POLICY USE IN A DATA MOVER EMPLOYING DIFFERENT CHANNEL PROTOCOLS

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to data storage, and more specifically to the operation of client devices in communication with network-accessible or network-attached storage systems.

DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART

Data is often stored in storage systems that are accessed via a network. Network-accessible storage systems allow potentially many different client devices to share the same set of storage resources. A network-accessible storage system can perform various operations that render storage more convenient, efficient, and secure. For instance, a network-accessible storage system can receive and retain potentially many versions of backup data for files stored at a client device. As well, a network-accessible storage system can serve as a shared file repository for making a file or files available to more than one client device.

Some data storage systems may perform operations related to data deduplication. In computing, data deduplication is a specialized data compression technique for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data. Deduplication techniques may be used to improve storage utilization or network data transfers by effectively reducing the number of bytes that must be sent or stored. In the deduplication process, unique chunks of data, or byte patterns, are identified and stored during a process of analysis. As the analysis continues, other chunks are compared to the stored copy and a redundant chunk may be replaced with a small reference that points to the stored chunk. Given that the same byte pattern may occur dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times, the amount of data that must be stored or transferred can be greatly reduced. The match frequency may depend at least in part on the chunk size. Different storage systems may employ different chunk sizes or may support variable chunk sizes.

Deduplication differs from standard file compression techniques. While standard file compression techniques typically identify short repeated substrings inside individual files, storage-based data deduplication involves inspecting potentially large volumes of data and identify potentially large sections—such as entire files or large sections of files—that are identical, in order to store only one copy of a duplicate section. In some instances, this copy may be additionally compressed by single-file compression techniques. For example, a typical email system might contain many instances of the same one megabyte (MB) file attachment. In conventional backup systems, each time the system is backed up, all 100 instances of the attachment are saved, requiring 100 MB storage space. With data deduplication, the storage space required may be limited to only one instance of the attachment. Subsequent instances may be referenced back to the saved copy for deduplication ratio of roughly 100 to 1.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of certain embodiments of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure and it does not identify key/critical elements of the invention or delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts disclosed herein in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.

Techniques and mechanisms described herein facilitate the transmission of a data stream to a networked storage system. According to various embodiments, a request to transfer the data stream to the networked storage system may be received at a data mover located at a client device. The data mover may be configured to transfer data to the networked storage system via two different communications protocol interfaces. The data stream may be transmitted to the networked storage system over a network via a first one of the interfaces when a first characteristic associated with the data stream meets a designated criterion.

According to various embodiments, the designated communications protocol criterion may identify a file size threshold. The data stream may be transmitted to the networked storage system via the first communications protocol interface when a file associated with the data stream has a file size that exceeds the file size threshold.

According to various embodiments, the designated communications protocol criterion may identify an encryption status. The data stream may be transmitted to the networked storage system via the first communications protocol interface when it is determined that the data stream is encrypted.

According to various embodiments, the designated communications protocol criterion may identify a data sequentialness threshold. The data stream may be transmitted to the networked storage system via the first communications protocol interface when it is determined that the data stream meets the data sequentialness threshold.

According to various embodiments, transmitting the data stream to the networked storage system via the first communications protocol interface may involve deduplicating the data stream at the client device. Deduplicating the data stream may include parsing the data stream to produce a plurality of data chunks and/or fingerprinting each of the data chunks to produce a plurality of chunk fingerprints. Alternately, or additionally, deduplicating the data stream may include determining whether a chunk corresponding with each fingerprint is stored on the networked storage system and transmitting the chunk to the networked storage system for storage when it is determined that the chunk is not stored at the networked storage system. In particular embodiments, the second communications protocol interface may or may not be operable to deduplicate the data stream at the client device.

In particular embodiments, the networked storage system may be operable to store deduplicated data based on storage requests received via the network. The request to transfer the data stream may conform to the Open Storage (OST) protocol, the Network File System (NFS) protocol, or the Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The disclosure may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which illustrate particular embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a network storage network storage arrangement, arranged in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates a particular example of a system that can be used in conjunction with the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a particular example of a networked storage system, configured in accordance with one or more embodiments

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a policy-based data storage method, performed in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a client-side data storage method, performed in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 6 illustrates a server-side data storage method, performed in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 7 illustrates a configuration of data streams, presented in accordance with one or more embodiments.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a communications protocol interface, configured in accordance with one or more embodiments.

DESCRIPTION OF PARTICULAR EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to some specific examples of the invention including the best modes contemplated by the inventors for carrying out the invention. Examples of these specific embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. While the invention is described in conjunction with these specific embodiments, it will be understood that it is not intended to limit the invention to the described embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

For example, the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention will be described in the context of particular data storage mechanisms. However, it should be noted that the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention apply to a variety of different data storage mechanisms. In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. Particular example embodiments of the present invention may be implemented without some or all of these specific details. In other instances, well known process operations have not been described in detail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention.

Various techniques and mechanisms of the present invention will sometimes be described in singular form for clarity. However, it should be noted that some embodiments include multiple iterations of a technique or multiple instantiations of a mechanism unless noted otherwise. For example, a system uses a processor in a variety of contexts. However, it will be appreciated that a system can use multiple processors while remaining within the scope of the present invention unless otherwise noted. Furthermore, the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention will sometimes describe a connection between two entities. It should be noted that a connection between two entities does not necessarily mean a direct, unimpeded connection, as a variety of other entities may reside between the two entities. For example, a processor may be connected to memory, but it will be appreciated that a variety of bridges and controllers may reside between the processor and memory. Consequently, a connection does not necessarily mean a direct, unimpeded connection unless otherwise noted.

Overview

According to various embodiments, techniques and mechanisms described herein may facilitate sophisticated interactions between a client device and a networked storage system. For instance, a data mover at a client device may be operable to transmit a data stream from the client device to a networked storage system via any of two or more different communications protocol interfaces. Different communications protocol interfaces may vary in terms of the amount of client-side processing performed, the communication protocol used to communicate with the networked storage system, and other such characteristics. The data mover may determine one or more characteristics associated with a data stream and use a policy engine to select a protocol interface that is well-suited to transmitting the data stream.

