Format-Preserving Virtual Disk Deduplication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional deduplication techniques for virtual hard disks fail to preserve the format, leading to increased recovery time and inefficiencies in data restoration, as they convert formats like VMDK and VHD to TAR, making it time-consuming to revert back to native formats.
Innovation Solution
The method involves copying data blocks from a source virtual disk to a target while converting offsets for extents, preserving the format, and using a file system extent map to align deduplication segments with extent boundaries, allowing for efficient deduplication and faster recovery by maintaining the original format.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If conventional deduplication techniques convert virtual disk formats to TAR format, then storage space is reduced through deduplication, but recovery time increases due to format conversion requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the virtual disk into extents and further into data blocks, allowing deduplication to operate on smaller granular units while preserving the overall disk structure. This enables storage reduction through deduplication of individual blocks without requiring complete format conversion, thus reducing recovery time while maintaining space efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary actions by creating extent maps and block allocation tables during the backup process, storing metadata that enables direct recovery without format conversion. This preliminary organization of data allows the system to recover virtual disks directly from the backup format, eliminating the time-consuming conversion step while still achieving storage reduction through deduplication.
2Quantity of substance
If format conversion to TAR is performed for deduplication, then deduplication can be applied, but device complexity increases due to conversion requirements
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the virtual disk into extents and data blocks, the patent simplifies the deduplication process to operate on standardized units without requiring complex format conversion. The segmentation approach allows universal deduplication algorithms to work across different virtual disk formats, reducing device complexity while maintaining storage efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of data representation by organizing virtual disk data into standardized extents and blocks with defined metadata structures. This parameter change enables deduplication to work directly on the organized data structure without format conversion, reducing complexity while preserving storage efficiency through deduplication.
3Reliability
If all data blocks are copied for backup, then complete backup is achieved, but storage space increases without optimization
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the used data blocks from the virtual disk by utilizing block allocation tables and extent maps to identify which blocks contain actual data. By taking out only the necessary data blocks for backup and replacing duplicate blocks with references to existing blocks, the system achieves complete backup reliability while minimizing storage space requirements through deduplication.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent discards duplicate data blocks by replacing them with references to existing blocks in the backup store. The block allocation table tracks which blocks are unique and which are duplicates, allowing the system to discard redundant data while maintaining the ability to recover complete virtual disk images when needed, thus balancing backup completeness with storage efficiency.
4Productivity
If deduplication segments are not aligned with extent boundaries, then deduplication can proceed freely, but deduplication effectiveness decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by aligning deduplication segments specifically with extent boundaries where data organization changes occur. This localized alignment ensures that segments capture complete logical units of data, improving deduplication effectiveness by ensuring that identical data regions are captured as complete units, while still allowing efficient processing within this structured framework.
Solution Approach 2:
By segmenting the virtual disk into extents and then into data blocks that align with these extents, the patent creates a hierarchical segmentation structure. This segmentation enables deduplication to operate efficiently on aligned segments, improving both processing speed through systematic organization and effectiveness by ensuring that deduplication boundaries match logical data boundaries.
Data Source
AI summary
Data blocks are copied from a source (e.g., a source virtual disk) to a target (e.g., a target virtual disk). The source virtual disk format is preserved on the target virtual disk. Offsets for extents stored in the target virtual disk are converted to offsets for corresponding extents in the source virtual disk. A map of the extents for the source virtual disk can therefore be used to create, for deduplication, segments of data that are aligned to boundaries of the extents in the target virtual disk.