Backup Storage Garbage Collection via Continuity Chain Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for managing virtual machine backups face inefficiencies due to storage of unusable backups, which consume space without providing restoration utility, often resulting from failures like power failures or low resource availability, leading to broken continuity chains and useless data.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that identify the end of a backup generation session, perform date analysis to detect potentially stale backups, and conduct continuity chain analysis to delete stale backups, thereby reclaiming storage space and maintaining continuity chains with minimal resource usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If backups are continuously stored without verification, then backup quantity increases, but storage space is wasted on unusable backups
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary verification of backup integrity by checking continuity chains before backups are fully committed to storage. This preliminary action identifies and prevents storage of unusable backups that would otherwise waste space, while still maintaining adequate backup quantities for restoration purposes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system automatically discards backups that are identified as unusable through continuity chain verification. By removing these defective backups from storage, the system recovers wasted storage space while preserving only the usable backups that maintain proper continuity chains, thus resolving the contradiction between maintaining backup quantity and avoiding storage waste.
2Reliability
If all backups are retained for restoration, then restoration reliability improves, but computational overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and removes unusable backups from the storage set through continuity chain verification. By taking out only the defective backups that cannot contribute to restoration, the system maintains full restoration reliability using the remaining valid backups while significantly reducing computational overhead associated with managing and processing all backups equally.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of verifying every single backup, the system performs partial verification focused on continuity chain integrity. This partial action approach checks only the essential relationships between backups needed for restoration, maintaining reliability while avoiding the excessive computational overhead of comprehensive verification of all backup data.
3Reliability
If continuity chains are strictly maintained, then data usability improves, but storage flexibility decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically manages continuity chains by continuously verifying backup integrity and adaptively removing only the unusable portions. This dynamic approach maintains data usability through strict continuity validation while preserving storage flexibility by allowing the backup set to adaptively reorganize around valid continuity chains, removing defective elements without rigidly constraining the entire storage system.
Data Source
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AI summary
A storage for storing backups of virtual machines includes a persistent storage and a garbage collector. The persistent storage stores the backups. The garbage collector identifies an end of a backup generation session; in response to identifying the end of the backup generation session, the garbage collector performs a date analysis to identify a set of potentially stale backups of the backups; performs a continuity chain analysis of each backup of the set of potentially stale backups to identify a set of stale backups; and deletes each backup of the set of stale backups.