Example Embodiments

Client devices commonly employ non-proprietary and ubiquitously available communication protocols such as the Network File System (NFS) and the Common Internet File System (CIFS) to communicate with networked storage systems. For instance, many common backup software suites are configured transmit data over a network through these channels. However, these standard communication protocols transmit data “as-is” and do not perform operations such as client-side deduplication. Various caching strategies are employed to increase data transfer performance. However, data-intrinsic strategies are not employed in these file transfer protocols. Thus, many common backup configurations frequently send data to a networked storage system that is already stored on the networked storage system.

Client devices may also employ proprietary communications protocols such as Open Storage (OST) to communicate with networked storage systems. For instance, many common backup software suites are configured transmit data over a network through these channels. Some proprietary communications protocols incorporate proprietary technologies in order to boost performance. For instance, a client module implementing a proprietary communications protocol may implement client-side deduplication. However, many backup and networked storage solutions are not configured to use these proprietary communications protocols. Moreover, purchasing backup and networked storage solutions that use these proprietary communications protocols may be expensive and may lock the purchaser in to the proprietary protocol.

According to various embodiments, a standard communications protocol interface for a network communications protocols such as NFS or CIFS may be supplemented at a client device with custom communications protocol interface. The custom communications protocol interface may be operable to communicate with other modules at the client device via the standard communications protocol. However, the custom communications protocol interface may include features that facilitate various non-standard interactions with a networked storage system. For instance, the custom communications protocol interface may include a parser and/or fingerprinter to facilitate client-side data deduplication.

In particular embodiments, a client device configured to use a particular communications protocol can enjoy improved performance without changing the protocol from the perspective of other modules at the client device. For example, backup software at the client device may be configured to access an NFS or CIFS mount point for backup and/or restore operations. In this example, by transparently using a custom communications protocol interface that communicates via a standard non-proprietary communications protocol such as NFS or CIFS, the backup software can continue to communicate via the same protocol. However, performance can potentially be improved by non-standard performance improvement techniques implemented in the custom communications protocol interface.

According to various embodiments, data may be deduplicated at the client device. For instance, a data stream designated for storage on the networked storage system may be parsed at the client device using the same parser that exists on the networked storage system. The parser may break the data stream into one or more data chunks, which may be fingerprinted using the same fingerprinter that is used at the networked storage system. The client device may then consult with the networked storage system to determine whether a chunk is already stored at the networked storage system before transmitting the chunk over the network. For instance, the client device may communicate with the networked storage system via custom communications protocol semantics associated with a custom communications protocol.

According to various embodiments, a data mover responsible for transferring data from a client device to a server may be configured to employ a multitude of different communications protocol interfaces. For example, different communications protocol interfaces may have different strengths or weaknesses. The data mover may then include a policy engine that is configured to dynamically select a communications protocol interface for use based on one or more criteria. For instance, the policy engine may indicate that data streams having one set of characteristics should be transferred via one communications protocol interface, while data streams having another set of characteristics should be transferred via another communications protocol interface. In this way, data may be transferred from the client device to a remote server such as a networked storage system more efficiently than if a single communications interface were used for all data transfers.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a network storage arrangement, arranged in accordance with one or more embodiments. The network storage arrangement shown in FIG. 1 includes a networked storage system 102 in communication with client devices 104 and 106 via a network 120. The client devices are configured to communication with the networked storage system 102 via the communications protocol interfaces 114, 116, and 118. The networked storage system 102 is configured to process file-related requests from the client devices via the virtual file system 102.

According to various embodiments, the client devices and networked storage system shown in FIG. 1 may communicate via a network 120. The network 120 may include any nodes or links for facilitating communication between the end points. For instance, the network 120 may include one or more WANs, LANs, MANs, WLANs, or any other type of communication linkage.

In some implementations, the networked storage system 102 may be any network-accessible device or combination of devices configured to store information received via a communications link. For instance, the networked storage system 102 may include one or more DR6000 storage appliances provided by Dell Computer of Round Rock, Tex.

In some embodiments, the networked storage system 102 may be operable to provide one or more storage-related services in addition to simple file storage. For instance, the networked storage system 102 may be configured to provide deduplication services for data stored on the storage system. Alternately, or additionally, the networked storage system 102 may be configured to provide backup-specific storage services for storing backup data received via a communication link.

According to various embodiments, each of the client devices 104 and 106 may be any computing device configured to communicate with the networked storage system 102 via a network or other communications link. For instance, a client device may be a desktop computer, a laptop computer, another networked storage system, a mobile computing device, or any other type of computing device. Although FIG. 1 shows two client devices, other network storage arrangements may include any number of client devices. For instance, corporate networks often include many client devices in communication with the same networked storage system.

According to various embodiments, the client devices may communicate with the networked storage system 102 via the communications protocol interfaces 114 and 116. Different client devices may employ the same communications protocol interface or may employ different communications protocol interfaces. The communications protocol interfaces 114 and 116 shown in FIG. 1 may function as channel protocols that include a file-level system of rules for data exchange between computers. For example, a communications protocol may support file-related operations such as creating a file, opening a file, reading from a file, writing to a file, committing changes made to a file, listing a directory, creating a directory, etc. Types of communication protocol interfaces that may be supported may include, but are not limited to: Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS), Server Message Block (SMB), Open Storage (OST), Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP).

In some implementations, a client device may communicate with a networked storage system using the NFS protocol. NFS is a distributed file system protocol that allows a client computer to access files over a network in a fashion similar to accessing files stored locally on the client computer. NFS is an open standard, allowing anyone to implement the protocol. NFS is considered to be a stateless protocol. A stateless protocol may be better able to withstand a server failure in a remote storage location such as the networked storage system 102. NFS also supports a two-phased commit approach to data storage. In a two-phased commit approach, data is written non-persistently to a storage location and then committed after a relatively large amount of data is buffered, which may provide improved efficiency relative to some other data storage techniques.

