Backup Window Scheduling for SLA-Safe Remote Copy Jobs
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) systems face challenges in preventing Service Level Agreement (SLA) violations due to resource scarcity and temporary overload, as current data protection scheduling methods fail to accurately identify bottlenecks and underutilize resources, leading to incorrect backup job distribution and potential SLA breaches.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that utilize network and storage system information to estimate required resources, assign scores to backup windows based on resource availability, and display SLA violation risks, thereby preventing SLA violations by selecting optimal backup windows.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If backup jobs are scheduled during non-office hours to avoid interference with normal operations, then consumer operations are minimized, but resource overload occurs and SLA violations risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary evaluation of backup window feasibility by estimating required resources and comparing them against network capacity before scheduling. This advance assessment prevents SLA violations by identifying unsuitable time windows in advance, rather than reacting to resource constraints after scheduling occurs.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors network throughput and resource utilization, using this feedback to dynamically adjust backup scheduling decisions. By comparing actual resource consumption against available capacity and observing patterns over time, the system optimizes window selection to prevent both SLA violations and resource overload.
2Productivity
If agent-based scheduling is used to distribute backup jobs by priority, then job completion within backup window is optimized, but source and destination storage system bottlenecks are not identified leading to incorrect decisions
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs multiple functions simultaneously: it evaluates storage system capacity, estimates required resources, monitors network throughput, and determines optimal scheduling decisions. This multi-functional approach ensures that all potential bottlenecks (storage and network) are considered together, providing accurate bottleneck identification while maintaining high backup completion rates.
3Ease of operation
If backup windows are selected without considering network resource utilization, then selection process is simple, but temporary resource overload occurs while resources are underutilized in other timeframes
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically evaluates network resource availability and makes intelligent scheduling decisions without requiring manual intervention. By self-assessing network capacity and matching it against backup requirements, the system optimizes resource utilization across time windows while maintaining ease of use for consumers.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods described herein create and schedule remote copy jobs that are distributed among several backup windows, thereby increasing backup service reliability and network resource utilization when copying data from local to remote site. This is accomplished by ranking backup windows by resource availability and proactively guiding a consumer to avoid selecting backup windows that may suffer from a temporal resource scarcity. Recommending suitable backup windows advantageously preserves SLAs by reducing SLA violations that otherwise may occur due to resource scarcity.