Incremental Data Restoration via Intermediate Backup Snapshots
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing data restoration methods fail to perform incremental restoration when there is no snapshot of a backup restoration point, limiting the effectiveness and reliability of data recovery processes.
Innovation Solution
An incremental data restoration method that creates a current snapshot and determines changed data blocks relative to an intermediate backup, allowing data restoration to a corresponding data block in that backup, even if it's not the last backup, thereby ensuring incremental restoration can always be performed and improving reliability and efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If incremental restoration is performed only after analyzing the difference between current snapshot and backup restoration point snapshot, then restoration efficiency is improved by restoring only changed data, but incremental restoration cannot be performed when there is no snapshot of the backup restoration point
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by creating intermediate snapshots during the backup process and storing change identifiers for each data block across multiple backup versions. This preliminary preparation enables incremental restoration to any backup point without requiring a full snapshot comparison, thus resolving the contradiction between restoration efficiency and restoration availability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces change identifiers as an intermediary mechanism that mediates between the current snapshot and any historical backup snapshot. By storing and comparing these identifiers, the system can efficiently determine changed data blocks without directly comparing entire snapshots, enabling incremental restoration even when intermediate snapshots are unavailable.
2Reliability
If full restoration is performed to restore all data, then data restoration completeness is ensured, but restoration time and storage requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the changed data blocks by comparing change identifiers between the current snapshot and the target backup snapshot. This extraction approach ensures that restoration completeness is maintained for changed data while significantly reducing restoration time and storage requirements compared to full restoration.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by restoring only the necessary changed data blocks rather than performing excessive full restoration. The change identifier comparison enables precise identification of what needs to be restored, achieving the minimum necessary restoration action while maintaining completeness.
3Reliability
If all data is restored in full restoration, then data completeness is ensured, but storage space and processing resources are wasted on unchanged data
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and restores only the changed data blocks by comparing change identifiers, eliminating the waste of storage space on unchanged data. This approach ensures data completeness for restored portions while minimizing storage space requirements by excluding unchanged data from the restoration process.
Data Source
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AI summary
An incremental data restoration method and apparatus are disclosed, and the method includes: (301) creating a current snapshot of data; (302) determining a changed data block in the current snapshot relative to an mth backup, where m is a positive integer, and the mth backup is not a last backup; and (303) restoring data corresponding to the changed data block to data corresponding to a corresponding data block in the mth backup. The method and the apparatus can improve incremental restoration reliability.