US 2016/0110259 A1 · SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MERGING CONTINUOUS VOLUME SNAPSHOTS

Abstract

A system divides a source computer storage device into a plurality of logical volumes, and creates a first recovery point data file and a first recovery point index file. In response to an incremental backup of a first logical volume, the system creates a second recovery point index file comprising a plurality of indices. In response to no data changing in a particular block in the first logical volume, the system points an index in the second recovery point index file to the particular block in the first logical volume. In response to data changing in the particular block in the first logical volume, the system creates a corresponding new block in a second recovery point data file. The system points the index in the second recovery point index file to the corresponding new block in the first logical volume.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A method for performing incremental data backup for a source volume of a storage system, said method comprising:

dividing the source volume into multiple data segments that each comprise one or more data blocks;
for each of the data segments that have been modified, generating a recovery point data file that records data that has been modified within the data segment since a last recovery point;
generating a first recovery point index file that includes pointers to the recovery point data files;
and
in response to initiating a backup operation to merge data from the source volume to a backup storage, and for each of the data segments,
determining whether data blocks have been modified;
and
in response to determining that at least one but less than all of the data blocks have been modified, merging the data blocks only in response to determining that the amount of modified data meets a specified threshold value.

5 more elements

One or more machine-readable storage media having program code for performing incremental data backup for a source volume of a storage system, the program code comprising instructions to:

divide the source volume into multiple data segments that each comprise one or more data blocks;
for each of the data segments that have been modified, generate a recovery point data file that records data that has been modified within the data segment since a last recovery point;
generate a first recovery point index file that includes pointers to the recovery point data files;
and
in response to initiating a backup operation to merge data from the source volume to a backup storage, and for each of the data segments,
determine whether data blocks have been modified;
and
in response to determining that at least one but less than all of the data blocks have been modified, merge the data blocks only in response to determining that the amount of modified data meets a specified threshold value.

5 more elements

An apparatus comprising:

a processor;
and
a machine-readable medium having program code executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to,
divide the source volume into multiple data segments that each comprise one or more data blocks;
for each of the data segments that have been modified, generate a recovery point data file that records data that has been modified within the data segment since a last recovery point;
generate a first recovery point index file that includes pointers to the recovery point data files;
and
in response to initiating a backup operation to merge data from the source volume to a backup storage, and for each of the data segments,
determine whether data blocks have been modified;
and
in response to determining that at least one but less than all of the data blocks have been modified, merge the data blocks only in response to determining that the amount of modified data meets a specified threshold value.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for merging continuous volume snapshots

Life of this patent

System and method for merging continuous volume snapshots

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims15