US 6,785,786 B1Granted

Data backup and recovery systems

AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

InventorsStephen Gold, Jon Bathie, Peter King, Ian Peter Crighton

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Abstract

Clients are connected via a LAN to backup apparatus including hard and tape drives, respectively primary and secondary backups. Each client schedules backup operations on a time basis since last backup, the amount of information generated since last backup, etc. Prior to a backup, each client sends to the backup apparatus a request including information representing the files to be backed up. The backup apparatus receives backup requests from the clients and accepts or rejects backup requests based on backup and network loading. The backup apparatus eliminates redundant files and indicates to the clients, prior to the file back up, that some files requested to be backed up are already stored and are not to be sent. The backup apparatus enables a client to restore any of its ‘lost’ data by copying it directly from the disk, without the need for backup administrator assistance.

Claims29

Dependent claims

Apparatus for backing up a network of client computers to a disaster recovery memory and for recovering backed up signals from the disaster recovery memory to the client computers, the apparatus comprising a random access nonvolatile backup memory, the nonvolatile memory being arranged to store signals in a format different from the recovery memory signal storage format;

an interface adapted to be coupled to the network for coupling signals to be backed up from the client computers to the nonvolatile memory and for coupling backed up signals from the nonvolatile memory to the client computers via the network;
a converter arrangement adapted to be coupled to the recovery memory and coupled with the nonvolatile memory for converting signals in the format of the nonvolatile memory to the format of the recovery memory and for converting signals in the format of the recovery memory to the format of the nonvolatile memory;
and a controller arrangement for supplying control signals to (a) the interface, (b) the nonvolatile memory, (c) the recovery memory and (d) the converter arrangement for causing (a) backup of the client computers to the nonvolatile memory from the network via the interface, (b) backup of the client computers to the recovery memory by, from time to time, supplying an image of the backup in the nonvolatile memory from the nonvolatile memory to the recovery memory via the converter, (c) backup recovery from the recovery memory to one of the client computers by supplying an image of the backup for said one client computer in the recovery memory to said one client computer via the converter, nonvolatile memory, interface and network, and (d) backup recovery from the nonvolatile memory to a selected client computer by supplying an image of the backup for said selected client computer to the selected client computer from the nonvolatile memory to the selected client computer via the interface and network.

A method of backing up a network of client computers to a disaster recovery memory and a nonvolatile memory and of recovering backed up signals from the recovery memory and the nonvolatile memory to the client computers;

the method comprising coupling signals to be backed up from the client computers to the nonvolatile memory;
coupling recovered backed up signals from the nonvolatile memory to the client computers;
the coupling steps between the client computers and the nonvolatile memory being via the network;
backing up the client computers to the recovery memory by supplying an image of the backup in the nonvolatile memory from the nonvolatile memory to the recovery memory;
recovering backup from the recovery memory to one of the client computers by supplying an image of the backup for said one client computer in the recovery memory to said one client computer via the nonvolatile memory and network;
and recovering backup from the nonvolatile memory to a selected client computer by supplying an image of the backup for said selected client computer to the selected client computer from the nonvolatile memory to the selected client computer via the network.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.