Extensible Backup Manager for Heterogeneous Application Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing secondary storage systems face challenges in efficiently backing up and restoring data from heterogeneous applications and environments due to proprietary data formats, leading to scalability and reliability issues, particularly in complex enterprise settings where custom backup clients are resource-intensive and prone to failures.
Innovation Solution
An extensible backup manager (EBM) with lightweight application translator modules that convert between proprietary application formats and a predetermined storage format, enabling efficient backup and restore operations across multiple applications and platforms, while coordinating resource usage to prevent bottlenecks and deadlocks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If custom backup clients are implemented for each proprietary application format, then backup functionality is achieved, but system complexity and resource consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a backup service as an intermediary component that mediates between applications with proprietary formats and the backup storage system. The backup service implements a standardized interface that simplifies integration, while internally handling the complexity of multiple proprietary formats through format detection and appropriate processing routines, thus reducing overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The backup system is segmented into independent modular components: the backup service, backup agents, and storage management. Each component has a specific function and can be developed, deployed, and maintained independently. The backup service handles format conversion and coordination, while backup agents provide lightweight local functionality, reducing the complexity burden on any single component.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple custom backup clients are deployed across heterogeneous applications, then comprehensive backup coverage is achieved, but resource consumption and server load increase
Solution Approach 1:
The backup service implements a universal interface that can handle multiple proprietary application formats through a single standardized entry point. This multi-functional approach allows one backup service instance to serve multiple applications with different formats, eliminating the need for separate custom backup clients for each application and thereby reducing resource consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements automatic format detection and selection of appropriate backup processing routines. The backup service automatically identifies the proprietary format of incoming data and selects the correct handling mechanism without requiring manual configuration or additional resource-intensive analysis, enabling self-service operation that reduces overall system resource demands.
3Productivity
If incremental backups are implemented at the block level, then backup efficiency is improved, but difficulty in identifying changed blocks increases due to proprietary formats
Solution Approach 1:
The backup service acts as an intermediary that receives data in proprietary formats, automatically detects the format type, and converts or processes it into a standardized internal representation. This mediation layer enables efficient block-level change detection by presenting uniform data structures to the incremental backup mechanism, hiding the complexity of proprietary formats from the change detection process.
4Adaptability or versatility
If proprietary data formats are supported for each application, then application-specific backup requirements are met, but integration complexity and development costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The backup service serves as a standardized intermediary layer between diverse proprietary application formats and the backup storage system. It provides a uniform interface for data ingestion while internally managing the complexity of multiple formats through automatic format detection and appropriate processing routines, thereby simplifying integration and reducing development costs.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes its processing parameters based on the detected proprietary format. When different application formats are detected, the backup service automatically adjusts its internal processing parameters and selects appropriate conversion or handling routines, enabling flexible support for multiple formats without requiring separate integration efforts for each.
Data Source
AI summary
An archive method and system receives a backup request for a target dataset used by an application on a primary storage system to be backed up on a secondary storage system. Different applications may each have a corresponding proprietary application format for storing their datasets. An application translator module is loaded into an extensible backup manager that converts between a proprietary application format associated with the target dataset and a predetermined storage format used by the extensible backup manager. The application translator module converts from the proprietary application format into the predetermined storage format when the baseline backup of the target dataset has not yet been performed. An incremental backup uses the application translator module to convert from the proprietary application format associated with the application into the predetermined storage format of the extensible backup manager. Once completed, a data mover component causes the incremental backup and the baseline backup of the entire target dataset, if scheduled, to be moved from the primary storage to the secondary storage and stored in the predetermined storage format rather than the proprietary application format associated with the application.