In some implementations, a client device may communicate with a networked storage system using the CIFS protocol. CIFS operates as an application-layer network protocol. CIFS is provided by Microsoft of Redmond Wash. and is a stateful protocol.

In some embodiments, a client device may communicate with a networked storage system using the proprietary OST protocol provided by NetBackup. The OST protocol may support remote direct memory access (RDMA) between the client device and the networked storage system. RDMA may facilitate high-throughput, low-latency data communications, for instance by bypassing the operating system of one or both of the computing systems involved in a data transfer procedure.

In some embodiments, different client devices on the same network may communicate via different communication protocol interfaces. For instance, one client device may run a Linux-based operating system and communicate with a networked storage system via NFS. On the same network, a different client device may run a Windows-based operating system and communicate with the same networked storage system via CIFS. Then, still another client device on the network may employ a NetBackup backup storage solution and use the OST protocol to communicate with the networked storage system 102.

According to various embodiments, the virtual file system (VFS) layer 102 is configured to provide an interface for client devices using potentially different communications protocol interfaces to interact with protocol-mandated operations of the networked storage system 102. For instance, the virtual file system 102 may be configured to send and receive communications via NFS, CIFS, OST or any other appropriate protocol associated with a client device.

In some implementations, the network storage arrangement shown in FIG. 1 may be operable to support a variety of storage-related operations. For example, the client device 104 may use the communications protocol interface 114 to create a file on the networked storage system 112, to store data to the file, to commit the changes to memory, and to close the file. As another example, the client device 106 may use the communications protocol interface 116 to open a file on the networked storage system 102, to read data from the file, and to close the file.

In particular embodiments, a communications protocol interface 114 may be configured to perform various techniques and operations described herein. For instance, a customized implementation of an NFS, CIFS, or OST communications protocol interface may allow more sophisticated interactions between a client device and a networked storage system.

According to various embodiments, a customized communications protocol interface may appear to be a standard communications protocol interface from the perspective of the client device. For instance, a customized communications protocol interface for NFS, CIFS, or OST may be configured to receive instructions and provide information to other modules at the client device via standard NFS, CIFS, or OST formats. However, the customized communications protocol interface may be operable to perform non-standard operations such as a client-side data deduplication.

In some embodiments, a data mover 122 at the client device may facilitate the transfer of data from the client device to a remote server via different communications protocol interfaces. The data mover 122 includes a policy engine 120 and the communications protocol interfaces 114 and 118. Although only two communication protocol interfaces are shown, a data mover many include more than two such interfaces.

In particular embodiments, a data mover may receive data transfer requests via a standard communications protocol format. For instance, a data mover may receive a data transfer request from other modules at the client machine via an NFS, CIFS, or OST communications protocol format. The data mover may process the data transfer request with the policy engine 120. Based on the analysis of the policy engine, the data mover may transfer the data to the remote server via the communications protocol interface 114, the communications protocol interface 118, or a combination of the two communications protocol interfaces.

According to various embodiments, the two communications protocol interfaces shown in the data mover 122 may differ in one or more characteristics. In a first example, the interfaces may differ in terms of the communications protocol used by the interface to communicate with the server. For instance, one such interface may employ regular NFS while the other interface employs a proprietary client-side deduplication protocol such as REMOTE_O3E.

In a second example, the interfaces may differ in terms of client-side processing performed prior to data transfer. For instance, one interface may be configured to perform client-side deduplication of data prior to transfer, while another interface may be configured to not perform such processing.

In a third example, the interfaces may differ in terms of target file size. For instance, one interface may be relatively better at transferring small files, while another interface may be relatively better at transferring large files.

In a fourth example, the interfaces may differ in terms of target file type. For instance, one interface may be relatively better at transferring encrypted files, while another interface may be relatively better at transferring native files that are unencrypted.

In a fourth example, the interfaces may differ in terms of target file characteristics. For instance, one interface may be relatively better at transferring random access data, while another interface may be relatively better at transferring sequential data.

According to various embodiments, the policy engine 120 may be configured to evaluate a data stream and determine how best to transfer the data to the server via the available communications protocol interfaces. Techniques for transferring data to a server based on analysis by a policy engine are discussed in further detail with respect to the method 400 shown in FIG. 4.

FIG. 2 illustrates a particular example of a system that can be used in conjunction with the techniques and mechanisms of the present invention. According to particular example embodiments, a system 200 suitable for implementing particular embodiments of the present invention includes a processor 201, a memory 203, an interface 211, persistent storage 205, and a bus 215 (e.g., a PCI bus). For example, the system 200 may act as a client device such as the client device 104 or the client device 106 shown in FIG. 1. When acting under the control of appropriate software or firmware, the processor 201 is responsible for such tasks such as generating instructions to store or retrieve data on a remote storage system. Various specially configured devices can also be used in place of a processor 201 or in addition to processor 201. The complete implementation can also be done in custom hardware. The interface 211 is typically configured to send and receive data packets or data segments over a network. Particular examples of interfaces the device supports include Ethernet interfaces, frame relay interfaces, cable interfaces, DSL interfaces, token ring interfaces, and the like. Persistent storage 205 may include disks, disk arrays, tape devices, solid state storage, etc.

In addition, various very high-speed interfaces may be provided such as fast Ethernet interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, ATM interfaces, HSSI interfaces, POS interfaces, FDDI interfaces and the like. Generally, these interfaces may include ports appropriate for communication with the appropriate media. In some cases, they may also include an independent processor and, in some instances, volatile RAM. The independent processors may control such communications intensive tasks as packet switching, media control and management.

According to particular example embodiments, the system 200 uses memory 203 to store data and program instructions and maintain a local side cache. The program instructions may control the operation of an operating system and/or one or more applications, for example. The memory or memories may also be configured to store received metadata and batch requested metadata.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a networked storage system 300, configured in accordance with one or more embodiments. The networked storage system 300 may be operable to communicate with one or more client devices via a network. The communications may be conducted via one or more communications protocols such as NFS, CIFS, or OST.

