Restoring a file to its proper storage tier in an information lifecycle management environment

A computer program product, comprising:

• one or more machine readable media;
• means provided by said machine readable media for programming a data processing platform in a data storage network to implement a tiered storage file system with support for policy-aware backup and restore operations, as by:
• maintaining metadata for data sets in said tiered storage system;
• providing said metadata to a backup application for one of said data sets whose data is backed up from said tiered storage system to a backup storage system;
• and
• prior to said data set being restored from said backup storage system to said tiered storage system, receiving said metadata from a restore application and processing said metadata to determine a tier in said tiered storage system to which said data set will be restored.

A computer program product, comprising:

• one or more machine readable media;
• means provided by said machine readable media for programming a data processing platform in a data storage network to implement a backup/restore application with support for policy-aware backup and restore operations, as by:
• backing up metadata for a data set in said tiered storage system whose data is backed up to a backup storage system;
• maintaining said backup metadata in persistent storage;
• and
• prior to said data set being restored from said backup storage system to said tiered storage system, restoring said backup metadata to a tiered storage file system on said tiered storage system for processing of said backup metadata to determine a tier in said tiered storage system to which said data set will be restored.

A metadata store for supporting policy-aware backup and restore operations in a tiered storage system, comprising:

• a storage medium in said tiered storage system;
• Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) metadata stored on said storage medium;
• said ILM metadata comprising one or more of a storage tier identifier, a service class identifier, and tiered storage attributes;
• and
• said ILM metadata being exposed to a backup/restore application in support of metadata backup and restore operations.

A method for implementing policy-aware restore operations for restoring a data set from backup storage to a tiered storage system, comprising:

• processing backup metadata provided by a restore application prior to restoring said data set to determine a storage tier target for said data set;
• performing a first storage tier assignment if a version of said data set exists on said data set's pre-backup storage tier;
• said first storage tier assignment comprising assigning said backup data set to said pre-backup storage tier;
• performing a second storage tier assignment if a version of said data set exists on a storage tier that is different from said data set's pre-backup storage tier;
• said second storage tier assignment comprising assigning said data set to said different storage tier;
• performing a third storage tier assignment if said data set does not exist in said tiered storage system but said data set's pre-backup storage tier exists;
• said third storage tier assignment comprising assigning said data set to said data set's pre-backup storage tier unless said pre-backup storage tier has a changed file system identifier, in which case said third storage tier assignment comprises applying policy placement rules to determine a new storage tier target and assigning said data set to said new storage tier target;
• and
• performing a fourth storage tier assignment if said data set and said data set's pre-backup storage tier do not exist in said tiered storage system;
• and
• said fourth storage tier assignment comprising applying policy placement rules to determine a new storage tier target and assigning said backup data set to said new storage tier target.