Snapshot Archive Management Using Tree Data Structure Serialization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current snapshot archive management systems require significant storage for both storing and recovering data, as they often need to maintain full snapshots and incremental snapshots, leading to increased storage demands.
Innovation Solution
The system employs a tree data structure to organize snapshots, allowing for serialization into a flat set of data that can be archived efficiently, reducing storage needs by storing only the differences and using file offsets to reconstruct the snapshot tree, enabling efficient archiving and retrieval of snapshots.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If incremental snapshots are performed between full snapshots to reduce storage requirements, then storage efficiency is improved, but the amount of storage needed to recover data increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by maintaining a full snapshot archive and pre-computing index structures that map data blocks to their locations in the archive. This allows the recovery process to directly access needed blocks without sequentially applying multiple incremental snapshots, thus resolving the contradiction between storage efficiency and recovery simplicity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary index structure that acts as a mediator between the stored snapshots and the recovery process. This index contains metadata about data block locations and enables direct access to reconstructed data without requiring the complex sequential application of incremental changes, thereby simplifying recovery while maintaining storage efficiency
2Reliability
If full snapshots and incremental snapshots are maintained to ensure data recoverability, then data reliability is improved, but storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the essential elements needed for recovery by maintaining a full snapshot archive and using selective indexing. Instead of storing redundant copies of all snapshot data, the patent extracts and stores only the critical metadata and block location information needed to reconstruct data, thereby maintaining reliability while reducing storage requirements
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies parameter changes by transforming the storage model from keeping multiple complete snapshot copies to maintaining a single full snapshot archive with an optimized index structure. This changes the parameters of data organization and access, enabling reliable recovery with reduced storage by altering how data is indexed and retrieved rather than how it is replicated
Data Source
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AI summary
It is determined to access a desired data of the tree data structure from an archive, where at least a portion of data of a tree data structure is serialized into a first set of flat data and at least a portion of a structure of the tree data structure is serialized to reproduce at least the portion of the structure in a second set of flat data. The second set of flat data is read to reconstitute at least the portion of the structure of the tree data structure. The reconstituted structure of the tree data structure is used to determine a data offset associated with the first set of flat data, wherein the data offset corresponds to the desired data. The desired data is accessed using the data offset associated with the first set of flat data.