We could probably take out the working of the network storage device and remove the 300* picture and description altogether. We are focusing on the usage of different protocols using a policy engine—so why talk about the internals of a dedup storage device? It does not hurt to describe it though.

The networked storage system 300 includes TCP/IP interfaces 302 and 304 in communication with communications protocol interface servers 308, 310, and 312 via a bus 306. The communications protocol interface servers are configured to facilitate various storage operations by communicating with the virtual file system 314. The networked storage system 300 includes an NVRAM module 318 configured to temporarily store data such as file data designated for storage in the storage system 300. The networked storage system 300 also includes a metadata server (MDS) 318, a block map 320, a parser 322, a fingerprinter 324, and a data store system 326. The data store system is configured to manage the data stores 330-342.

At 302, an Internet Protocol (IP) communications interface is shown. According to various embodiments, the IP communications interface 302 is configured to send and receive packets based on IP addresses in packet headers. For instance, the IP communications interface 302 may send packets to client devices and receive packets from client devices via a network.

In some implementations, the IP communications interface 302 may communicate with the TCP communications interface 304. In some implementations, the TCP communications interface 304 may provide for reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of a data stream between programs running on computers connected to a network. For instance, the TCP communications interface 304 may be responsible for ensuring that packets reach their destinations and, when necessary, resending packets.

According to various embodiments, a data stream between the storage system 300 and a client device may be routed through a communications protocol interface server based on the communications protocol used by the client device. For instance, each communications protocol interface server may be operable to send and receive communications via a protocol such as OST, NFS, or CIFS. The storage system 300 includes the communications protocol interface servers 308, 310, and 312. However, implementations of a storage system may include one, two, three, or any number of communications protocol interface servers. Communications between the TCP/IP interfaces 302 and 304 and the communications protocol interface servers 308, 310, and 312 may be transmitted via the bus 306.

In some implementations, each of the communications protocol interface servers may be configured to communicate with the virtual file system 314. The virtual file system 314 provides an interface between the different communications protocol interface servers and the more concrete file system of the storage system 300. For instance, the VFS supports operations which may include but are not limited to: creating a file, opening a file, reading a directory, making a directory, unlinking or removing a file, removing a directory, closing a file, syncing or committing a change to a file, writing to a file, and reading from a file. Instructions to perform such operations may be received via a standard interface implemented by different communications protocol interface servers. In this way, an instruction to perform a file operation such as creating a file may be transmitted via any of several protocols and implemented in a standard way by the virtual file system 314.

In some embodiments, the NVRAM staging module 316 may temporarily store data for any of various purposes. For instance, the NVRAM staging module may store data received in write requests from a client device. Then, the data may be written to the data store system 326 when the write requests are committed or synchronized.

According to various embodiments, the parser 322 may be configured to receive a stream of data and separate the data into chunks for storage in the data store system 326. The parser 322 may be configured in such a way that two data streams identical except for offset will be reliably parsed into the same chunks. Also, two similar and well-ordered data streams may be reliably parsed in a similar fashion. In this way, data streams may be parsed into chunks in a manner likely to frequently generate duplicate chunks when similar data is provided to the parser. Then, the system can employ deduplication techniques to avoid storing duplicate copies of the same data.

Various techniques exist for parsing a data stream into chunks. In particular embodiments, the parser may employ a rolling hash technique such as Rabin-Karp. The parser may parse a data stream in increments such as 8 bytes. The hash may be computed in a rolling fashion. When the rolling hash is generated, a computed hash value may be compared with one or more criteria to determine whether the computed hash value qualifies as a chunk boundary. For instance, one criterion may indicate that a chunk boundary has been reached when the computed hash value is a prime number. The parser may also enforce a minimum and/or maximum chunk size. For example, chunks may be limited in size to between 16 and 48 kilobytes. Alternately, different chunk size restrictions may be used for different types of data presented. In this way, similar data streams may be parsed into similar chunks.

In particular embodiments, different chunks associated with the same file may be stored at different locations in the data store system 326. Alternately, or additionally, a single chunk may potentially include data from more than one file. The metadata server (MDS) 318 may maintain information about which files are stored on the storage system 318. The block map 320 may maintain information about where the chunks associated with each file are stored in the data store system 326.

In some embodiments, the metadata server 318 is operable to maintain one or more namespaces for data stored on the storage system 300. For instance, when a file is created, an MDS entry may be created in the metadata server 318. The MDS entry may include the file's name and point to a block map, which functions similarly to a UNIX system inode. For instance, an MDS entry representing a client file in the MDS 318 may point to a block map containing several entries in the block map 320.

In some embodiments, the storage system 300 may include a fingerprinter such as the fingerprinter 324. The fingerprinter 324 may generates a fingerprint of a chunk for purposes such as identification and deduplication. A fingerprint may also be referred to as a hash value or a checksum. For instance, the fingerprinter 324 may compute a hash value using a hash function such as MD5, or SHA-1, SHA-256, another Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) hash function, or any other suitable hash function.

According to various embodiments, the block map 320, which functions similarly to a UNIX system inode, is operable to maintain entries indicating the storage locations for data associated with files stored in the storage system 320. Each block map entry may designate a portion of a file that is stored in the chunk. For instance, a block map entry may designate a file offset that indicates which portion of the file is stored in the chunk. Each block map entry may also designate a data store ID that identifies a particular data store in the data store system 326 where the aforementioned chunk can be found. Each data store may include one or more chunks.

According to various embodiments, the data store system 326 may be configured to store information parsed by the parser 322. The configuration of the data store system 326 may be strategically determined based on the underlying storage technology. For instance, the data store system 326 may be configured to store data on one or more storage disks configured in accordance with the Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) storage standard.

