Backup System Using Reversible Operation Instructions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing secondary storage systems face challenges in efficiently backing up encrypted data due to the large amount of data that needs to be transferred and the significant impact on recovery time, especially when serving data directly, as they require decrypting and re-encrypting data during recovery.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves detecting reversible operations on the primary storage system and providing instructions for these operations to the secondary storage system instead of the changed data, allowing the secondary storage system to mirror operations and quickly recover data to its original state by performing inverse operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If encrypted data is backed up by transferring the entire file system to the secondary storage system, then data security is maintained, but the amount of data to be written increases significantly and deduplication efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the changed portions of data (deltas) from the full file system and transfers them to secondary storage, rather than transferring entire encrypted files. This is achieved by identifying and transferring only the modified blocks or segments between backup points.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the file system into smaller units (blocks, chunks, or segments) that can be independently tracked and transferred. Only the segments that have changed are identified and transferred to secondary storage, enabling efficient deduplication and reduced data volume.
2Reliability
If encrypted data is backed up by transferring the entire file system, then data integrity is ensured, but recovery time increases due to decrypting and re-encrypting operations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by maintaining encryption metadata and change tracking information during normal operations. When recovery is needed, the system can directly apply changes to the target system without needing to decrypt and re-encrypt data, as the encryption state is already known and tracked.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a copy of the encryption metadata and change information that can be directly applied to the target system during recovery. This allows the target system to reconstruct the encrypted state directly without performing time-consuming decrypt/encrypt operations.
3Reliability
If all changed data is transferred to the secondary storage system, then backup completeness is achieved, but network overhead and storage costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential change information (deltas, metadata, operation logs) from the full data set and transfers only this extracted information to secondary storage. This maintains backup completeness while minimizing network transfer volume.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by transferring only the minimum necessary information (change deltas and metadata) rather than complete data sets. This partial transfer is sufficient to achieve backup completeness when combined with the ability to reconstruct full states on the target system.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present disclosure relates to a first entity, a second entity and corresponding methods for backing up a data volume of a primary storage system in a secondary storage system. The first entity is configured to determine one or more operations performed on the data volume. Further, the first entity is configured to generate one or more sets of instructions, wherein each set of instructions is associated with a respective operation of the one or more operations, and each set of instructions is indicative of how to perform the respective operation and how to perform an inverse operation of the respective operation. The first entity is further configured to provide the one or more sets of instructions to a second entity on the secondary storage system. Accordingly, the second entity is configured to obtain one or more sets of instructions from the first entity.