Method and system for supporting block-level incremental backups of file system volumes using volume pseudo devices

A computer program product, comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having a computer-readable program code embodied therein, the computer-readable program code adapted to be executed by one or more processors to:

• generate, by a volume manager, a pseudo disk that combines a plurality of physical disks where at least two of the plurality of physical disks have different layouts;
• and
• implement, by the volume manager, a snapshot backup program, the snapshot backup program performing an incremental backup of the pseudo disk instead of the plurality of physical disks by:
• tracking write operations initiated by the volume manager to write to the pseudo disk and volume manager upgrades during an interval of time using a hook mechanism of a driver associated with the snapshot backup program, the hook mechanism of the driver overwriting a standard input/output routine with a tracking input/output routine and overwriting at least one of a going down routine of a kernel or a delete routine of a kernel with a volume manager upgrade tracking routine, the tracking input/output routine intercepting the write operations before data associated with the write operations is written to a snapshot and the volume manager upgrade tracking routine intercepting upgrades of the volume manager;
• identifying the blocks of the pseudo disk that are affected by each write operation of the tracked write operations;
• and
• causing the volume manager to be called to perform the incremental backup of the identified blocks by writing the data to the snapshot, the volume manager being called to perform the incremental backup after the snapshot backup program intercepts each of the write operations.

A system comprising:

• a first processor-based computer component configured to perform a backup of a pseudo disk that combines a plurality of physical disks instead of a backup of the plurality of physical disks, the pseudo disk created by a volume manager, the pseudo disk being read in a sequential order, where at least two of the plurality of physical disks have different layouts;
• a second processor-based component configured to track write operations initiated by the volume manager to write to the pseudo disk and volume manager upgrades during an interval of time using a hook mechanism of a driver associated with the snapshot backup program, the hook mechanism of the driver overwriting a standard input/output routine with a tracking input/output routine and overwriting at least one of a going down routine of a kernel or a delete routine of a kernel with a volume manager upgrade tracking routine, the tracking input/output routine intercepting the write operations before data associated with the write operations is written to a snapshot and the volume manager upgrade tracking routine intercepting upgrades of the volume manager, and identify the blocks that are affected by each write operation of the tracked write operations;
• and
• a third processor-based component configured to cause the volume manager to be called to perform the write operations to the snapshot, using the snapshot backup program on the pseudo disk, in response to detecting that each write operation has been initiated by the volume manager, the volume manager being called to perform the incremental backup after the snapshot backup program intercepts each of the write operations.