7195 results about "Backup" patented technology

A method is provided to automatically select the correct order of backups from selected DUMP files in order to recover and rebuild a complete database in reduced time without requiring the user to search, find and select the correct order of items for the backup.

The invention is a hierarchical backup system. The interconnected network computing devices are put into groups of backup cells. A backup cell has a manager software agent responsible maintaining and initiating a backup regime for the network computing devices in the backup cell. The backups are directed to backup devices within the backup cell. Several backup cells can be defined. A manager software agent for a particular cell may be placed into contact with the manager software agent of another cell, by which information about the cells may be passed back and forth. Additionally, one of the software agents may be given administrative control over another software agent with which it is in communication.

A system, method and computer program product provides for power line communications (PLC) over electric power lines includes a device mountable near an electrical distribution transformer (DT) to provide a high speed interface and communicates with one or multiple access devices, which provide low speed interfaces for analog signals or digital signals over RS 232, RS 485, optical, wireless and Ethernet. The device transmits data to/from these access devices over the electric lines to other repeaters over one or more wires of an electrical line or over multiple lines, and serves to strengthen and improve signal quality. Upon detecting a wire or line is having problems carrying data, the data is sent over other wires, and upon power line failures, wireless backup to mobile/GSM and WiMax networks is utilized. The device permits utilities and others to read electric meters, monitor the power quality of the distribution grid and detect power losses/failures/outages, and permits telecom service providers and others to provide a communications link to cell phone towers, WiFi Access Points and enable broadband Internet and telephony in rural, remote or sparely populated areas.

System and method for performing backups of a multi-class file system are described. In one embodiment, more recently modified data may be assigned and/or migrated to higher storage classes and less recently modified data may be migrated at time intervals to lower storage classes in the multi-class file system. Backups of each of the storage classes may be performed at time intervals. In one embodiment, the backups may be image-based backups of the storage devices in the storage classes. In one embodiment, the lower storage classes may include one or more read-only storage classes including less-recently modified data that are backed up less frequently than higher storage classes including more-recently modified data. In one embodiment, files migrated to lower storage class(es) may be compressed.

The invention is a modular backup and retrieval system. The software modules making up the backup and retrieval system run independently, and can run either on the same computing devices or on different computing devices. The modular software system coordinates and performs backups of various computing devices communicating to the modules. Actions of modules on one of the computing devices acts as a system manager for a network backup regimen. A management component acts as a manager for the archival and restoration of the computing devices on the network. It manages and allocates library media usage, maintains backup scheduling and levels, and supervises or maintains the archives themselves through pruning or aging policies. The management component is not hard wired in its functionality, but may adapt to changing circumstances in these policies. A second software module acts as a manager for each particular library media.

A system for providing secondary data storage and recovery services for one or more networked host nodes includes a server application for facilitating data backup and recovery services; a first data storage medium accessible to the server application; a second data storage medium accessible to the server application; at least one client application for mapping write locations allocated by the first data storage medium to write locations represented in a logical view of the first data storage medium; and at least one machine instruction enabling direct read capability of the first data storage medium by the server application for purposes of subsequent time-based storage of the read data into the secondary data storage medium.

The disclosed technology applies the principle of anonymous reciprocity to facilitate remote backups. A local computer stores other computer's backup files, while storing backup copies of local files on other computers connected through a network. Each computer may securely maintain and manage storage for other computers' files. Application may be constrained to a local area network, or work on the Internet. The disclosed technology works in a peer-to-peer environment; no central server is required. The same disclosed technology may also apply to file sharing.

Backup systems and methods are disclosed for a virtual computing environment. Certain examples include a system having a backup management server that communicates with a host server having at least one virtual machine. The management server coordinates with the host server to perform backup copies of entire virtual machine disks from outside the guest operating system of the virtual machine. In certain examples, such backup systems further utilize a volume shadow copy service executing on the host server to quiesce virtual machine applications to put data in a consistent state to be backed up. The backup system then utilizes hypervisor snapshot capabilities of the host server to record intended changes to the virtual machine disk files while such files are being copied (e.g., backed up) by the host server. Such recorded changes can be later committed to the virtual machine disk files once the backup operation has completed.

