Storage system and method of controlling storage system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9952936-B2
Application number	US-201214425675-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 5, 2012
Priority date	Dec 5, 2012
Publication date	Apr 24, 2018
Grant date	Apr 24, 2018

Abstract

In a storage system for backing up data of an external apparatus, the external apparatus and a storage apparatus collaboratively perform efficient de-duplication. A storage system stores data from the external apparatus in a unit of content, and includes a backup apparatus configured to execute backup processing to create backup data of the data from the external apparatus in the unit of content; and a storage apparatus coupled to the backup apparatus in a communication-enabled manner and configured to store the backup data received from the backup apparatus. A first backup processing part of the backup apparatus determines whether or not a content is already stored in the storage apparatus by using first redundancy determination information that is information for determining whether or not each of contents of the backup data is already stored in the storage apparatus.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A storage system to store data from an external apparatus in a unit of content, comprising:
a backup apparatus configured to execute backup processing to create backup data of the data from the external apparatus in the unit of content; and
a storage apparatus coupled to the backup apparatus and configured to store the backup data received from the backup apparatus, wherein
the backup apparatus includes:
first redundancy determination information that is information for determining whether or not a content of the backup data is already stored in the storage apparatus, and
a first backup processing part configured to determine whether or not the content is already stored in the storage apparatus by using the first redundancy determination information,

the storage apparatus includes:
second redundancy determination information that is information for determining whether or not the content of the backup data is already stored in the storage apparatus, and
a second backup processing part configured to determine whether or not the content is already stored in the storage apparatus by using the second redundancy determination information, and

when the first backup processing part determines that the content of the backup data is not stored in the storage apparatus and the second backup processing part determines that the content is stored in the storage apparatus, the second backup processing part sends the second redundancy determination information to the backup apparatus, and the first backup processing part of the backup apparatus incorporates the received second redundancy determination information into the first redundancy determination information,
wherein at least one management apparatus and a plurality of the storage apparatuses each including neither the second redundancy determination information nor the second backup processing part are coupled to the backup apparatus in a communication configured manner,
the management apparatus includes:
the second redundancy determination information of each of the storage apparatuses, and
the second backup processing part, and

the second backup processing part of the management apparatus receives a determination result based on the first redundancy determination information from the first backup processing part of the backup apparatus,
when the determination result indicates that the backup target content is not stored in any of the storage apparatuses, the second backup processing part also determines whether or not the content is stored in each of the storage apparatuses by using the second redundancy determination information, and
when determining that the content is stored in any of the storage apparatuses, the second backup processing part sends the second redundancy determination information to the backup apparatus.

2. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein
in the first redundancy determination information and the second redundancy determination information, a backup target content is split by a predetermined size into a plurality of unit-data segments, and each of the unit-data segments and unit-data segment unique information which is information obtained uniquely to the unit-data segment are stored in association with each other.

3. The storage system according to claim 2 , wherein
the backup apparatus includes:
restore information that is information for identifying the content stored in the storage apparatus, and
a first restore processing part configured to send the storage apparatus the restore information for identifying a restore target content when performing restore processing,

the storage apparatus includes a second restore processing part configured to identify the restore target content from the restore information received from the backup apparatus, identify the unit-data segments constituting the identified content by using the second redundancy determination information, restore the identified unit-data segments to the content, and send the obtained content to the backup apparatus.

4. The storage system according to claim 2 , wherein
the backup apparatus includes a unit-data segment storage area capable of storing a predetermined number of pairs of the unit-data segments and the unit-data segment unique information, and
the first backup processing part of the backup apparatus sends the pairs of the unit-data segments and the unit-data segment unique information to the storage apparatus when determining that the number of pairs of the unit-data segments and the unit-data segment unique information reaches the predetermined number.

5. The storage system according to claim 2 , wherein
the first backup processing part of the backup apparatus determines whether or not one of the unit-data segments is stored in the storage apparatus by using the first redundancy determination information,
when determining that the unit-data segment is not stored, the first backup processing part calculates the number of the unit-data segments to be sent to the storage apparatus from among the unit-data segments constituting the backup target content according to a preset upper limit data size, and sends the storage apparatus the calculated number of the unit-data segments including the unit-data segment determined as not stored and consecutively following unit-data segments.

6. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein
a plurality of the storage apparatuses are coupled to the backup apparatus in a communication-enabled manner,
the second backup processing part of each of the storage apparatuses receives a determination result based on the first redundancy determination information from the first backup processing part of the backup apparatus,
when the determination result indicates that the backup target content is not stored in the storage apparatus, the second backup processing part of each of the storage apparatuses also determines whether or not the content is stored in the storage apparatus by using the second redundancy determination information, and
when determining that the content is stored, the second backup processing part sends the second redundancy determination information to the backup apparatus.

7. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein
at least the backup apparatus includes a network monitor part configured to monitor a traffic of a communication network through which the backup apparatus and the storage apparatus are coupled to each other in a communication-enabled manner,
in a case where the network monitor part determines that a network load of the communication network is equal to or larger than a predetermined threshold when the first backup processing part is about to send the backup target content to the storage apparatus, the first backup processing part sends only unique information for identifying the content to the storage apparatus without sending data of the content.

8. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein
when the first backup processing part of the backup apparatus determines that the backup target content is archive data including a group of files partitioned by partition information recognizable by the first backup processing part, the first backup processing part and the second backup processing part:
perform processing, for unit-data segments located at the heads of the respective files constituting the content, and
when the first backup processing part determines that any of the first unit-data segments is not stored in the storage apparatus while the second backup processing part determines that the first unit-data segment is stored in the storage apparatus, the second backup processing part sends the second redundancy determination information to the backup appa

Assignees

• Hitachi Ltd

Inventors

• Hayasaka Mitsuo
• Yamasaki Koji

Classifications

• G06F16/174

  Redundancy elimination performed by the file system (error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operations G06F11/14) · CPC title

• H04L67/1097

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title

• G06F11/1464

  for networked environments · CPC title

• G06F11/1469

  Backup restoration techniques · CPC title

• G06F11/1456

  Hardware arrangements for backup · CPC title