Backup Restore Filtering for Corrupt Files and PII
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional data protection products fail to effectively prevent corrupt files and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from being reintroduced into production environments during backup restoration, leading to inefficiencies and resource waste due to proactive removal from all backups, even if most will never be restored.
Innovation Solution
Implement a tracking catalog within the backup system to identify and remove only impacted files or content during restoration, ensuring they are not reintroduced into production, thereby minimizing processing overhead by targeting only backups that will be restored.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If corrupt files and PII are removed from all backups proactively, then data integrity and security are improved, but processing overhead and resource consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by removing corrupt files and PII from backups proactively before they can be restored. The backup system maintains a tracking catalog that records removed files and enables subsequent restoration operations to exclude these files, preventing their reintroduction into production environments.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts and removes only the harmful portions (corrupt files and PII) from backups while preserving the rest of the backup data. The tracking catalog enables selective removal of specific files rather than deleting entire backups, minimizing data loss while maintaining security.
2Reliability
If all backups are scanned and processed for removal of corrupt content, then security is improved, but time consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs security checks and file removal operations during the backup creation process itself, rather than waiting until restoration time. This preliminary action ensures that only clean data is stored in backups, reducing the time needed for subsequent restoration operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The tracking catalog provides feedback about which files have been removed and why, enabling the backup system to make informed decisions during restoration. This feedback mechanism allows the system to skip processing of known problematic files, reducing overall time consumption.
3Reliability
If a brute force approach is used to remove all potential corrupt files from backups, then data safety is improved, but resource waste increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of removing all files from backups (brute force approach), the system extracts and removes only the specific corrupt files and PII that have been identified and tracked. This selective removal approach maintains data safety while minimizing resource consumption by preserving useful backup data.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different handling to different files within backups based on their quality and safety status. Files marked as corrupt or containing PII are removed, while clean files are preserved. This local quality differentiation optimizes resource usage by processing only what is necessary.
Data Source
AI summary
One example method includes receiving a request to restore a backed up dataset, checking a tracking catalogue to identify any content of the dataset that is prohibited from being restored, preventing restoration of the content, and restoring all of the dataset, except the content, to a restore target. The prohibited content may be one or more files, or portions of files, and may include malware, confidential information, and personal information.