In particular embodiments, the data store system 326 may include a plurality of data stores, such as the data stores 330-342. In the storage system 300, only seven data stores are shown. However, the number of data stores may depend on factors such as the amount of data stored in the storage system. For instance, data store systems commonly include millions of data stores in a single system.

In some embodiments, each data store may be configured to store one or more chunks. For example, a data store may be configured to store up to a designated number of chunks, such as 1024. As another example, a data store may be configured to store up to a designated amount of data, such as 20 GB. The configuration of the data store parameters may be strategically determined based on the underlying storage technology.

According to various embodiments, each data store may be associated with a unique identifier. The data store may include a header portion and a chunk portion. For instance, the data store 330 includes the header portion 344 and the chunk portion 346. The chunk portion 346 stores the data included in the chunks. The header portion stores metadata associated with the chunks. For instance, the header portion may include one header entry for each chunk stored in the data store. Each entry may include the chunk fingerprint generated by the fingerprinter 324, the offset within the data store that indicates where in the data store the chunk is stored. In particular embodiments, the header portion may be indexed to facilitate rapid search.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a policy-based data storage method 400, performed in accordance with one or more embodiments. The method 400 may be used to process a data storage request for storing data on a networked storage system. The method 400 may be performed at a client device in communication with such a system. For instance, the method 400 may be performed at the client device 104 shown in FIG. 1.

In some embodiments, the method 400 may be performed at a client device having a data mover such as the data mover 122 shown in FIG. 1. The data mover may include a policy engine 120 and access to two or more communications protocol interfaces such as the interfaces 114 and 118 shown in FIG. 1.

At 402, a request to store data on a networked storage system is received. In some embodiments, the request may be received as part of a backup operation. For instance, the client device may initiate the request in order to store backup data on the networked storage system. Alternately, or additionally, the request may be received as part of an operation to store data for retrieval by other devices via a network.

According to various embodiments, the request may be generated by a processor or other module on the client device. The request may be received by a data mover configured to receive communications from elsewhere on the client device via a communications protocol. For instance, the request may conform to a communications protocol for transmitting information via a network, such as a CIFS, OST, or NFS protocol.

In some implementations, the request may identify various metadata associated with a storage operation. For instance, the request may include one or more headers that identify one or more file names, file sizes, directories, or other such data.

At 404, a data stream associated with the storage request is received. According to various embodiments, the data stream may include data designated for storage. For instance, the data stream may include the contents of one or more files identified in the request received at operation 402. The data stream may be provided in accordance with a communications protocol for transmitting information via a network such as CIFS, OST, or NFS.

At 406, one or more characteristics associated with the data stream are determined According to various embodiments, any characteristics that may facilitate the determination as to which communications protocol interface to use when processing the data stream may be determined.

In some embodiments, one or more characteristics may be determined based on the request received at operation 402. Alternately, or additionally, one or more characteristics may be determined by processing the data stream received at operation 404.

In some embodiments, the characteristics that may be determined may include, but are not limited to: a size of one or more files included in the data stream, an encryption status for one or more files in the data stream, a file type such as a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) type for one or more files in the data stream, and/or a sequentialness factor for one or more files in the data stream. The procedure for determining the characteristics may depend on the type of characteristic being determined.

In some embodiments, determining a characteristic associated with the data stream may involve processing a portion of the data stream with one or more communications protocol interfaces for testing purposes. For instance, a data stream may be processed with a first communications protocol interface. If the processing of the data stream fails to meet a designated performance threshold, then the processing of the data stream may be switched to a second communications protocol interface.

In some embodiments, determining a characteristic associated with the data stream may involve analyzing header data associated with the data stream. For instance, a file included in the data stream may include a header portion that identifies the file type, the encryption status, or other such information.

In some embodiments, determining a characteristic associated with the data stream may involve algorithmically analyzing the contents of the data stream. For example, the data stream may be algorithmically analyzed to identify patterns in the data stream. The data stream may be assigned a sequentialness factor based on the degree to which patterns are present in the data stream. For instance, the data stream may be designated as being relatively more sequential if the data stream includes relatively more patterns.

At 408, a determination is made as to whether the one or more characteristics meet one or more protocol transfer criteria. According to various embodiments, the criteria may designate various conditions under which a data stream is preferably processed with a particular communications protocol interface. The criteria may include one or more threshold values associated with characteristics such as an encryption status, a sequentialness factor, a file size, a file type, or any other such characteristic.

According to various embodiments, a combination of protocol transfer criteria may dictate the communications protocol interface to be used in processing the data stream. For example, one communications protocol interface may be better suited for processing unencrypted files that exceed a designated size threshold, while a different communications protocol interface may be better suited for processing both encrypted files and files that do not exceed the designated size threshold.

At 410, the data stream is processed with a first communications protocol interface if it is determined that the one or more characteristics meet the one or more protocol transfer criteria discussed with respect to operation 408. At 412, the data stream is processed with a first communications protocol interface if instead it is determined that the one or more characteristics do not meet the one or more protocol transfer criteria discussed with respect to operation 408. For instance, the data stream may be processed with one of the communication protocol interfaces 114 or 118 shown in FIG. 1.

In particular embodiments, processing the data stream with the first or second communications protocol interface may involve any of a variety of operations. For example, the data stream may be converted from one protocol to another protocol or may be passed through to the networked storage system unchanged. As another example, the data stream may be altered at the client device to perform an operation such as data deduplication. Then, the resulting data may be transferred to the networked storage system via any available and appropriate communications protocol.

In some embodiments, determining whether to process a data stream with a particular communications protocol interface at operations such as 408, 410, and 412 may involve processing a portion of the data stream with one or more communications protocol interfaces for testing purposes. For instance, a data stream may be processed with a first communications protocol interface. If the processing of the data stream fails to meet a designated performance threshold, then the processing of the data stream may be switched to a second communications protocol interface.

According to various embodiments, the first and second communications protocol interfaces may differ according to any of various characteristics. For instance, the communications protocol interfaces may vary in terms of the communications protocol used to communicate with the networked storage system, the amount and type of preprocessing of the data stream performed at the client device, or any other salient characteristic.

