Patent ID: 7987326

Claim:
A method, comprising: maintaining information on a volume group associating a plurality of volumes and backup settings, wherein the backup settings indicate a maximum number of backups to maintain for the volume group; selecting a volume group to which the backup settings apply, wherein a volume group associates hosts and volumes, indicating the hosts that are enabled to access the volumes in the volume group; and invoking automatic backup operations for the selected volume group to perform with respect to all volumes in the volume group, comprising: generating backup information for the volume group indicating backups performed with respect to the volumes associated with the volume group and a backup frequency at which to backup the volumes associated with the volume group; processing the backup information for the volume group to determine whether to perform a backup with respect to the volume group according to the backup settings and according to the backup frequency for the volume group; and backing-up each volume in the volume group in response to determining to perform the backup operation for the volume group by performing: determining whether the backup information for the volume group indicates a number of completed backups for the volume group equals the maximum number of backups; allocating a target volume for each volume in the volume group, wherein each volume in the volume group is backed-up to one of the allocated target volumes, and wherein allocating the target volumes for the volumes in the volume group comprises using the target volumes from a previous backup of the volume group in response to determining that the number of completed backups for the volume group equals the maximum number of backups; performing operations to backup the volumes in the volume group to the allocated target volumes so that the data in all the volumes in the volume group is consistent as of a point-in-time, wherein a backup of the volume group completes in response to successfully backing-up each volume in the volume group; and indicating the completed backup for the volume group in the backup information for the volume group in response to completing the backup of all the volumes in the volume group.