Systems and methods for performing intelligent replication of production data on a source storage device. In certain examples, a full backup of the production data is first performed and stored on a destination system. A journal module on the storage device (e.g., a shared storage device), or on at least one source system, tracks files on the storage device that change during a particular period of time. Following this period, a snapshot is taken of the production data. Upon mounting the snapshot, the replication system uses the journal information to identify modified files, conduct a block-level comparison of only the modified files with corresponding files on the destination system, and identify the particular data blocks that changed. The replication system then replicates only the changed blocks to the destination system. Certain systems further store information indicating a source system time of a known good state of the production data.

One or more computer systems, a carrier medium, and a method are provided for backing up virtual machines. The backup may occur, e.g., to a backup medium or to a disaster recovery site, in various embodiments. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a computer system configured to execute at least a first virtual machine, wherein the computer system is configured to: (i) capture a state of the first virtual machine, the state corresponding to a point in time in the execution of the first virtual machine; and (ii) copy at least a portion of the state to a destination separate from a storage device to which the first virtual machine is suspendable. A carrier medium may include instructions which, when executed, cause the above operation on the computer system. The method may comprise the above highlighted operations.

Data at a primary storage system is encrypted and remote copied to a secondary storage system. A Remote Copy Configuration Information (RCCI) is created that identifies the encryption mechanism, keys, data source volume, and target volume for the remote copy. The RCCI is backed up on a trusted computer system. In one embodiment, the secondary storage system is an off-site data storage system managed by a third party. Upon detection of a failure in the primary storage system, the encrypted data and RCCI are transferred to a tertiary server, which is optionally created upon detection of the failure, and operations of the failed primary server are resumed by the tertiary server. In one embodiment, the failure is detected by loss of a heart beat signal transmitted from the primary storage system to a management server that initiates the transfers to the tertiary server.

Systems, method, computer program stored on computer readable media, and business method for providing and operating a distributed network based secure storage of business or consumer digital data or content. System, method, computer program stored on computer readable media and business model for dynamically managed peer-to-peer media content backup that uses a plurality of subscriber personal computer based storage devices to store backups of other subscriber data in a manner that is secure and redundant.

Method and apparatus for backup in restoring data on a computer system are disclosed. Backups may include a differential backup. In a differential backup, only some (but not all) segments of data in a primary copy are backed up. The segments may correspond to physical segments of storage in a storage system, rather than logical level segments of storage. The method and apparatus may include constructing a complete copy of a backed up element from an earlier fill backup and a subsequent differential backup.

A system and method for creating computer system backups, particularly well-suited for performing backups of virtual machines. The method starts by reading the current state of the machine, in blocks of a constant size, and creates a “FULL” index of block numbers and a hash value associated with the data within that block, while at the same time creating a FULL backup of the machine (the FULL backup then stored at an off-site target location). Once the FULL index map is defined, subsequent DELTA backups are created by reading the current state of the device in the same block fashion and generating updated hash values for each data block. The newly-generated hash values are compared against the values stored in the FULL index map. If the hash numbers for a particular block do not match, this is an indication that the data within that block has changed since the last FULL backup was created. Once all of the “changed” data blocks have been identified to form a DELTA backup, a communication connection is opened in the network and the DELTA backup is sent to the off-site target location.

Indexing functionality can be shifted to one or more backup servers in a backup system. In one implementation, a backup server can receive one or more data backups from one or more production servers. The backup server can then build or create one or more indexes at the backup server, which correspond to the contents of the one or more data backups. In one implementation, one or more management agents can also identify any appropriate components that might be needed to read the backup data at the backup server pursuant to building the one or more indexes. In either case, the one or more indexes can be used for a wide range of purposes, such as to manage data usage quotas at the one or more production servers, as well as to retrieve data from the backup server based on specific file requests.

The SSL VPN session failover solution of the appliance and/or client agent described herein provides an environment for handling IP address assignment and end point re-authorization upon failover. The appliances may be deployed to provide a session failover environment in which a second appliance is a backup to a first appliance when a failover condition is detected, such as failure in operation of the first appliance. The backup appliance takes over responsibility for SSL VPN sessions provided by the first appliance. In the failover environment, the first appliance propagates SSL VPN session information including user IP address assignment and end point authorization information to the backup appliance. The backup appliance maintains this information. Upon detection of failover of the first appliance, the backup appliance activates the transferred SSL VPN session and maintains the user assigned IP addresses. The backup appliance may also re-authorize the client for the transferred SSL VPN session.

