Incremental backup with eventual name space consistency
AssigneeEMC IP Holding Company LLC
InventorsKedar Patwardhan, Thomas Papadakis, Ernest Daza
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods for backing up data are disclosed. Changes made to a file system are tracked in a change log. When a backup operation is initiated, the changes identified in the change log are applied to the backup save sets. When a file associated with an event in the change log cannot be identified, the file is identified using the inode or other identifier. The event in the change log is then applied once the file is identified. The backup so achieved has eventual name space consistency and can be achieved without taking a snapshot of the file system.
Claims1
A method for performing a backup operation in a live file system, the method comprising:
- during operation of the live file system:
- closing a current change log when the backup operation is initiated such that the current change log is associated with the backup operation and starting a new change log for a subsequent backup operation, wherein the current change log includes records of operations that were performed in the live file system and identifies blocks of the data or files that have changed since a previous backup operation, wherein the current change log is configured to store an inode number for each of the data or files that have changed;
- backing up, by the backup server, the blocks of data or files identified in the current change log on a backup storage device from the live file system in a backup save set;
- identifying a name and/or path of the data blocks or files that cannot be read by the backup application in the live file system because of the changes that continue to occur in the live file system;
- and
- determining a current name and/or path of the files or data blocks that could not be read by the backup application from the inode numbers stored in the current change log;
- and
- changing the backup save set such that the backup save set is namespace consistent with the data blocks or files based on the current name and/or path of the data blocks.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.