Email Preview Extraction for Object Storage Restore
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Cloud-based object storage systems lack customizable and efficient granular restore operations for email data, especially when incremental backups are used, leading to increased complexity and costs for clients.
Innovation Solution
A system that provides an email preview capability by extracting specialized preview information, including metadata and customizable content, and stores it in a metadata database for efficient retrieval, allowing users to select individual emails for restore without accessing the actual backup data until necessary.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If incremental backups are implemented to limit data transfer during backup procedures, then backup efficiency and cost-effectiveness are improved, but the ability to perform granular restore operations on email data is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts identifying information from email objects during the backup process and stores it separately in a metadata database. This extracted metadata contains sufficient information to identify and retrieve specific emails without needing to access the actual backup data, enabling granular restore operations on incremental backups while maintaining the space efficiency of incremental backup storage
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a metadata database as an intermediary layer between the backup data and the restore operation. This metadata database stores identifying information that acts as a mediator, allowing users to search and select specific emails for restore without directly accessing the backup data, thus enabling granular restore capability while preserving the benefits of incremental backup storage
2Adaptability or versatility
If email data is stored as objects in cloud-based object storage, then storage scalability and cost-efficiency are improved, but specialized restore operations for email data cannot be performed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments email data into two separate components: the actual email objects stored in cloud-based object storage and the identifying information stored in a metadata database. This segmentation allows the system to leverage the scalability of object storage while enabling specialized email restore operations through the metadata layer, which provides email-specific search and retrieval capabilities
Solution Approach 2:
The metadata database serves as an intermediary that bridges the gap between generic object storage capabilities and specialized email restore requirements. It stores email-specific identifying information that enables customized restore operations without requiring changes to the underlying object storage infrastructure, thus maintaining scalability while adding email-specific functionality
3Loss of information
If all backup data must be accessed to provide preview capability for restored emails, then complete email content can be previewed, but storage costs and access complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts identifying information from email objects during backup and stores it separately in a metadata database. This extracted metadata contains sufficient information for users to identify and select specific emails for restore without accessing the actual backup data, enabling cost-effective preview capability while maintaining information completeness for selected emails
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements partial action by storing only the identifying information portion of email data in the metadata database, rather than the complete email content. This partial extraction provides sufficient information for preview and selection purposes, reducing storage access costs while maintaining the ability to retrieve complete email content when needed
Data Source
AI summary
In some embodiments, described is a system (and method) for providing an efficient preview capability for emails backed up to a cloud-based object storage. The email preview may be provided as part of an interface allowing a user to select individual emails to restore from the object storage. The system may extract specialized preview information as part of a backup procedure. The preview information may include metadata and email content. For example, the preview information may include various email details such as sender, receiver, subject line, time sent/received, filenames of any attachments, etc. The preview information may also include email content such as particular sentences from the email body containing keywords. The system may also store extracted preview information in a specialized manner such that the preview information may be retrieved without having to access the actual backup data.