For example, the second communications protocol interface may perform limited or no client-side preprocessing of the data stream before transmitting the data stream to the networked storage system, for instance via a communications protocol such as NFS, OST, or CIFS. At the same time, the first communications protocol interface may perform various types of client-side pre-processing of the data stream. For instance, the second communications protocol interface may perform data deduplication as discussed with respect to the method 500 shown in FIG. 5.

As another example, the first communications protocol interface may be operable to transmit the data stream via a first communications protocol such as NFS, while the second communications protocol interface may be operable to transmit the data stream via a different communications protocol such as CIFS.

Various implementations of a data mover may be equipped to transmit data via various numbers and types of communications protocol interfaces. For instance, the method 400 shown in FIG. 4 involves a decision to transmit data via one of two available communications protocol interfaces. However, data movers may be equipped to transmit a data stream on two, three, four, or any number of available communications protocol interfaces.

In particular embodiments, a single data stream may be transmitted via more than one communications protocol interface. For instance, the first portion of a data stream may be better suited for transmission via a first communications protocol interface, while a second portion of the same data stream may be better suited for transmission via a second communications protocol interface.

At 414, the processed data stream is transferred to the networked storage system. According to various embodiments, the processed data stream may be transferred by transmitting the processed data stream via TCP/IP interfaces via a network. For instance, the processed data stream may be transmitted via the TCP/IP interfaces 812 and 814 discussed with respect to FIG. 8.

In particular embodiments, transferring the processed data stream to the networked storage system may involve two-way communication with the server. For instance, the data stream may be processed via a communications protocol interface configured to perform client-side data deduplication. In this case, two-way communication with the server may help to avoid the transmission of duplicate data. Examples of techniques for client-side data deduplication are discussed in further detail with respect to the method 500 shown in FIG. 5.

According to various embodiments, characteristics and/or protocol transfer criteria discussed with respect to the method 400 may be determined at least in part based on configuration information. For instance, configuration information at the client device may indicate which protocols are to be used with which types of data streams.

In particular embodiments, characteristics and/or protocol transfer criteria discussed with respect to the method 400 may be determined at least in part based on a learning procedure. A learning procedure may be employed to dynamically determine characteristics associated with a data stream that indicate conditions under which a data stream is preferably processed with a particular communications protocol interface. For instance, one or more characteristics associated with a data stream may be determined. Then, the data stream may be processed with one or more of the available communications protocol interfaces and one or more performance metrics associated with the processing may be determined. Based on the processing performance, the device may learn which communications protocol interfaces are best suited for which types of data streams. Such a learning procedure may be particular important for environments in which client devices may transmit potentially many types of data streams via any of potentially many different communications protocol interfaces.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a client-side data storage method 500, performed in accordance with one or more embodiments. The method 500 may be performed as part of a procedure in which data is transmitted from a client device to a networked storage system for storage. The method 500 may be performed on a client device, such as the client device 104 shown in FIG. 1.

In particular embodiments, the method 500 may be performed in association with a communications protocol interface configured to facilitate interactions between the client machine and the networked storage system. For instance, the method 500 may be performed in association with the communications protocol interface 114 shown in FIG. 8.

At 502, a request to store data on a networked storage system is received. In some embodiments, the request may be received as part of a backup operation. For instance, the client device may initiate the request in order to store backup data on the networked storage system. Alternately, or additionally, the request may be received as part of an operation to store data for retrieval by other devices via a network.

According to various embodiments, the request may be generated by a processor or other module on the client device. The request may be received at a client protocol module such as the interface 802 shown in FIG. 8. For instance, the request may conform to a communications protocol for transmitting information via a network, such as a CIFS, OST, or NFS protocol.

At 504, a data stream associated with the storage request is received. According to various embodiments, the data stream may include data designated for storage. For instance, the data stream may include the contents of one or more files identified in the request received at operation 502.

In some embodiments, the data stream may be provided in accordance with a communications protocol for transmitting information via a network such as CIFS, OST, or NFS. The data stream may be received at a client protocol module such as the module 802 shown in FIG. 8.

At 506, one or more chunks are determined by parsing the received data stream. According to various embodiments, the chunks may be determined by parsing the data stream with the parser 804 shown in FIG. 8. As discussed with respect to FIGS. 3 and 8, the parser may be configured in such a way that two data streams identical except for offset will be reliably parsed into the same chunks. Also, two similar and well-ordered data streams may be reliably parsed in a similar fashion. In this way, data streams may be parsed into chunks in a manner likely to frequently generate duplicate chunks when similar data is provided to the parser.

At 508, a fingerprint is determined for each of the chunks. According to various embodiments, the fingerprint may be determined by the fingerprinter 806. As discussed with respect to FIGS. 3 and 4, the fingerprint may be a hash value generated using a hash function such as MD5, or SHA-1.

At 510, fingerprint status information from the networked storage system is retrieved. In some embodiments, the fingerprint status information may be retrieved by transmitting the fingerprints determined at operation 508 to the networked storage system. The fingerprints may be substantially smaller than the chunks with which they are associated. Thus, transmitting the fingerprints to the networked storage system may require substantially less bandwidth than transmitting the entire chunks.

In particular embodiments, the fingerprints may be transmitted via the server protocol module 810. The fingerprints may be transmitted as part of a request to the networked storage system to determine whether chunks associated with the fingerprints are stored at the networked storage system. When the request is received, the networked storage system may provide a response that indicates which of the chunks are stored on the networked storage system and/or which of the chunks are not stored on the networked storage system. Techniques for providing fingerprint status information at the networked storage system are discussed in additional detail with respect to the method 600 shown in FIG. 6.

At 512, a determination is made for each fingerprint as to whether the fingerprint is associated with a chunk stored at the networked storage system. According to various embodiments, the determination may be made by processing one or more messages received from the networked storage system as part of the operation 510.

