Source: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/pat/US20190332489A1
Timestamp: 2020-07-07 16:58:05
Document Index: 200616949

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 61', 'Application No. 61', 'Application No. 61', 'Application No. 61', 'Application No. 61', 'Application No. 61']

Patent US 20190332489A1
US 20190332489A1
a backup engine including;
a file allocation table (FAT) processing module configured to;
a block processing module configured to;
Systems, methods, and computer program products are provided for reducing the size of image level backups. An example method receives backup parameters identifying a physical or Virtual Machine (VM) to backup and at least one file system object to include in the backup. The method connects to production storage corresponding to the selected physical or virtual machine and obtains access to data stored in disk corresponding to the selected file system object(s). The method fetches file allocation table (FAT) blocks from the disk and parses contents of the FAT blocks to determine if the disk blocks correspond to the selected file system object(s). The method creates a backup disk image FAT comprising blocks corresponding to the selected file system object(s), The method creates a reconstructed disk image FAT blocks corresponding to the backup FAT and disk image data blocks belonging to the selected file system object(s) and all other disk image data blocks are saved as zero blocks. A reconstructed disc image is compressed and stored in a backup file on backup storage, or replicated (copied) to another storage intact.
The present application is a continuation of Ser. No. 15/359,128, filed on Nov. 22, 2016, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/159,229, filed on Jun. 13, 2011, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/354,529, filed on Jun. 14, 2010, entitled “Selective Processing of File System Objects for Image Level Backups,” all of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.
Conventional methods for reducing the amount of data which needs to be retrieved from a source disk and stored in the backup include querying a specific part of file system'"'"'s FAT (File Allocation Table) to identify disk blocks which contain deleted data. The identified data blocks are then skipped during backup activities. For example, in systems using the MICROSOFT™ Windows New Technology File System (NTFS), deleted data blocks can be identified by querying and parsing a Master File Table (MFT), which is a part of the NTFS FAT. Some currently available disaster recovery tools, such as vRanger and vReplicator from QUEST SOFTWARE™, implement this technique.
Second, conventional backup optimization techniques provide little or no benefit during “incremental” backups, and may only be effective for “full” backups. Currently available technologies that facilitate efficient incremental backup, such as VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT), allow backup solutions to determine data blocks in which content has changed since a previous backup, so that only those blocks are backed up during the incremental backup cycle. However, deleting data in file systems like NITS, does not actually change the blocks corresponding to deleted file system objects, so the data blocks are not changed. Thus, these unchanged data blocks will not be picked up by the CBT for inclusion in an incremental backup without requiring some special processing. For example, ‘deleted’ NTFS file system objects like directories and files are merely marked for deletion in the MFT until the storage space is needed, at which point the corresponding blocks are filled with the new content.
Third, conventional backup techniques provide little benefit for incremental backups due to the nature of modern server workloads, which result in relatively little data being deleted, and primarily result in new data being added. This results in deleted data blocks being almost instantly reused by new data; leading to relatively few performance or storage benefits for incremental backups.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, conventional image level backup techniques process and store significant amounts of data that are unnecessary in backup files. For example, conventional methods process and store the disk image data blocks corresponding to the contents of swap files, hibernation files, the contents of temporary (‘temp’) folders, recycling bin folders; and/or data such as Windows operating system (OS) system files which either do not need to be backed up at all, or can be easily restored from multiple other readily available sources. For example, certain OS file system objects, such as directories and files for a server or computer can be readily restored from other similar servers or computers with the same OS installed. Conventional image-level backup optimization methods fail to take this into account and as a result consume valuable time and storage space processing data blocks that correspond to contents of files of no value to users.
Fourthly, embodiments of the invention enable filtering out unimportant data blocks from processing and storing as a part of image level backups, such as data blocks occupied by swap files. This is because in accordance with embodiments of the invention, swap files, temporary (‘temp’) files, and other data blocks that are not important to users and applications are not backed up, even in cases when full backups are being processed. For example, embodiments of the present invention filter out paging and virtual memory files used by Windows server and workstation operating systems (OSs) and only backup data blocks used for applications and corresponding to application executables.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form a part of the specification, illustrate the present invention and, together with the description, further serve to explain the principles of the invention and to enable a person skilled in the relevant art to make and use the invention,
Unless specifically stated differently, a user, a backup operator, and an administrator are interchangeably used herein to identify a human user, a software agent, or a group of users and/or software agents. Besides a human user who may perform object-selective backups, a software application or agent may sometimes process image level backups. Accordingly, unless specifically stated, the terms “backup operator,” “administrator,” and “user” as used herein are not limited to a human being.
