Methods and systems of a dedupe storage network for image management

1. A computer-implemented method of a dedupe storage network comprising:

providing one or more replication-site dedupe storage nodes;

providing an onsite-dedupe storage node, wherein the onsite dedupe node initiates a replication operation, wherein the replication operation comprises the onsite dedupe storage node operation pushing or fetching a dedupe-image data from the one or more replication-site dedupe storage nodes;

storing the dedupe image in the onsite-dedupe storage node represented in a local dedupe-image layout, wherein the local dedupe-image layout comprises a metadata element, a data element and a database element; and

replicating the dedupe image in the one or more replication-site dedupe storage nodes, wherein a replicated dedupe image is represented in a remote dedupe-image layout comprising a remote-metadata element and a remote-database element, and

wherein the dedupe storage network comprises an inline deduplication file system that converts an incoming backup stream to a dedupe image without requiring a staging location and stores the incoming backup stream by a chunk-wise deduplication operation, and

wherein the dedupe storage network comprises a mesh-network topology in which each node relays data for the dedupe storage network, and

wherein the database element of the local dedupe-image layout identities a database of the onsite-dedupe storage node that is used as a bloom filter to check whether a certain data chunk with a specified fingerprint is extant.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the metadata element of the local dedupe-image layout identities a metadata container of the onsite-dedupe storage node for storing metadata of the dedupe image.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein each dedupe image stored in the onsite-dedupe storage node there is a corresponding directory inside the metadata container.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the data element of the local dedupe-image layout identifies a data container that stores each dedupe chunk of a dedupe image in a file, and wherein a name of the file is an ASCII representation of fingerprint value of the file.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein the database includes a list of fingerprints of data chunks present in the database, and wherein the list of fingerprints of data chunks does not include a reference count or a location identifier.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the remote-metadata element identifies another metadata container that stores all the metadata for all the dedupe images replicated to the replication-site dedupe storage node.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein remote-database element identifies a database in the replication-site dedupe storage node that is used as a bloom filter to check whether a specified data chunk with a specified fingerprint exists at the replication-site dedupe storage node.

8. A method of downloading a deduped image from a replication-site dedupe storage node comprising:

providing a replication-site dedupe storage node;

providing an onsite-dedupe storage node that stores a dedupe image, wherein the onsite dedupe node initiates a download operation, and wherein the onsite-dedupe storage node is represented in a local dedupe-image layout;

copying a metadata of the dedupe image from the replication-site dedupe storage node to the onsite-dedupe storage node;

checking each data chunk of the dedupe image to determine that the data chunk is available on onsite-dedupe storage node by using a local onsite-dedupe storage node;

preparing a download list of data chunks of the dedupe image that are not available on the onsite-dedupe storage node;

copying the data chunks included in download list are from the replication-site dedupe storage node to the onsite-dedupe storage node, wherein the copying is implemented while maintaining an original path location;

preparing another list of data chunks of the download list that are successfully downloaded; and

adding the data chunks included in the download to a local database of the onsite-dedupe storage node, and

wherein a database element of the local dedupe-image layout identities a database of the onsite-dedupe storage node that is used as a bloom filter to check whether a certain data chunk with a specified fingerprint is extant.

9. A method of uploading a digital image to a deduped image from a replication-site dedupe storage node in a dedupe storage network:

providing a replication-site dedupe storage node;

providing an onsite-dedupe storage node that stores a dedupe image, wherein the onsite dedupe node initiates a download operation, and wherein the onsite-dedupe storage node is represented in a local dedupe-image layout;

copying a metadata of a dedupe image created from the onsite-dedupe storage node to replication-site dedupe storage node;

from each of the data chunk included in the dedupe image, checking that the data chunk has been replicated to the replication-site dedupe storage node using a replication-site dedupe storage node database;

preparing a list of data chunks that are not yet replicated at the replication-site dedupe storage node as an upload list;

preparing an optimized upload list at the replication-site dedupe storage node by filtering out the data chunks of the upload list that are already present;

receiving back the optimized upload list at the onsite-dedupe storage node;

copying the data chunk included in the optimized upload list from the onsite-dedupe storage node to the replication-site dedupe storage node;

adding the data chunks included in the uploaded list to the replication-site dedupe storage node database;

uploading the metadata of the dedupe image from the onsite-dedupe storage node to the replication-site dedupe storage node database while maintaining a path location;

wherein the dedupe storage network comprises an inline deduplication file system that converts an incoming backup stream to a dedupe image without requiring a staging location and stores the incoming backup stream by a chunk-wise deduplication operation, and

wherein the dedupe storage network comprises a mesh-network topology in which each node relays data for the dedupe storage network, and

wherein a database element of the local dedupe-image layout identities a database of the onsite-dedupe storage node that is used as a bloom filter to check whether a certain data chunk with a specified fingerprint is extant.