Systems and methods for electronic data storage management

Details Systems and methods for electronic data storage management Systems and methods for electronic data storage management

1998-07-17

2002-04-02

Thai, Tuan V. (Department: 2186)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory

Storage accessing and control

Control technique

C711S100000, C711S170000, C711S202000, C707S793000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06366988

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to electronic data storage management, and more particularly, to systems and methods for electronic data storage management on multiple device types and multiple devices.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Information is rapidly becoming the most valuable asset of most companies. At the same time, managing and protecting information is becoming dramatically more complex and difficult due to the explosion in data storage requirements and the shift from centralized to distributed storage of data on enterprise networks. In addition, users are storing more and more data on their desktop and laptop computers. Effectively managing and protecting this critical information is left to information technology (IT) professionals and represents one of their greatest challenges, perhaps even rivaling the Year 2000 challenge.
The financial impact of information loss is enormous. Not only is it costly to recreate lost data but also there are other significant costs such as lost productivity and lost opportunity.
Over the years, IT departments have evolved highly sophisticated and effective means of managing centralized mainframe data, including backup, disaster recovery, and hierarchical storage management (HSM). Achieving the same level of effectiveness and protection at a single workstation, or in a distributed network environment, however, presents quite a challenge.
Since the early days of computing, there has been recognized the need to protect and manage the data that is stored on computers for disaster recovery and archival purposes. Historically, the standard storage management solution was tape backup. With tape backup, data on computers disk memory storage is periodically backed-up to tape. These backups were generally done during off business hours with cycles of full backups and then intermediate incremental backups of files that had changed since the previous backup.
Numerous problems existed with tape backup:
If any data was entered and lost during the time between the scheduled, periodic backups, the data would not be recoverable except by re-entry;
As computers proliferated in organizations, performing tape backups on multiple machines became increasingly time-consuming and difficult to manage. To help overcome this problem, network access to remote machines was added by many backup software vendors;
Backups generally needed to be done during off-business hours due to the negative effect on computer performance and also because many files are locked by applications;
Restoring a file or system from tape backups is generally very time consuming.
Historically, if more free disk space was required on the computer, the operator could create an archive of selected data on tape. After the data was moved to tape, the data could be removed from the hard drive. One problem with this method of migrating data to tape is that if the end user needed to later access the archived data, there was no indication that the file had been migrated. Another problem was in selecting which files would be most suitable for migrating to tape.
Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) was created to automate the process of data migration. With HSM, files in primary storage are selected for migration to secondary storage according to some criteria, for instance, the file least recently accessed could be selected for migration. With HSM, when the file is moved, a marker file is put in it's place. Depending on the implementation, if the user attempts to access the marker file, the file is returned to its original location or the user is prompted to restore the file from a given tape or removable cartridge. One common problem with this technique is that the file must be restored to its original location. If, during a restoration attempt, HSM determined that adequate space was not available to restore the file to its original location, then the file cannot be accessed.
Extension of disk space across local physical devices can be found built into some file systems such as Window NT's NTFS. For example, in Windows NT, a single disk could be extended by creating a volume set which creates a logical drive that may extend across multiple physical volumes. (Hereinafter, a “volume” refers to a single storage unit. Reference to a physical volume refers to a single physical storage unit, such as a single disk, a single CD ROM, a single tape, etc.; reference to a logical volume or “virtual” volume, refers to data that is located on one or more physical storage units but is treated by the computer system as if the data is located on a single physical storage unit. Reference to a “device” refers to a piece of electronic storage equipment that is capable of accessing a particular type of storage volume, such as a disk drive, a CD ROM drive, a tape drive, etc.) While this accomplished the goal of virtually extending the logical drive, this method is limited to only certain file system formats (the method applies to, for example, NTFS, but not to Windows FAT 16 or FAT 32). Also, this technique lacks flexibility in that space cannot be easily shifted from one volume to another.
Another technique for creating an expanded volume was the use of a Distributed File System such as Microsoft's DFS. Using DFS software, a logical volume can be created where each subfolder may point to a folder on a different volume on any machine in the network. This approach is very useful for creating logical directory structures independent of volume location. While DFS can be used for extending disk space, it was not designed as a disk space extension tool and has a number of limitations. First DFS cannot be used for extending an existing local volume. Further, if a particular volume in the DFS tree runs out of space there is no provision for extending space in that folder across another volume.
Explosion in Storage Requirements
Storage is growing at an exponential rate. International Data Corporation (IDC) has forecasted a 90 percent annual increase in total storage shipments for the next four years, with annual storage shipments surpassing 500,000 terabytes by 2001. That's more than all the data storage shipped during the 1990s. IDC also estimates that the average site capacity will double annually.
The explosion in storage requirements has created two major problems for IT professionals:
Storage Management
It is becoming increasingly difficult to manage and protect the ever increasing and more widely distributed amount of data being stored. As a result, more critical data is being exposed to loss.
Storage Capacity
The exploding storage requirements are continually outgrowing the storage capacity of servers and workstations. As a result, storage capacity must be continually updated, which is costly and disruptive to users.
Increased Vulnerability of Desktop and Laptop Storage
According to Bear Stearns, more than 50 percent of critical data is now stored on desktop and laptop computers. This data is outside the reach of most enterprise storage management software products and is at risk to loss. To get around the problem, many IT departments have encouraged their users to store critical data on network servers to bring it within the reach and control of storage management software. This policy, however, has met with only limited success. Laptop computers present a particularly difficult storage management problem in that most are only occasionally connected to a network and must be able to work offline. This makes storing active data on servers impractical.
There are many Ways in which Data can be Lost
There are many ways that users can corrupt or lose information, including:
Inadvertent File Deletion
A user may unintentionally delete a file that contains critical information. Some protection solutions address this problem, such as the Windows Recycle Bin and utilities that hold information deleted from the Recycle Bin. Even with these solutions, however, users can still lose important data.
Inadvertent File Overwrites
A user may wish to maintain each revision of a document

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