Cloud Snapshot File Index for Targeted Restore
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing methods for file-level restore in cloud backup storage are inefficient and costly, requiring users to mount and search multiple snapshots to locate desired files or folders, which is burdensome and time-consuming, especially when restoring multiple files or folders.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves maintaining a file index at the volume level and creating snapshot bitmaps to efficiently track file presence across snapshots, allowing quick location of files without mounting individual snapshots, using a Cloud Snapshot Manager to manage and automate the protection of workloads across multiple clouds.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If users mount and search multiple snapshots to locate desired files, then file recovery is possible, but time consumption and operational complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by creating and maintaining an index of all files across snapshots during the backup process. This pre-indexing allows users to quickly search for and locate desired files without having to mount and manually search through multiple snapshots, significantly reducing the time required for file recovery while maintaining complete file recovery capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary indexing system that acts as a mediator between the stored snapshots and the user's search queries. The index contains metadata about files in each snapshot, allowing users to search the index rather than mounting and searching actual snapshot data, thus reducing time consumption while preserving file recovery reliability
2Reliability
If users mount and search multiple snapshots to locate desired files, then complete file search is possible, but operational burden and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary indexing of all files across snapshots during the backup process, creating a searchable metadata structure before users need to perform any search operations. This pre-processing maintains complete search capability while dramatically simplifying the user operation from mounting and manually searching snapshots to simply querying the pre-built index
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary indexing system that simplifies operations by providing a search interface that queries snapshot metadata rather than requiring users to mount and manually search snapshot contents. This intermediary layer maintains search completeness while reducing operational complexity and user burden
3Reliability
If temporary resources are spawned to mount and search snapshots, then file location is achieved, but resource costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the necessary metadata information (file names, paths, and snapshot associations) from the snapshots and stores it in a separate index structure. This extraction allows users to search for files by querying the lightweight index rather than mounting and searching the full snapshot contents, maintaining accurate file location capability while significantly reducing computational resource requirements
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a simplified copy of snapshot data in the form of an index containing metadata about files and their locations across snapshots. This copied index structure allows efficient search operations without requiring the original snapshot data to be mounted or accessed, reducing resource costs while maintaining file location accuracy
4Reliability
If multiple snapshots are mounted and searched to restore multiple files, then comprehensive file recovery is possible, but process complexity and time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary indexing of all files across multiple snapshots during the backup process, creating a comprehensive metadata structure that tracks file locations across all snapshots. This pre-indexing enables efficient batch restoration operations where users can search for and restore multiple files simultaneously by querying the index, rather than mounting and searching each snapshot individually, thus maintaining comprehensive recovery capability while significantly improving restoration productivity
Data Source
AI summary
Files are identified for file-level restore by bitmaps of cloud snapshots of a storage volume. The bitmaps comprise a data structure for each snapshot containing record numbers of files of the storage volume and a file status bit for each such file that indicates the presence or absence of the file in the corresponding snapshot. File numbers of files of interest are obtained from record numbers of records in a volume files index of the storage volume. The bitmaps can be searched to locate the snapshots containing particular files of interest without the necessity of mounting and searching the separate snapshots on a virtual machine.