Cloud-Coordinated Snapshot Rollback for Multi-Volume Recovery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing storage systems face challenges in reliably rolling back to a stable state after a malware attack, especially when multiple volumes are involved, as snapshot-based recovery can lead to data inconsistencies and operational instability.
Innovation Solution
A cluster storage system with cloud-based management employs synchronized snapshot sets and a 'big red button' functionality to quickly and reliably revert to a known good state, utilizing cloud-based infrastructure for configuration, snapshot management, and recovery processes, ensuring data consistency and stability across volumes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If snapshot-based rollback is used for malware recovery, then recovery speed is improved, but data consistency and system stability deteriorate when multiple volumes are involved
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the rollback process into two distinct phases: first rolling back data volumes to snapshots, then separately rolling back boot volumes. This segmentation allows each type of volume to be handled with appropriate consistency checks, preventing the data inconsistency problems that arise when all volumes are rolled back simultaneously without coordination.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by first rolling back data volumes and verifying their consistency before proceeding to boot volume rollback. This preliminary data volume rollback and verification establishes a stable foundation, ensuring that when boot volumes are subsequently rolled back, the system can achieve both speed and consistency without conflicts.
2Reliability
If synchronized snapshot sets are implemented across multiple storage nodes, then data consistency is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces a cloud-based management system as an intermediary that coordinates snapshot operations across distributed storage nodes. This external mediator handles the complexity of synchronization, timing, and consistency verification, allowing individual storage nodes to perform simple snapshot operations while the cloud system ensures overall data consistency across the distributed environment.
3Reliability
If cloud-based management is used for recovery coordination, then recovery reliability is improved, but dependency on external infrastructure increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cloud-based management system provides multi-functional capabilities that handle multiple aspects of recovery coordination: snapshot creation, rollback orchestration, consistency verification, and boot volume coordination. This universal system consolidates what would otherwise require multiple separate coordination mechanisms, improving reliability while managing complexity through a single integrated platform that can be optionally deployed.
Data Source
AI summary
A cluster storage system including servers containing storage processing units (SPUs) can create synchronized snapshot sets for the volumes that the SPUs maintain and can report the snapshot sets to a cloud-based service. Each snapshot in a set reflects the state a corresponding volume had at a rollback point corresponding to the set. A user of the storage system contacts the cloud-based service about recovery of the storage system, and the cloud-based service may present the user with a list of rollback points corresponding to the synchronized snapshot sets. The user may select to recover the storage system to any of the rollback points, and the SPUs promote the selected snapshots to replace the volumes for storage services.