FIG. 1 depicts system architecture 100 for processing object-selective image level backups, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. An operator console 110 includes a user interface (III) 115 for backup operators and administrators. In an embodiment, the LA 115 may be displayed on computer display 430 shown in FIG. 4. UI 115 can be used to add and select individual file system objects to be included in, or excluded from an image level backup. As used herein, an image level backup is a backup of the disk images of a physical or virtual machine (VM) corresponding to a server or computer. Because any physical machine can be backed up on image level (for example, by leveraging an agent), the invention applies to both image level backup of both virtual and physical machines.
UI 115 can also be used to remove a previously selected file system object from an image level backup to be processed. Operator console 110 can also be used to enter and configure other backup parameters 125 for an image level backup. For example, in the exemplary embodiment depicted in FIG. 3, UT 115 can be used to disable object-selective image level processing for a backup, to process all but a selected subset of file system objects in a backup, or to include (copy) only selected file system objects in an image level backup.
In the exemplary embodiments illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 3, operator console 110 includes a backup object selection interface 300 for selecting machine'"'"'s file system objects to backup for an image level backup of a machine. Selections of file system objects to include and exclude are received by backup engine 120 as backup parameters 125. According to an embodiment, the file system objects to be included may be programmatically determined based upon the file system objects selected to be excluded. After acquiring backup parameters 125, backup engine 120 connects to production storage 130 and initiates block level access to read data 135 from the corresponding disk 140.
In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, backup engine 120 is an application comprising modules configured to process an object-selective image level backup. In the exemplary embodiment depicted in FIG. 1, backup engine 120 is configured to receive backup parameters 125 from backup operator console 110. In an embodiment, the received backup parameters 125 are acquired by a receiving module (not shown). Backup engine 120 comprises a module configured to read data 135 from production storage 130 in order retrieve and parse file allocation table (FAT) 150 of disk 140, which in turn comprises part of production disk storage. In one embodiment, FAT 150 data can be retrieved directly from storage, by reading the disk data blocks corresponding to FAT data location. In another embodiment, the FAT data can be retrieved by an agent (not shown) installed in the processed virtual machine or physical computer. Backup engine 120 further comprises a module configured to create a reconstructed disk image 170 comprising a modified backup FAT 160. Backup engine 120 also includes a module configured to write an image level backup 175 to backup file storage 180 corresponding to reconstructed disk image 170. Additional functionalities and features of backup engine 120 are discussed below with continued reference to FIG. 1.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, production storage 130 can comprise one or more disks (or disk images—in case of virtual machines) 140 corresponding to each disk used by production machine disk storage corresponding to a machine being backed up. Operator console can be used to select file system Objects such as, but not limited to, directories, applications, data files, log files, and other file system objects associated with a machine'"'"'s applications.
In an embodiment, backup engine 120 is an application that functions as a backup agent. According to an embodiment, backup engine 120 is configured to retrieve disk blocks that store file systems'"'"' file allocation table (FAT) 150. As used herein, FAT refers to a file allocation table used in a variety of file system architectures for various Operating Systems (OSs) and is not limited to a FAT file system used in MICROSOFT™ Windows. According to an embodiment of the invention, the contents of FAT 150 are parsed to determine the location (on the disk 140) of blocks of file system objects selected for inclusion in the image level backup, as specified by a backup operator using operator console 110. In this way, only the blocks of disk 140 corresponding to selected file system objects need to be read from disk or disk image 140.
