Verifying application data protection
View Patent ↗A technique for verifying the safety of tenant data in a data center includes creating a topological map of storage constructs used for storing the tenant data within the data center. The topological map includes a logical storage device, a physical storage device, and a set of hardware structures disposed between the logical and physical storage devices. The constructs of the topological map are evaluated to generate an individual assessment of fault tolerance of each construct, and a set of rules are applied to generate an overall assessment of the safety of the tenant data. In an example, an administrator may operate this technique on a tenant application and generate a report for the tenant summarizing the results.
1. A method of verifying that data of a tenant application running in a data center is safe from data center failures, comprising:
querying a set of data sources within the data center to identify a set of storage path constructs used by the tenant application for storing the data of the tenant application, the storage path constructs including a logical storage device used by the tenant application, a physical storage device used by the tenant application, and a set of hardware structures disposed between the logical storage device and the physical storage device used by the tenant application;
evaluating each of the set of storage path constructs to generate an assessment of fault tolerance of the respective storage path construct; and
applying a set of rules to the assessments generated across the set of storage path constructs to yield an overall assessment of the safety of the tenant application data,
wherein the data center includes a data storage system,
wherein a first storage path construct of the set of storage path constructs is a logical disk used by the tenant application,
wherein a second storage path construct of the set of storage path constructs is a physical storage element of the data storage system that stores at least some of the data of the logical disk,
wherein the tenant application runs on a virtual machine,
wherein the logical disk is a virtual disk of the virtual machine, and
wherein the physical storage element stores at least some of the data of the virtual disk of the virtual machine.
2. The method of claim 1 ,
wherein the data center includes a host computer on which the virtual machine is operated,
wherein the host computer is coupled to the data storage system through the network;
wherein the data storage system includes a storage server, a SAN (Storage Area Network), and a storage array, the storage server coupled to the storage array through the SAN, and
wherein the set of storage path constructs include the network and the SAN.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein evaluating each of the set of storage path constructs includes identifying a set of consequences that would result from a failure of the respective storage path construct to operate.
4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising identifying a set of consequences that would result from an outage of the entire data center.
5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising communicating with the data sources to obtain information about the safety status of the set of storage constructs.
6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising identifying, from the information obtained from the data sources, a set of policies for making redundant copies of the tenant application data and a set of log files identifying actual times when copies in accordance with the set of policies have been made.
7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the set of policies pertain to making both local and remote redundant copies of the tenant application data, and wherein the policies further pertain to making at least one of snaps and clones of the tenant application data.
8. The method of claim 6 ,
wherein the data center operates the tenant application in accordance with a service level agreement that specifies a required RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Time Objective),
wherein the set of policies identify actual values of RPO and RTO in effect for the tenant application, and
wherein evaluating each of the set of storage constructs to generate an assessment of fault tolerance includes comparing the RPO and RTO of the service level agreement with the actual values of RPO and RTO from the set of policies to determine whether the RPO and RTO of the service level agreement are being met.
9. The method of claim 5 , further comprising identifying, from the information obtained from the data sources, information describing redundancy provided for at least one storage path construct disposed between the physical and logical storage devices used by the tenant application.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein applying the set of rules to the assessments generated across the set of storage path constructs to yield the overall assessment of the safety of the tenant application data includes assessing a business impact that describes expected consequences of a lack of business continuity resulting from disruption of the tenant application.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises provoking a failover from a first host running the tenant application in the virtual machine to a second host, monitoring failover performance, and evaluating the virtual disk of the virtual machine.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising generating a report providing a severity analysis that assesses the vulnerability of the tenant application to failures in different storage path constructs, to help prioritize corrective actions.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein querying the set of data sources includes querying a multipathing driver coupled to the physical storage element in the data storage system.
14. A computerized apparatus including a set of processors and memory, the memory coupled to the set of processors and storing executable instructions, which when executed by the set of processors cause the set of processors to perform a method of verifying that data of a tenant application running in a data center is safe from data center failures, the method comprising:
querying a set of data sources within the data center to identify a set of storage path constructs used by the tenant application for storing the data of the tenant application, the storage path constructs including a logical storage device used by the tenant application, a physical storage device used by the tenant application, and a set of hardware structures disposed between the logical storage device and the physical storage device used by the tenant application;
evaluating each of the set of storage path constructs to generate an assessment of fault tolerance of the respective storage path construct; and
applying a set of rules to the assessments generated across the set of storage path constructs to yield an overall assessment of the safety of the tenant application data
wherein the data center includes a data storage system,
wherein a first storage path construct of the set of storage path constructs is a logical disk used by the tenant application,
wherein a second storage path construct of the set of storage path constructs is a physical storage element of the data storage system that stores at least some of the data of the logical disk,
wherein the tenant application runs on a virtual machine,
wherein the logical disk is a virtual disk of the virtual machine, and
wherein the physical storage element stores at least some of the data of the virtual disk of the virtual machine.
15. The computerized apparatus of claim 14 , wherein evaluating each of the set of storage path constructs includes identifying a set of consequences that would result from a failure of the respective storage path construct to operate.
16. The computerized apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the method further comprises:
communicating with the data sources to obtain information about the safety status of the set of storage constructs; and
identifying, from the information obtained from the data sources, a set of policies for making redundant copies of the tenant application data and a set of log files identifying actual times when copies in accordance with the set of policies have been made.
17. The computerized apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the method further comprises identifying, from the information obtained from the data sources, information describing redundancy provided for at least one storage path construct disposed between the physical and logical storage devices used by the tenant application.
18. A non-transitory computer readable medium including instructions which, when executed by a set of processors of a computerized apparatus, cause the set of processors to perform a method of verifying that data of a tenant application running in a data center is safe from data center failures, the method comprising:
querying a set of data sources within the data center to identify a set of storage path constructs used by the tenant application for storing the data of the tenant application, the storage path constructs including a logical storage device used by the tenant application, a physical storage device used by the tenant application, and a set of hardware structures disposed between the logical storage device and the physical storage device used by the tenant application;
evaluating each of the set of storage path constructs to generate an assessment of fault tolerance of the respective storage path construct; and
applying a set of rules to the assessments generated across the set of storage path constructs to yield an overall assessment of the safety of the tenant application data,
wherein the data center includes a data storage system,
wherein a first storage path construct of the set of storage path constructs is a logical disk used by the tenant application,
wherein a second storage path construct of the set of storage path constructs is a physical storage element of the data storage system that stores at least some of the data of the logical disk,
wherein the tenant application runs on a virtual machine,
wherein the logical disk is a virtual disk of the virtual machine, and
wherein the physical storage element stores at least some of the data of the virtual disk of the virtual machine.
19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18 ,
wherein the data center operates the tenant application in accordance with a service level agreement that specifies a required RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Time Objective),
wherein a set of policies accessed by the computerized apparatus identify actual values of RPO and RTO in effect for the tenant application, and
wherein evaluating each of the set of storage constructs to generate an assessment of fault tolerance includes comparing the RPO and RTO of the service level agreement with the actual values of RPO and RTO from the set of policies to determine whether the RPO and RTO of the service level agreement are being met.
20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18 , wherein applying the set of rules to the assessments generated across the set of storage path constructs to yield the overall assessment of the safety of the tenant application data includes assessing a business impact that describes expected consequences of a lack of business continuity resulting from disruption of the tenant application.