At 514, the chunk is transmitted to the networked storage system if it is determined that chunk fingerprint is associated with a chunk stored at the network storage device. According to various embodiments, the chunk may be transmitted via the server protocol module 810 shown in FIG. 8. The chunk may be stored at the networked storage system in a data store managed by the data store system 326 shown in FIG. 3.

At 516, block map update information is transmitted to the networked storage system. According to various embodiments, the block map update information may be used for updating a block map such as the block map 320 and/or the MDS 318 shown in FIG. 3. The contents of the block map update information may vary based at least in part on the determination made at operation 512.

For example, if it is determined that the chunk is already stored on the networked storage system, then the block map update information may include new block map and/or MDS entries that point to the existing chunk. In this way, references to the existing chunk are maintained and the chunk is not unlinked (i.e. deleted) even if other references to the chunk are removed.

As another example, if instead it is determined that the chunk is not already stored on the networked storage system, then the block map update information may include new block map and/or MDS entries that point to the storage location of the new chunk transmitted at operation 514. For instance, the block map entry may include a data store ID associated with the storage location of the new chunk.

FIG. 6 illustrates a server-side data storage method 600, performed in accordance with one or more embodiments. The method 600 may be performed at a networked storage system such as the system 102 shown in FIG. 1. The method 600 may be performed in conjunction with the method 500 discussed with respect to FIG. 5. For instance, the method 600 may be performed to facilitate the storage of data at a networked storage system, where the data is deduplicated at a client device from which the data originates.

At 602, a message requesting the status of a fingerprint is received at the networked storage system. According to various embodiments, the request message received at operation 602 may include one or more fingerprints that are each associated with a data chunk. The message may be received from a client device in communication with the networked storage system via a network. For instance, the message may be transmitted as part of the information retrieval operation 510 discussed with respect to FIG. 5.

At 604, a determination is made as to the status for the fingerprint identified by the request message received at operation 602. According to various embodiments, determining the status of the fingerprint may involve evaluating whether a chunk corresponding with the fingerprint is stored at the networked storage system. The networked storage system may make this determination by comparing the fingerprint to entries in the block map 320. The fingerprints stored in the block map 320 may be indexed to facilitate a rapid comparison.

At 606, a fingerprint status message is transmitted to the client device. According to various embodiments, the fingerprint status message may indicate whether a chunk associated with the fingerprint is stored at the networked storage system. For instance, the fingerprint status message may indicate the results of the determination made at operation 604.

At 608, a determination is made as to whether the fingerprint is associated with a chunk stored at the networked storage system. According to various embodiments, the determination may be made based on the status information determined at operation 604.

At 610, if the chunk is not stored at the networked storage system, the chunk may be received from the networked storage system. At 612, the chunk is stored. In particular embodiments, the chunk may be transmitted as discussed with respect to operation 514 shown in FIG. 5. For instance, the chunk may be received via the TCP/IP interfaces 302 and 304 shown in FIG. 3. Then the VFS 314 may route the chunk for storage in a data store governed by the data store system 326.

At 614, block map update information is received from the client device. According to various embodiments, the block map update information may be generated as discussed with respect to operation 516 shown in FIG. 5. For example, if it is determined that the chunk is already stored on the networked storage system, then the block map update information may include new block map and/or MDS entries that point to the existing chunk. In this way, references to the existing chunk are maintained and the chunk is not unlinked (i.e. deleted) even if other references to the chunk are removed. As another example, if instead it is determined that the chunk is not already stored on the networked storage system, then the block map update information may include new block map and/or MDS entries that point to the storage location of the new chunk stored at operation 612. For instance, the block map entry may include a data store ID associated with the storage location of the new chunk.

At 616, the block map is updated based on the received block map update information. According to various embodiments, updating the block map may involve entering the changes identified in operation 614 in the block map 320 shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 7 illustrates a configuration of data streams, presented in accordance with one or more embodiments. FIG. 7 includes data stream A 700 and data stream B 750. The data streams are parsed into chunks 708, 710, 712, and 714 by a parser. The data streams include a plurality of data segments, including data segments 704-710. Each data segment may represent one or more bits, bytes, or any other unit of data size. FIG. 7 shows how two similar but not identical data streams may be parsed similarly to produce, in at least some instances, at least some identical chunks.

In some embodiments, a data stream may be parsed by a parser into chunks. The parser may compute a rolling hash function to identify chunk barriers. For instance, the parser may compute a rolling hash that includes the data segment 704. When the hash is computed, it may be compared with one or more boundary condition criteria to determine whether the parsing of the data stream has reached a chunk boundary. For instance, a chunk boundary may be identified when a rolling hash value is a prime number, is divisible by a designated value, or has some other such mathematical property.

In the example shown in FIG. 7, the data segment 704 represents such a chunk boundary. Accordingly, the parser draws a boundary, and the data between the chunk boundary at the data segment 704 and the previous chunk boundary is designated as chunk A 712. The parser continues parsing the data stream A 700 in this fashion, reaching a new boundary at the data segment 706 and designating the chunk B1714, and reaching another boundary at the data segment 708 and designating the chunk C 716.

In the example shown in FIG. 7, the data stream B 750 is similar but not identical to the data stream A 700. In the data stream B 750, the data segment 710 has been added. This is a relatively small and specific example modification for the purpose of illustration. Nevertheless, various types of modifications are possible. For instance, data segments may be added, removed, or altered.

According to various embodiments, a parser may parse the data stream B 750 in a manner substantially similar to the parsing of the data stream A 700. For instance, the parser reaches a boundary at the data segment 704 and designating the chunk A 712. Then, the parser reaches another boundary at the data segment 706 and designates the chunk B2718. Finally, the parser reaches a boundary at the data segment 708 and designates the chunk C 716.

