Patent ID: 7689609
Filing Date: 2010-03-30
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A first storage system that supports remote retrieval of data, comprising: a storage operating system executed by a processor, the storage operating system configured to generate a sparse volume, wherein the sparse volume comprises a space reserved data container with an appearance that a full restore was completed, the storage operating system further configured to mark a block pointer of the sparse volume with a value to identify that a block of the sparse volume is not stored on the first storage system and further configured to retrieve the data of the block at a later time than initialization of the sparse volume using a protocol configured for remote retrieval of the data of the block from a backing store, wherein the backing store is a second storage system that stores backup data and is separate from the first storage system; and a protocol module operatively interconnected with the storage operating system and implementing the protocol configured for remote retrieval of the data of the block from the backing store in response to a determination that the block pointer of the sparse volume has the value, the protocol module further configured to return the data of the block to the sparse volume once the data of the block has been retrieved from the backing store.