Remote online information back-up system

Abstract

A remote online information back-up comprises a local computing system and a remote computing system. The local computing system includes a local disk and a local device driver. The local device driver is responsive to requests from a local application executing on the local computing system, for selectively processing calls to the local disk or to a remote disk for backup of data resident on the local disk. The remote computing system includes the remote disk and a remote device driver. The remote device driver is responsive to calls from either the local device driver or calls from a remote application executing on the remote computing system, wherein calls from the local device driver are processed to perform backup operations to the remote disk of data resident on the local computing system.

Description

PRIORITY INFORMATION [0001] This application claims priority from provisional application Ser. No. 60 / 276,286 filed Mar. 15, 2001; and from provisional application Ser. No. 60 / 287,946 filed May 1, 2001; and from provisional application Ser. No. 312,471 filed Aug. 15, 2001. Each of these applications are hereby incorporated by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The invention relates to the field of data back-up systems, and in particular to a real-time online device drivers for a data back-up system. [0003] A company's information assets (data) are critical to the operations of the company. Continuous availability of the data is a necessary. Therefore, backup systems are required to ensure continuous availability of the data in the event of system failure in the primary storage system. The cost in personnel and equipment of recreating lost data can run into hundreds of thousands dollars. [0004] Local hardware replication techniques (e.g., mirrored disks) increase the fault ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This solution provides an economical, efficient, and transparent real-time online backup that minimizes data loss and reduces costs by offloading processing overhead from applications to device drivers, maintaining continuous data availability with minimal installation and maintenance efforts.

Problems solved by technology

The cost in personnel and equipment of recreating lost data can run into hundreds of thousands dollars.

When backup occurs at periodic intervals rather than in real-time, data may be lost (i.e., the data updated since the last backup operation).

A problem with conventional remote backup techniques is that they occur at the application program level.

In addition, real-time online remote backup is relatively expensive and inefficient.

The high cost of hardware / software installation and maintenance makes SANs prohibitively expensive for all but the largest businesses.

It consequently increases system resource contention at the application level.

The backup is not real-time, thus exposing the business to a risk of data loss.

Use of PBNs in business is limited due to the high cost.

However, export / import utilities and offline backup routines are disruptive, since they lock database and associated structures, making the data inaccessible to all users.

Because processing must cease in order to create the backup, this method of course does not provide real-time capabilities.

The same is true for remote backup strategies, which add additional overhead to DB performance.

While not achieving real-time capabilities the installation of any of these backup scheme is a time consuming and difficult task for the database administrator.

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