In an embodiment of the invention, backup data 175 can be made available to data consuming processes as a local volume so that the reconstructed disk image 170 can be later used for additional processing, verification and/or restore the backed up file system objects. In alternative embodiments, backup file storage 180 is made available to data consuming processes as remote storage via public or proprietary storage access protocols such as, but not limited to the Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS), and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI). Examples of additional processing include mounting reconstructed disk image 170 to a server as a volume, creating, updating or deleting some file system objects using native OS and third party tools, and committing the changes to backup data 175. Example methods for restoring file system objects and items from an image level backup are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/901,233, filed on Oct. 8, 2010 entitled “Item-Level Restoration from Image Level Backups,” which incorporates by reference and claims priority to U.S. Patent Provisional Application No. 61/250,586, filed on Oct. 12, 2009 entitled “Item-Level Restoration from Image Level Backup.” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/901,233 and U.S. Patent Provisional Application No. 61/250,586 are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. Example methods for displaying and verifying file system objects from an image level backup without fully extracting, decompressing, or decrypting the image level backup are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/901,233, which incorporates by reference and claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/302,743, filed on Feb. 9, 2010 and entitled “Systems, Methods, and Computer Program Products for Verification of Image Level Backups,” which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. Example methods for recovering file system file system objects from an image level backup without requiring the restoration process to be executed on a computer running an operating system (OS) that supports the virtual disk file system type backed up in the image level backup are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/021,312 filed on Feb. 4, 2011 and entitled “Cross-Platform Object Level Restoration From Image Level Backups,” which incorporates by reference and claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/302,877, filed on Feb. 9, 2010, and entitled “Cross-Platform Object Level Restoration From image Level Backups.” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/021,312 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/302,877 are both incorporated herein by reference in their entireties,
In step 240, backup engine 120 attaches to the required disk 140. In this step, block level read access is initialized in order to be able to retrieve process the data blocks of objects selected in step 220. In case of backup processing for a physical machine, according to an embodiment, an agent inside the processed physical machine can be leveraged to provide backup agent 120 with the processed disk'"'"'s data. After backup engine 120 is attached to production storage 130 and disk (s) 140 containing the selected file system objects, the method proceeds to step 250.
In step 260, backup engine 120 makes a copy of FAT 150 data blocks into backup FAT 160, and saves FAT 160 data blocks as part of reconstructed disk image 170. Step 260 includes optionally modifying backup FAT 160 data records to remove pointers to any file system objects not selected for backup in step 220, and saving data blocks representing FAT 160 to reconstructed disk image 170 after modification is completed.
According to an embodiment, by clicking, using an input device (not shown), include button 306, a backup operator can browse a list of displayed file system objects from the selected machine'"'"'s production storage 130. In an embodiment, a backup operator, using an input device (not shown), selects Add button 308 to select one or more of the displayed file system objects to be included in backup 175. For example, through moving a pointer or cursor within file system objects displayed in as result of clicking include button 306 and subsequently selecting Add button 308, a backup operator selects one or more file system objects to be processed from production storage 130 and included in reconstructed disk image 170. According to an embodiment of the present invention, a backup operator can select one or more file system objects (e.g., “d:\Share\Home Folders” in the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 3) by either typing in the object name(s) or browsing to the location of the file system object(s) within production storage 130. A backup operator can remove previously added file system objects from a backup by clicking on Remove button 310.
In an embodiment, file system objects to be excluded from backup 175 can be selected by clicking on exclude button 304. By clicking, using an input device (not shown), include button 306, a backup operator can browse a list of displayed file system objects from the selected machine'"'"'s production storage 130. Add button 308 allows a backup operator to add one or more file system objects or environment variables (e.g., “c:\pagefile.sys,”, “c:\hyberfil.sys,” and “%TEMP%” in the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 3) to a list of file system objects to be excluded from backup 175. In an embodiment, a backup operator, using an input device (not shown), selects Add button 308 to select one or more of the displayed file system objects to be excluded from backup 175. For example, through moving a pointer or cursor within file system objects displayed in as result of clicking exclude button 304 and subsequently selecting Add button 308, a backup operator selects one or more file system objects that will not be read from production storage 130 and to be excluded from reconstructed disk image 170. A backup operator can remove previously added file system objects from the backup exclusion list by clicking on Remove button 310.
The invention is also directed to computer program products comprising software stored on any computer useable medium. Such software, when executed in one or more data processing device, causes a data processing device(s) to operate as described herein. Embodiments of the invention employ any computer useable or readable medium, known now or in the future. Examples of computer useable mediums include, but are not limited to, primary storage devices (e.g., any type of random access memory), secondary storage devices (e.g., hard drives, floppy disks, CD RAMS, ZIP disks, tapes, magnetic storage devices, optical storage devices, MEMS, nanotechnological storage device, etc.), and communication mediums (e.g., wired and wireless communications networks, local area networks, wide area networks, intranets, etc.).
GOSTEV, Anton, TIMASHEV, Ratmir
US 9,507,670 B2
Current Assignee: Veeam Software Group GmbH
Sponsoring Entity: Veeam Software AG