Systems and methods for protecting email data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9633026-B2
Application number	US-201414209691-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 13, 2014
Priority date	Mar 13, 2014
Publication date	Apr 25, 2017
Grant date	Apr 25, 2017

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

What is claimed is:

1. A method of protecting email data using email protection rules that are distributed amongst multiple computing devices, the method comprising:
by a first computing device, accessing one or more email protection rules, the email protection rules comprising: (i) a first portion including information usable to identify emails to forward to a second computing device, and (ii) a second portion including information usable to determine which secondary storage controller computer of a plurality of secondary storage controller computers to use in secondary copy operations associated with emails forwarded to the second computing device;
based at least partly on the first portion of the one or more email protection rules, instructing an email server application to route emails processed by the email server application to the second computing device in addition to routing the emails to intended recipients of the emails, wherein the second computing device is separate from a computing device on which the email server application resides, and wherein the one or more email protection rules identify a group of one or more email addresses and specify that the email server application is only to route emails to the second computing device for which at least one of the intended recipients corresponds to one of the one or more email addresses in the group;
by the second computing device:
receiving an email from the email server application, at least one intended recipient of the email corresponding to one of the one or more email addresses of the group;
accessing the second portion of the one or more email protection rules:
reviewing the second portion of the one or more email protection rules; and
based on the review of the second portion of the one or more email protection rules, determining a target secondary storage controller computer of the plurality of secondary storage controller computers to which to route the email;

routing the email from the second computing device to the target secondary storage controller computer; and
storing the email in secondary storage to create a secondary copy of the email.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising controlling access to the secondary copy of the email based at least partly on whether a user had permission to access the email when the email was received by the second computing device.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said storing is performed inline with said receiving.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the email received by the second computing device was sent by the email server application to an email address associated with the second computing device.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said receiving comprises receiving the email in email format, and wherein the method further comprises converting the email to a secondary storage format prior to said storing.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising enabling a user to search secondary copies of emails stored by persistent memory of the secondary storage through a graphical user interface, the secondary copies of emails comprising the secondary copy of the email.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein said storing is independent of operations of the email server application subsequent to the email being routed to the email protection module.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein said storing is transparent to the email server application.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing the one or more email protection rules in a management database associated with a storage manager computer, wherein said instructing comprises providing the one or more email protection rules from the management database to the email server application.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more email protection rules comprise one or more routing conditions for routing the email to the second computing device.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more email protection rules comprise information identifying at least one of a storage device for storing the secondary copy of the email or a storage policy associated with the secondary copy of the email.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second computing device is separate from the computing device on which the email server application resides.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computing device on which the email server application resides is the first computing device.

14. A system for protecting email data using email protection rules, the system comprising:
an email protection processor configured to execute in computer hardware in a primary storage subsystem;
a plurality of secondary storage controller computers comprising computer hardware, in communication with the email protection processor, and residing in a secondary storage subsystem;
one or more email protection rules comprising:
a first portion including information usable to identify emails to forward to the email protection processor, and
a second portion including information usable to identify which of the plurality of secondary storage controller computers to use in secondary copy operations associated with emails forwarded to the email protection processor; and

a storage manager computer, the storage manager computer comprising computer hardware configured to, based at least partly on the first portion of the one or more email protection rules, instruct an email server application executing in the primary storage subsystem to send emails processed by the email server application to the email protection processor in addition to sending the emails to intended recipients of the emails,
wherein the email protection processor is separate from the email server application, and wherein the one or more email protection rules identify a group of one or more email addresses and specify that the email server application is only to send emails to the email protection processor for which at least one of the intended recipients corresponds to one of the one or more email addresses in the group;
the email protection processor being configured to:
receive an email from the email server application, wherein at least one intended recipient of the email corresponds to one of the one or more email addresses of the group;
access the second portion of the one or more email protection rules;
review the second portion of the one or more email protection rules;
based on the review of the second portion of the one or more email protection rules, identify a target secondary storage controller computer of the plurality of secondary storage controller computers to which to forward the email; and
transmit the email to a secondary storage subsystem; and

wherein the target secondary storage controller computer is configured to:
receive the email from the email protection processor; and
store the email in one or more storage devices residing in the secondary storage subsystem to create a secondary copy of the email.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the email received by the email protection processor is sent to an email address associated with the email protection processor using an email protocol, and the email protection processor transmits the email to the secondary storage subsystem without using email protocol.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein user access to the secondary copy of the email is based at least partly on whether a user had permission to access the email when the email was received by the email processor.

17. The system of claim 14 , wherein the secondary copy of the email is stored inline with transmission of the

Assignees

• Commvault Systems Inc

Inventors

• Ahn Jun H
• Krishnan Sesha N
• Liu Yan

Classifications

• G06F17/30085 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04L51/212

  using filtering or selective blocking · 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