Storage Integrated Differential Block Backup
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current backup and recovery processes are inefficient, leading to lengthy backup windows, high computational resource usage, and the risk of data corruption, particularly due to the inability of backup proxies to perform incremental backups and validate data integrity in real-time.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a system that embeds a bitmap into snapshots to track changes, allowing backup proxies to conduct differential backups and validate data integrity by comparing checksums, thereby reducing backup times and ensuring data accuracy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If incremental backups are used to reduce backup window times and storage requirements, then backup efficiency is improved, but backup proxies cannot take advantage of incremental backups because they are outside the production I/O data path
Solution Approach 1:
A storage array intermediary is introduced between the production host and backup proxy. The storage array captures I/O data path information and makes it available to the backup proxy, enabling the proxy to perform incremental backups without being directly in the production I/O path. This intermediary resolves the contradiction by providing change information to the backup proxy through the storage array's metadata capabilities.
2Productivity
If backup processes are offloaded to a backup proxy to free production servers, then production server performance is improved, but the backup proxy cannot perform incremental backups and must perform full backups
Solution Approach 1:
The storage array acts as an intermediary that provides change block information to the backup proxy. This enables the backup proxy to perform incremental backups by identifying only the changed blocks, thereby reducing backup window time while maintaining production server performance by keeping the proxy outside the critical production I/O path.
3Use of energy by moving object
If data is backed up without real-time validation to reduce computational resource usage, then backup resource consumption is reduced, but data corruption errors cannot be quickly identified
Solution Approach 1:
Data integrity validation is performed during the backup process itself rather than after completion. The system validates data as it is being backed up, allowing early detection of corruption errors. This preliminary action approach ensures data reliability while managing computational resources efficiently by validating only the data being processed at each moment rather than requiring separate post-backup validation resources.
Data Source
AI summary
A changed block tracking (CBT) driver at a production host tracks, in a bitmap, changes made to a source volume of the production host since a last backup. A command is received to perform a differential backup of the source volume. A request is issued to a copy service to take a snapshot of the source volume. The bitmap is embedded into the snapshot. The snapshot is mounted on a backup proxy, different from the production host. The backup proxy retrieves the bitmap from the snapshot and conducts the differential backup of the source volume to secondary storage, thereby backing up the changes made to the source volume since the last backup according to the bitmap.