Optimizing backup of whitelisted files

A method of optimizing backup of whitelisted files in a source storage during deduplication of the source storage, the method being executed by one or more processors, the method comprising:

• a whitelist analysis phase that includes:
• identifying a set of allocated blocks in a source storage at a point in time;
• identifying whitelisted files that are already stored in a deduplication storage;
• determining whether one or more of the whitelisted files are stored in the source storage by analyzing file attribute data stored in file system metadata in the source storage;
• responsive to one or more of the whitelisted files being stored in the source storage, pruning the set of allocated blocks to exclude the allocated blocks that correspond to content of the one or more whitelisted files;
• and
• associating logical location of the content of the one or more whitelisted files as stored in the source storage with logical locations of the content of the one or more whitelisted files as stored in the deduplication storage;
• an analysis phase that is performed after completion of the whitelist analysis phase and that includes, for each block in the pruned set of allocated blocks:
• determining if the allocated block is duplicated in the deduplication storage;
• and
• responsive to the allocated block being duplicated in the deduplication storage, associating a physical location of the allocated block as stored in the source storage with a physical location of the corresponding duplicated block as stored in the deduplication storage;
• and
• a backup phase that is performed after completion of the analysis phase and that includes, for each unique nonduplicate block in the pruned set of allocated blocks:
• storing the unique nonduplicate block in the deduplication storage;
• and
• associating a physical location of the unique nonduplicate block as stored in the source storage with a physical location of the corresponding block as stored in the deduplication storage.

A method of optimizing backup of whitelisted files in a source storage during backup of the source storage, the method being executed by one or more processors, the method comprising:

• identifying a set of allocated blocks in a source storage at a point in time;
• identifying whitelisted files that are already stored in a destination storage;
• determining whether one or more of the whitelisted files are stored in the source storage by analyzing file attribute data stored in file system metadata in the source storage;
• responsive to one or more of the whitelisted files being stored in the source storage, pruning the set of allocated blocks to exclude the allocated blocks that correspond to content of the one or more whitelisted files;
• associating logical locations of the content of the one or more whitelisted files as stored in the source storage with logical locations of the content of the one or more whitelisted files as stored in the destination storage;
• storing the pruned set of allocated blocks in a full backup in the destination storage;
• restoring the pruned set of allocated blocks by reading the pruned set of allocated blocks from the full backup and storing the pruned set of allocated blocks in a restore storage in physical locations that match physical locations of the pruned set of allocated blocks as originally stored in the source storage at the point in time;
• and
• restoring the one or more whitelisted files by performing the following steps for the blocks that correspond to the content of the one or more whitelisted files:
• determining the physical locations corresponding to the logical locations of the blocks as stored in the destination storage;
• reading the blocks from the determined physical locations of the destination storage;
• determining the physical locations corresponding to the logical locations of the blocks as stored in the source storage at the point in time;
• and
• storing the blocks in physical locations of the restore storage that match the determined physical locations of the source storage.