Deduplication Storage Avoiding Encryption Overhead
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Solution Overview
Problem
Deduplication vaults face redundancy and bandwidth overhead issues when backing up multiple similar storages, and encrypted deduplication vaults can lose deduplication benefits due to different encryption keys, leading to inefficient backup and restore operations.
Innovation Solution
Storing common blocks in plain text in the deduplication storage, seeding common blocks, and identifying encrypted blocks across different systems to avoid encryption overhead, allowing for deduplication across clients with different encryption keys.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If all blocks are encrypted in the deduplication vault, then data security is improved, but encryption overhead and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments blocks into two categories: common blocks (stored in plain text) and non-common blocks (stored encrypted). This segmentation allows the system to apply encryption only where necessary, reducing overall processing time while maintaining security for sensitive data.
Solution Approach 2:
Different quality levels of encryption are applied to different parts of the data. Common blocks receive no encryption (plain text storage), while non-common blocks receive full encryption. This local differentiation optimizes the balance between security and performance.
2Productivity
If multiple similar storages are backed up using image backup, then backup speed is improved, but redundancy increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the benefits of image backup (speed) with deduplication (redundancy reduction) by storing common blocks once in plain text and referencing them across multiple storages. This combining approach eliminates redundant copies of common data while maintaining fast backup speeds.
Solution Approach 2:
Common blocks are identified and stored in plain text before the main backup process. This preliminary action establishes a deduplicated foundation that speeds up subsequent backup operations by avoiding redundant encryption and storage of common data.
3Reliability
If different encryption keys are used for different clients, then client-specific security is improved, but deduplication effectiveness decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the backup process into two paths: common blocks are stored in plain text (enabling cross-client deduplication), while non-common blocks are encrypted with client-specific keys. This segmentation allows deduplication to work across clients with different encryption keys.
Solution Approach 2:
Plain text common blocks serve as an intermediary layer that enables deduplication across clients. These blocks act as a shared vocabulary that different clients can reference without needing to share encryption keys, resolving the conflict between security and deduplication effectiveness.
Data Source
AI summary
Avoiding encryption in a deduplication vault. In one example embodiment, a method may include analyzing an allocated plain text block stored in the source storage to determine if the block is already stored in the deduplication storage, in response to the block not being stored, encrypting the allocated plain text block and analyzing the encrypted block to determine if the encrypted block is already stored in the deduplication storage, analyzing a second allocated plain text block stored in the source storage to determine if the block is already stored in the deduplication storage, in response to the block already being stored, avoiding encryption of the second allocated plain text block by not encrypting the second allocated plain text block and instead associating the location of the second allocated plain text block in the source storage with the location of the duplicate block already stored.