Physical to virtual journal cascading
AssigneeEMC IP Holding Company LLC
InventorsJehuda Shemer, Arieh Don, Saar Cohen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods for replicating data from storage. Snapshots are taken on a consistency group of volumes and are stored in snapshot volumes. Changes to the data stored in the volumes are identified from the snapshots and the changes are written to a journal. The journal allows the changes to be replicated to a virtual replication system and a physical replication system. The journal can be replicated to different systems, including physical and virtual systems, by exposing the same journal in different manners.
Claims20
A method for replicating data from storage, the method comprising:
- performing, by a physical system, a snapshot based replication on a consistency group that includes a plurality of volumes to generate a plurality of snapshots that are stored on a plurality of snapshot volumes;
- identifying changes to data in the consistency group from the plurality of snapshots;
- writing the changes to the data to a journal, wherein the journal is a physical device and is connected to the physical system;
- cascading the snapshot based replication performed by the physical system by:
- notifying a virtual replication system that the changes have been written to the journal;
- exposing the journal such that the virtual replication system can read the journal;
- reading the changes to the data in the journal by the virtual replication system;
- and
- distributing the changes read from the journal to a target.
A method for replicating data, the method comprising:
- provisioning a device to store a journal, wherein the device is associated with volumes and snapshot volumes;
- exposing the journal as the device to a physical replication system;
- exposing the journal as a raw disk mapped journal to a virtual replication system;
- performing a protection cycle, by the physical replication system, that generates snapshots of the volumes, wherein the snapshots are stored on the snapshot volumes;
- identifying changes to the data stored in the volumes for the protection cycle;
- writing the changes, by the physical replication system, to the journal;
- and
- cascading the protection cycle performed by the physical replication system to the virtual protection system by:
- notifying the virtual replication system that the changes are written to the journal;
- and
- replicating the journal by the virtual replication system, wherein the virtual replication system the journal to replicate the changes to data stored in the journal to a target.
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for performing a method for replicating data from a physical system, the method comprising:
- provisioning a device to store a journal, wherein the device is associated with volumes and snapshot volumes;
- exposing the journal as the device to a physical replication system;
- exposing the journal as a raw disk mapped journal to a virtual replication system;
- performing a protection cycle, by the physical replication system, that generates snapshots of the volumes, wherein the snapshots are stored on the snapshot volumes;
- identifying changes to the data stored in the volumes for the protection cycle;
- writing the changes, by the physical replication system, to the journal;
- and
- cascading the protection cycle performed by the physical replication system to the virtual protection system by:
- notifying the virtual replication system that the changes are written to the journal;
- and
- replicating the journal by the virtual replication system, wherein the virtual replication system accesses the journal to replicate the changes to data stored in the journal to a target.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.