A disk drive system and method capable of dynamically allocating data is provided. The disk drive system may include a RAID subsystem having a pool of storage, for example a page pool of storage that maintains a free list of RAIDs, or a matrix of disk storage blocks that maintain a null list of RAIDs, and a disk manager having at least one disk storage system controller. The RAID subsystem and disk manager dynamically allocate data across the pool of storage and a plurality of disk drives based on RAID-to-disk mapping. The RAID subsystem and disk manager determine whether additional disk drives are required, and a notification is sent if the additional disk drives are required. Dynamic data allocation and data progression allow a user to acquire a disk drive later in time when it is needed. Dynamic data allocation also allows efficient data storage of snapshots/point-in-time copies of virtual volume pool of storage, instant data replay and data instant fusion for data backup, recovery etc., remote data storage, and data progression, etc.

A method and apparatus for maintaining network connectivity over power lines is disclosed. Such network connectivity is maintained even if various customers are covered by different power line networks or if one or more power lines in a network are unavailable to transmit data. More particularly, in order to bridge a gap in a power line network, one or more messages are extracted from a first node in a power line network and are then transmitted to a second node via free space transmission, illustratively wireless radio frequency (RF) transmission conforming to one or more of the 802.11a, b or g standards. When those messages are received at the second node, the message is injected back into the power line on the other side of a gap in power line coverage. This method of transmission backup will continue until power line connectivity is restore upon which the preferred method will be selected and used.

A method and apparatus for providing extended disk sector formatting to assist in backup and hierarchical storage management is disclosed. A part of the extended sector format is used to include a field for indicating whether data was written since the last backup. This backup field may be a single bit or could be larger to indicate age since last backup.

A customer computer connects to an online service provider by phone, Internet, or other telecommunications link. The link gives the customer access to additional processing and storage resources such as virtual storage, processing power and/or additional software or data through interaction between the customer computer and an online service provider computer over the link. The additional resources made available to the customer computer enhance the customers' local needs through access to virtual storage, a more powerful processor of similar type for program execution, and/or online support services such as software rental, software sales, release update services, anti-viral services, data backup and recovery services, diagnostic services and/or repair services.

A portion of a storage controller's cache memory is used as a virtual solid state disk storage device to improve overall storage subsystem performance. In a first embodiment, the virtual solid state disk storage device is a single virtual disk drive for storing controller based information. In the first embodiment, the virtual solid state disk is reserved for use by the controller. In a second embodiment, a hybrid virtual LUN is configured as one or more virtual solid state disks in conjunction with one or more physical disks and managed using RAID levels 1-6. Since the hybrid virtual LUN is in the cache memory of the controller, data access times are reduced and throughput is increased by reduction of the RAID write penalty. The hybrid virtual LUN provides write performance that is typical of RAID 0. In a third embodiment, a high-speed virtual LUN is configured as a plurality of virtual solid state disks and managed as an entire virtual RAID LUN. Standard battery backup and redundant controller features of RAID controller technology ensure virtual solid state disk storage device non-volatility and redundancy in the event of controller failures.

Improved backup and storage operations are disclosed for virtual computing environments using a backup proxy server to perform storage operations on one or more virtual machine disks. The proxy server can include a module that intercepts application programming interface (API) calls, for writing backup data to a first location, prior to the data arriving on the proxy disk. During the intercept process, the data can be compressed in memory pages of the proxy server and redirected to an alternative backup disk location. The proxy server can also include a differential engine that identifies changes to the virtual machine disk at the block level since the last full backup. The differential engine can advantageously leverage memory pages of the proxy server to compare differences between signatures of blocks of the last full backup with signatures of new blocks. Subsequently, only blocks with non-matching signatures are processed for backup.

An expedited data backup is performed by creating a duplicate set of pointers to a current dataset already identified by an original pointer set, then designating the dataset as a backup dataset, and thereafter preventing changes to the pointed-to-data and the duplicate pointers, where changes to the current dataset are nonetheless effected by storing new data and modifying the original pointer set alone. More specifically, the backup involves an original dataset having multiple subparts residing at various original storage locations, which are pointed-to by a primary set of pointers. A virtual backup copy is created by duplicating the primary set of pointers to create a backup set of pointers. The backup set of pointers are entered in a backup list, in association with the virtual backup copy and the original dataset. To preserve the backup copy, the system prevents changes to the original dataset and the backup set of pointers. When any changes are directed to subparts of the original dataset, the system creates a changed dataset by storing the changes at one or more change storage locations and updating the primary set of pointers to identify the change storage locations along with any original storage locations still containing unchanged subparts of the original dataset. In addition to expediting data backups, fast data recovery is possible by updating the primary set of pointers to duplicate the backup set of pointers.

