Consolidating Decremental Backup Chains

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Decremental backup systems face issues with proliferation and retention of superfluous blocks, leading to increased storage size, bandwidth overhead, and processing time, especially when transitioning from weekly to quarterly backups.

Innovation Solution

A method to consolidate multiple decremental backups into a single consolidated backup, pruning free blocks and deleting sequential sets of decremental backups, which reduces the number of backups, storage size, and processing time.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If decremental backups are created weekly to capture frequent changes, then the ability to restore to recent points in time is improved, but the number of backups and storage requirements increase significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improverestoration capabilityVSAvoidnumber of backups

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent consolidates multiple sequential decremental backups into a single consolidated backup by merging their block data. The consolidation process combines blocks from multiple decremental backups (e.g., d1, d2, d3) into one unified backup structure, reducing the total number of backup files while preserving the ability to restore to any point in time within the consolidated period.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The consolidated backup serves multiple restoration purposes simultaneously. A single consolidated backup file can be used to restore the storage system to any historical point in time within the consolidation period, making one backup file perform the function of multiple separate backups would have been needed.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Adaptability or versatility

If multiple decremental backups are retained to maintain frequent restore points, then restoration flexibility is improved, but storage space requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improverestoration flexibilityVSAvoidstorage space

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSVolume of stationary object

Solution Approach 1:

Multiple decremental backups are merged into a single consolidated backup that contains block data from all individual backups. This merging process consolidates redundant block data while maintaining the temporal information needed for flexible restoration to any point in time within the consolidation window.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The consolidation process discards redundant block data that would exist in multiple separate backups by recovering and consolidating only the necessary block information into a single backup file, thereby reducing storage space while preserving restoration capabilities.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #34Discarding and recovering

3Quantity of substance

If sequential decremental backups are deleted to reduce storage overhead, then storage efficiency is improved, but the ability to restore to historical points is reduced

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvestorage efficiencyVSAvoidrestoration capability

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges the information from multiple sequential decremental backups into a single consolidated backup that preserves the historical block data needed for restoration. This allows deletion of individual sequential backups while maintaining restoration capability through the consolidated backup file.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

4Reliability

If free blocks are retained in decremental backups to maintain data integrity, then backup completeness is improved, but storage space is wasted

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvebackup completenessVSAvoidstorage space

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSVolume of stationary object

Solution Approach 1:

The consolidation process extracts and removes free blocks from the decremental backup chain, retaining only the allocated blocks that contain actual data. This extraction of unnecessary free blocks reduces storage space consumption while maintaining the integrity of the backup data through proper block reference tracking.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS9208033B1Consolidating decremental backups in a decremental backup chain

Publication Date: 2015.12.08 STORAGECRAFT LLC

AI summary

Consolidating decremental backups in a decremental backup chain. In one example embodiment, a method for consolidating decremental backups in a decremental backup chain includes identifying a decremental backup chain that includes multiple decremental backups of a source storage and a base backup of the source storage, identifying, for consolidation, a sequential set of decremental backups in the multiple decremental backups, identifying a set of oldest blocks from the sequential set of decremental backups for unique block positions of blocks included in the sequential set of decremental backups, and creating a consolidated decremental backup that includes the set of oldest blocks.