Granted Patent B1

US 9,063,893 · App. 13/930,235 · Granted Jun 23, 2015

Inventor: Russell Stringham (Orem, UT)

Assignee: Symantec Corporation

G06F11/1448

Abstract

Claims (77)

1. A computer-implemented method, at least a portion of the method being performed by a computing system comprising at least one processor, the method comprising:

creating a first backup of a set of data units at a first point in time;

creating, at a subsequent point in time, a representation of one or more data units in the set of data units that have been modified since the first point in time;

creating, based at least in part on the representation of the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time, a delta that represents a difference between a state of the set of data units at the first point in time and a state of the set of data units at the subsequent point in time, wherein the delta comprises:

at least one reference to a data unit in the first backup, the reference identifying a data unit that moved from a first location to a second location within the set of data units between the first point in time and the subsequent point in time;

at least one data unit that was not present in the set of data units at the first point in time and was present in the set of data units at the subsequent point in time;

using the delta to update the first backup to a subsequent backup that represents the state of the set of data units at the subsequent point in time, wherein using the delta to update the first backup comprises updating the data units in the first backup with the at least one data unit that was not present in the set of data units at the first point in time and was present in the set of data units at the subsequent point in time.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the delta further comprises at least one reference that identifies a data unit that remained in the same location within the set of data units between the first point in time and the subsequent point in time.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein:

the delta comprises a delta stream sent from a client system to a backup system that stores the first backup;

the first backup comprises backup data from the client system;

the client system creates the delta stream;

the delta stream comprises a stream of data that includes the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time;

the delta stream is created on the fly without first creating an incremental backup.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein creating the delta comprises:

sending the representation of the one or more data units that have been modified from a client system to a backup system that backs up data from the client system;

processing, at the backup system, the representation of the one or more data units that have been modified to create the delta.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein:

the representation comprises an incremental backup that includes the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time;

creating the delta comprises, for each data unit in the set of data units, at least one of:

adding a data unit from the incremental backup corresponding to the data unit of the set of data units to the delta;

adding a reference to a data unit in the first full backup.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein:

the representation of the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time comprises an incremental backup;

creating the delta comprises converting the incremental backup into the delta.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying the one or more data units in the set of data units that have been modified since the first point in time by tracking modifications to the set of data units.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying the one or more data units in the set of data units that have been modified since the first point in time by reading archive bits associated with files in the set of data units.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

sending the delta to a data deduplication system;

deduplicating, at the data deduplication system, data in the delta and the first backup by deduplicating only the data units that have been modified since the first point in time.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:

creating, at an additional point in time, a representation of one or more data units in the set of data units that have been modified since the subsequent point in time;

determining, based at least in part on the representation of the one or more data units that have been modified since the subsequent point in time, a difference between the state of the set of data units at the subsequent point in time and a state of the set of data units at the additional point in time;

using the difference to update the subsequent backup to an additional backup that represents the set of data units at the additional point in time.

11. A system comprising:

at least one processor;

a backup module, stored in memory, that directs the at least one processor to:

create a first backup of a set of data units at a first point in time;

create, at a subsequent point in time, a representation of one or more data units in the set of data units that have been modified since the first point in time;

at least one storage device configured to store the first backup;

a processing module, stored in memory, that directs the at least one processor to create, based at least in part on the representation of the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time, a delta that represents a difference between a state of the set of data units at the first point in time and a state of the set of data units at the subsequent point in time, wherein the delta comprises:

at least one reference to a data unit in the first backup, the reference identifying a data unit that moved from a first location to a second location within the set of data units between the first point in time and the subsequent point in time;

at least one data unit that was not present in the set of data units at the first point in time and was present in the set of data units at the subsequent point in time;

an update module, stored in memory, that directs the at least one processor to use the delta to update the first backup to a subsequent backup that represents the state of the set of data units at the subsequent point in time, wherein using the delta to update the first backup comprises updating the data units in the first backup with the at least one data unit that was not present in the set of data units at the first point in time and was present in the set of data units at the subsequent point in time.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the delta further comprises at least one reference that identifies a data unit that remained in the same location within the set of data units between the first point in time and the subsequent point in time.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein:

the delta comprises a delta stream sent to a backup system that stores the first backup;

the delta stream comprises a stream of data that includes the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time;

the delta stream comprises information regarding how the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time map to the first backup.

14. The system of claim 11 , wherein:

the delta comprises a delta file that includes the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time.

15. The system of claim 11 , wherein:

the processing module directs the at least one processor to create the delta by iterating through the representation of the one or more data units in the set of data units that have been modified since the first point in time to determine, for each data unit in the set of data units, whether to add a data unit that is not present in the first backup or a reference to a data unit that is present in the first backup.

16. The system of claim 11 , wherein:

the set of data units comprises a data volume;

each data unit in the set of data units comprises a data block in the data volume.

17. A computer-readable-storage medium comprising one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a computing device comprising at least one processor, cause the computing device to:

create a first backup of a set of data units at a first point in time;

create, at a subsequent point in time, a representation of one or more data units in the set of data units that have been modified since the first point in time;

create, based at least in part on the representation of the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time, a delta that represents a difference between a state of the set of data units at the first point in time and a state of the set of data units at the subsequent point in time, wherein the delta comprises:

at least one reference to a data unit in the first backup, the reference identifying a data unit that moved from a first location to a second location within the set of data units between the first point in time and the subsequent point in time;

at least one data unit that was not present in the set of data units at the first point in time and was present in the set of data units at the subsequent point in time;

use the delta to update the first backup to a subsequent backup that represents the state of the set of data units at the subsequent point in time, wherein using the delta to update the first backup comprises updating the data units in the first backup with the at least one data unit that was not present in the set of data units at the first point in time and was present in the set of data units at the subsequent point in time.

18. The computer-readable-storage medium of claim 17 , wherein:

the representation of the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time comprises:

a first bitmap that indicates each data unit that has changed since the first point in time;

a second bitmap that indicates a state of each data unit in the set of data units at the first point in time;

a third bitmap that indicates a state of each data unit in the set of data units at the subsequent point in time;

an incremental backup that includes the one or more data units that have been modified since the first point in time; the one or more computer-executable instructions further cause the computing device to:

add a data unit from the incremental backup corresponding to the data unit of the set of data units to the delta if:

a bit corresponding to the data unit of the set of data units in the third bitmap is set; and

a bit corresponding to the data unit of the set of data units in the first bitmap is set;

add a reference to a data unit in the first backup to the delta if:

the bit corresponding to the data unit of the set of data units in the third bitmap is set; and

the bit corresponding to the data unit of the set of data units in the first bitmap is not set.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein using the delta to update the first backup further comprises moving the data unit identified by the reference from the first location to the second location within the first backup.

20. The system of claim 11 , wherein the update module that directs the at least one processor to move the data unit identified by the reference from the first location to the second location within the first backup.

Assignments (13)

Continuity (1)