In the example shown in FIG. 7, both data streams include chunk A 712 as well as chunk C 716. Since the same data is included in these chunks as parsed by both data streams, the fingerprints of these chunks are identical as well. Thus, if both data streams are stored to a deduplication storage system, only one copy of chunk A 712 and chunk C 716 need be stored. In contrast, in the example shown in FIG. 7, chunk B1714 is different than chunk B2718. Thus, chunks B1714 and B2718 will have different fingerprints, and both chunks can be stored in the deduplication storage system.

According to various embodiments, techniques and mechanisms described herein may facilitate the client-side deduplication of data streams such as the ones shown in FIG. 7. For instance, if the data stream B 750 is processed for writing to a networked storage system after the data stream A 750 has already been written to the networked storage system, then only the data chunk B2718 need be transmitted from the client device to the networked storage system. In particular embodiments, such client-side deduplication may be performed even when data write requests are provided at the client device via a standard and/or non-proprietary communication protocol that does not conventionally support client-side deduplication.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a communications protocol interface 114, configured in accordance with one or more embodiments. The communications protocol interface 114 may be located at a client device and configured to facilitate sophisticated interactions between the client device and a remote server such as a networked storage system.

According to various embodiments, the communications protocol interface 114 includes a client protocol module 802, a parser 804, a fingerprinter 806, communications protocol interface logic 808, and a server protocol module 810. The communications protocol interface 114 may be communicably coupled with TCP/IP interfaces 812 and 814 which may facilitate communications with a remote server. The TCP/IP interfaces 812 and 814 may be substantially similar to the TCP/IP modules 302 and 304 discussed with respect to FIG. 3.

In particular embodiments, the communications protocol interface 114 may be configured to appear to other modules at the client device as a conventional communications protocol interface while at the same time performing unconventional tasks such as client-side deduplication. The communications protocol interface 114 may perform such tasks at least in part by incorporating one or more components similar to those more conventionally found in a remote server.

According to various embodiments, the communications protocol interface 114 may implement a parser and fingerprinter substantially similar to those present at a networked storage system. Applying the same parsing and fingerprinting techniques at communications protocol interface 114 located at the client device may allow for operations such as client-side deduplication. For instance, rather than blindly sending data from the client device to a networked storage system when that data may be a duplicate of data already stored at the networked storage system, the communications protocol interface may first parse and fingerprint the data. Then, the client device may communicate with the networked storage system to determine whether the data needs to be sent. If the data does not need to be sent, then bandwidth may be reduced. If the data does need to be sent, then the data may be stored directly in storage at the networked storage system without necessarily performing server-side deduplication of the data. In this way, bandwidth usage and/or server-side resources may be conserved.

According to various embodiments, the client protocol module may be configured to allow the communications protocol interface 114 to communicate with other modules at the client device via a standard communications protocol. For instance, a processor at the client device may communicate with the communications protocol interface 114 via a protocol such as CIFS, OST, or NFS. The client protocol module 802 may be configured to process communications sent and received in such formats.

According to various embodiments, the parser 804 may be configured to receive a stream of data and separate the data into chunks for storage at a networked storage system. The parser 804 may be configured in such a way that two data streams identical except for offset will be reliably parsed into the same chunks. Also, two similar and well-ordered data streams may be reliably parsed in a similar fashion. In this way, data streams may be parsed into chunks in a manner likely to frequently generate duplicate chunks when similar data is provided to the parser. Then, the system can employ deduplication techniques to avoid storing duplicate copies of the same data.

In particular embodiments, the parser 804 is identical to the parser 322 implemented at the networked storage system in communication with the client device. By implementing the same parser at the client device, data can be parsed in the same way at the two devices. For instance, if the same data stream were to be parsed at the client-side and server-side parsers, the chunks that resulted from the different parsing operations may be identical.

In some embodiments, the fingerprinter 806 may generate a fingerprint of a chunk for purposes such as identification and deduplication. A fingerprint may also be referred to as a hash value or a checksum. For instance, the fingerprinter 806 may compute a hash value using a hash function such as MD5, or SHA-1.

In particular embodiments, the fingerprinter 806 is identical to the fingerprinter 324 implemented at a networked storage system in communication with the client device. By implementing an identical fingerprinter at the client device, data can be fingerprinted in the same way at the two devices. For instance, if the same chunks were to be fingerprinted at the client-side and server-side fingerprinter, the fingerprints that resulted from the different fingerprinting operations may be identical.

In some embodiments, the communications protocol interface logic 808 may be configured with instructions to facilitate various interactions between the client and a server such as a networked storage system. For instance, the communications protocol interface logic 808 may be configured with computer programming language instructions that govern the operation of the other components of the communications protocol interface 114. In one example, the communications protocol interface logic 808 may be configured to facilitate client-side data deduplication, as is discussed with respect to FIG. 5.

According to various embodiments, the server protocol module 810 may be operable to communicate with a remote server such as a networked storage system. For instance, the server protocol module 810 may be configured to communicate using a proprietary protocol. The server protocol module 810 may be operable to perform operations such as determining whether a chunk having a particular fingerprint is stored at the networked storage system. Alternately, or additionally, the server protocol module 810 may be operable to store information to and/or retrieve information from the networked storage system. For example, the server protocol module 810 may be equipped for direct memory access at the networked storage system.

Because various information and program instructions may be employed to implement the systems/methods described herein, the present invention relates to non-transitory machine readable media that include program instructions, state information, etc. for performing various operations described herein. Examples of machine-readable media include hard disks, floppy disks, magnetic tape, optical media such as CD-ROM disks and DVDs; magneto-optical media such as optical disks, and hardware devices that are specially configured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-only memory devices (ROM) and programmable read-only memory devices (PROMs). Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher level code that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter.

Although many of the components and processes are described above in the singular for convenience, it will be appreciated by one of skill in the art that multiple components and repeated processes can also be used to practice the techniques of the present invention.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to specific embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that changes in the form and details of the disclosed embodiments may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. It is therefore intended that the invention be interpreted to include all variations and equivalents that fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention.

POLICY USE IN A DATA MOVER EMPLOYING DIFFERENT CHANNEL PROTOCOLS

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