Described are techniques used in connection with providing continuous data backups of primary storage. A first technique uses distributed partial journals and a copy of the primary storage. A distributed partial journal is used for each input port. The partial journals are periodically incorporated into a main journal in accordance with a time stamp for the data modification recorded in each partial journal entry. A second technique, a copy on write, uses the distributed partial journals without requiring a copy of the primary storage. For each write to an address, the current contents of the address is journaled before the address on primary storage is updated.

A dual-band antenna is provided that combines two normally disparate communications modes into a single compact aperture minimizing overall mass and volume, while maintaining high performance efficiency and reciprocity of each individual mode. The antenna is compatible with both optical (near-IR/visible) and RF (microwave/millimeter-wave) transceiver subsystems for high bandwidth communications, applicable primarily to long- to extremely long-range (space-to-ground) link distances. The optical link provides high bandwidth while the RF provides a lower data-rate weather backup, accommodation for traditional navigation techniques, and assistance in cueing the extremely tight optical beam by matching the RF beamwidth to an optical fine-steering mechanism field-of-regard. The configuration is built around a near-diffraction-limited high performance primary mirror shared by both a direct-fed RF antenna design and a Cassegrain optical telescope. Material properties are exploited to combine the optical secondary mirror with the RF feed structure, providing a collimated optical beam interface at the antenna vertex.

A method may include generating a list of current files stored in a user device, wherein the list of current files includes unique file identifiers, each associated with a corresponding one of the current files. The method may further include sending the list of current files from the user device to a network device and receiving a copy list from the network device in the user device. The copy list may be generated by comparing the list of current files to a list of previously copied files, and the list of previously copied files may include unique file identifiers, each associated with a different one of the previously copied files. The method may include sending the files listed in the copy list from the user device to the network device.

A host server hosting one or more virtual machines can back up host volumes and the one or more virtual machines installed thereon in an application-consistent manner. In one implementation, a host-level requestor instructs a host-level writer to identify which virtual machines qualify for application-consistent backups. The host-level requestor then instructs the host-level writer to initiate virtual machine backups through guest-level requesters in each appropriately-configured virtual machine, wherein the virtual machines create application-consistent backups within the virtual machine volumes. The host-level requester then initiates snapshots of the server volumes on the host-level. The virtual machine-level snapshots can thus be retrieved from within the host-level snapshots of the server volumes.

Systems and methods are provided for backing up out-of-band storage. A protection policy is activated for out-of-band storage at a remote host, wherein the out-of-band storage is not physically accessible by the computing device, such that the out-of-band storage is not in communication with the remote host through the computing device. A backup request is transmitted to the remote host comprising data indicative of a volume on the out-of-band storage to back up according to the protection policy. A response to the backup request is received comprising staging disk requirements for the volume, the staging disk requirements comprising a required size for a staging disk to back up the volume. A staging disk is determined based on the response. The staging disk is presented to the remote host. A backup result is received comprising data indicative of whether a backup of the volume to the staging disk succeeded.

A power module for a CNI avionics system includes a rechargeable back-up battery (17) and a battery charger (9) in a back-up battery channel, a power conversion unit (11, 25, 27 and 29) in a power conditioning channel, and a semiconductor switch (23) for selectively coupling either the output of the power conditioning channel unit or the back-up battery channel through to the module output (24) and the electronics of external LRM's of the cryptographic section of the CNI avionics system, and a microcontroller (14) for controlling voltages and spurious signal emanations. Sensors (51, 52, 54 &55) provide information to the microcontroller. The microcontroller senses the state of prime power, current draw on the cryptographic devices and adjusts power output between the battery and power supply in real time.

The present invention provides a method for generating a backup of a database file that is suitable for a hard recovery operation. A snapshot of the database file is generated and the log and/or patch files associated with the database are stored in a backup location. Additionally, the header and/or footer information of the database is stored, thereby enabling a restored snapshot of the database to be converted into a file suitable for a hard recovery operation.