration of stub files, where the stub utility is integrated with a data storage product and a data storage technique of an existing storage site containing the stub files. The stub utility identifies the stub files and uses virtualization to migrate the stub files to a new storage site without concomitantly recalling or accessing source files linked to the stub files.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by one or more processors at a first storage site, a request to migrate a set of file(s) from the first storage site of a first format to a second storage site of a second format, within a hierarchical tiered storage system;
identifying, by one or more processors at the first storage site, a stub file within the set of file(s) to be migrated, wherein the stub file is linked to a source file located at a storage site that is not the first storage site or the second storage site and the source file is accessible at the first storage site via the stub file;
creating, by one or more processors at the first storage site, a virtualized environment containing the identified stub file and all content associated with the first storage site, wherein stub file identification is based on at least one of an offline bit attribute and a file size attribute, a reparse point with a sparse file representation, and a determination of generic-type stub files;
responsive to determining the second storage site is incompatible with the first storage site, capturing, by one or more processors, content associated with the identified stub file;
integrating, by one or more processors, both the first storage site and the second storage site with the virtualized environment using the identified stub file;
responsive to integrating the first storage site and the second storage site with the virtualized environment, migrating, by one or more processors, the integrated virtualized environment from the first storage site to the second storage site, wherein the integrated virtualized environment includes the identified stub file and all content associated with the first storage site;
responsive to migrating the integrated virtualized environment, enabling, by one or more processors, access to the source file at the second storage site via the stub file contained in the migrated virtualized environment without accessing the source file linked to the stub file contained in the migrated virtualized environment; and
responsive to migrating the integrated virtualized environment, integrating, by one or more processors at the first storage site, the migrated, virtualized environment containing the identified stub file into the second storage site such that content of the source file may be accessed via the identified stub file without altering the second format of the second storage site.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Basva Leena B

Classifications

• H04L67/06 Primary

  specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP] · CPC title

• H04L67/1095

  Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes · CPC title

• G06F3/0647

  Migration mechanisms · CPC title

• G06F3/0643

  Management of files · CPC title

• G06F3/067

  Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title