US 8,429,140 B1Granted

System and method for representing application objects in standardized form for policy management

AssigneeNetApp, Inc.

InventorsSantosh C. Lolayekar, Balamurali Palaiah, Boris Teterin

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Abstract

Described herein are systems and methods for providing data policy management over application objects in a storage system environment. An application object may comprise non-virtual or virtual objects (e.g., non-virtual-based applications, virtual-based applications, or virtual storage components). An application object manager may represent application objects by producing mapping graphs and/or application object data that represent application objects in a standardized manner. A mapping graph for an application object may describe a mapping between the application object and its underlying storage objects on a storage system. Application object data may describe a mapping graph in a standardized format. Application object data representing application objects may be received by an application policy manager that manages data policies on the application objects (including virtual applications and virtual storage components) based on the received application object data. Data policies may include policies for backup, service level objectives, recovery, monitoring and/or reporting.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A system for managing data policies on a virtual machine hosted on a server, the virtual machine being allocated at least one virtual storage component, each virtual storage component having a corresponding storage object hosted on a storage system for storing data of the virtual machine, the system comprising:

a manager engine configured for:
determining a mapping between the virtual machine hosted on the server and each storage object on the storage system that the virtual machine uses for data storage by:
for each storage object, determining high-level storage object information used by the virtual machine to access a virtual storage component corresponding to the storage object, the high-level storage object information mapping the virtual machine to the virtual storage component;
for each storage object, determining low-level storage object information used by a storage system to access the storage object which corresponds to the virtual storage component, the low-level storage object information mapping the virtual storage component to the storage object;
and
for each storage object, combining the high-level and low-level storage object information to determine a mapping relationship between the virtual machine hosted on the server and the storage object on the storage system;
producing a mapping graph representing mappings between the virtual machine and each of its storage objects, the mapping graph comprising:
a virtual machine node representing the virtual machine;
at least one virtual storage node, each virtual storage node representing a virtual storage component and comprising a child node of the virtual machine node;
and
at least one storage object node, each storage object node representing a storage object and comprising a child node of a virtual storage node;
producing graph data describing the mapping graph for the virtual machine;
and
performing data policy management on the virtual machine by using the graph data to perform at least one data policy on each storage object of the virtual machine.

11 more elements

A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon when executed by a processor, manage data policies on a virtual machine hosted on a server, the virtual machine being allocated at least one virtual storage component, each virtual storage component having a corresponding storage object hosted on a storage system for storing data of the virtual machine, the computer readable medium comprising instructions for:

determining a mapping between the virtual machine hosted on the server and each storage object on the storage system that the virtual machine uses for data storage by:
for each storage object, determining high-level storage object information used by the virtual machine to access a virtual storage component corresponding to the storage object, the high-level storage object information mapping the virtual machine to the virtual storage component;
for each storage object, determining low-level storage object information used by a storage system to access the storage object which corresponds to the virtual storage component, the low-level storage object information mapping the virtual storage component to the storage object;
and
for each storage object, combining the high-level and low-level storage object information to determine a mapping relationship between the virtual machine hosted on the server and the storage object on the storage system;
producing a mapping graph representing mappings between the virtual machine and each of its storage objects, the mapping graph comprising:
a virtual machine node representing the virtual machine;
at least one virtual storage node, each virtual storage node representing a virtual storage component and comprising a child node of the virtual machine node;
and
at least one storage object node, each storage object node representing a storage object and comprising a child node of a virtual storage node;
producing graph data describing the mapping graph for the virtual machine;
and
performing data policy management on the virtual machine by using the graph data to perform at least one data policy on each storage object of the virtual machine.

10 more elements

A method for managing data policies

on a virtual machine hosted on a server, the virtual machine being allocated at least one virtual storage component, each virtual storage component having a corresponding storage object hosted on a storage system for storing data of the virtual machine, the method comprising:
using computer hardware for performing:
determining a mapping between the virtual machine hosted on the server and each storage object on the storage system that the virtual machine uses for data storage by:
for each storage object, determining high-level storage object information used by the virtual machine to access a virtual storage component corresponding to the storage object, the high-level storage object information mapping the virtual machine to the virtual storage component;
for each storage object, determining low-level storage object information used by a storage system to access the storage object which corresponds to the virtual storage component, the low-level storage object information mapping the virtual storage component to the storage object;
and
for each storage object, combining the high-level and low-level storage object information to determine a mapping relationship between the virtual machine hosted on the server and the storage object on the storage system;
producing a mapping graph representing mappings between the virtual machine and each of its storage objects, the mapping graph comprising:
a virtual machine node representing the virtual machine;
at least one virtual storage node, each virtual storage node representing a virtual storage component and comprising a child node of the virtual machine node;
and
at least one storage object node, each storage object node representing a storage object and comprising a child node of a virtual storage node;
producing graph data describing the mapping graph for the virtual machine;
and
performing data policy management on the virtual machine by using the graph data to perform at least one data policy on each storage object of the virtual machine.

12 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.