Invented by Prasad Nara, Michael Frank Klose, Commvault Systems Inc

In today’s world, data is everything. It is the backbone of businesses and organizations, and the loss of it can be catastrophic. This is why backup and recovery systems are so important. However, with the rise of autonomous storage management systems, the market for using an enhanced data agent to restore backups has become increasingly important. Autonomous storage management systems are designed to be self-managing and self-optimizing, which means they can make decisions about how to store and manage data without human intervention. While this is great for efficiency and cost savings, it can also make backup and recovery more complicated. Traditional backup and recovery systems may not be able to communicate with autonomous storage management systems, which can lead to data loss and downtime. This is where an enhanced data agent comes in. An enhanced data agent is a software component that can be installed on a server or storage device to enable communication between backup and recovery systems and autonomous storage management systems. This allows for seamless backup and recovery across different storage systems, regardless of whether they are autonomous or not. The market for using an enhanced data agent to restore backups across autonomous storage management systems is growing rapidly. As more businesses and organizations adopt autonomous storage management systems, the need for a reliable backup and recovery solution becomes more pressing. An enhanced data agent can provide that solution by enabling seamless communication between different storage systems. One of the key benefits of using an enhanced data agent is that it can help to reduce downtime. When a system goes down, every minute of downtime can cost a business thousands of dollars. With an enhanced data agent, backups can be restored quickly and easily, minimizing the impact of downtime on the business. Another benefit of using an enhanced data agent is that it can help to reduce the risk of data loss. Data loss can occur for a variety of reasons, including hardware failure, human error, and cyberattacks. With an enhanced data agent, backups can be restored quickly and easily, reducing the risk of data loss and ensuring that critical business data is always available. In conclusion, the market for using an enhanced data agent to restore backups across autonomous storage management systems is growing rapidly. As businesses and organizations continue to adopt autonomous storage management systems, the need for a reliable backup and recovery solution becomes more pressing. An enhanced data agent can provide that solution by enabling seamless communication between different storage systems, reducing downtime, and minimizing the risk of data loss.

The Commvault Systems Inc invention works as follows

An exemplary storage system preserves the autonomy and flexibility of two or more distinct storage systems while allowing backed up data from a first storage system (the ‘local system) to be restored. To a client that has been configured in a second storage system (the “remote” system). In a restore operation, data from the local storage system may be transferred to the remote client (the’remote client’). A’restore-only’ client is a client that has been specially configured. The remote client can only receive backed-up data from the local storage management systems via the restore operation(s), managed by the local manager. Remote clients are still fully-fledged clients in their home system, the remote management system.

Background for Using an enhanced Data Agent to Restore Backups across Autonomous Storage Management Systems

Global businesses recognize the commercial value and need to find cost-effective, reliable ways to secure their information while minimising their impact on productivity. As part of its daily, weekly or monthly maintenance program, a company may back up computer systems like web servers, file servers, and databases. A company might also protect the computing systems of its employees such as those used in an accounting, marketing, or engineering department. These systems can be used to manage data protection across disparate organizations.

Occasionally, data from a first storage system might be required in an autonomous storage management software. A user from Finance may need to access data that was created and backed-up in another storage management software, such as the one used by the Purchasing department. Many companies have multiple storage management systems. This allows them to assign different systems to protect data in different areas or geographical locations of the company. For example, one system is for the Finance department, and another for the Purchasing. Traditional systems can’t transfer data between the two storage management systems because the Finance department is protected by a different system than the Purchasing department’s storage system. It is therefore necessary to find a way to restore backup data across the boundaries of two independent storage management systems, without compromising their autonomy. The terms “autonomous” and “autonomy” are interchangeable. Autonomy and autonomous? These terms refer to at least the fact that a storage management system is managed by its storage manager using an associated management data base, and not by reference to other storage management systems managed by its storage manager. Management does not include data movement, but also the tracking and reporting of storage management jobs.

The inventions of the present inventions have created a system that allows a destination client to be configured as a restore only client within the same storage management system. This system can contain the desired backed-up data. This exemplary system preserves the autonomy and allows backed-up data to be restored from the first storage management system (the “local system”). Or?source system? To a client with a special configuration in a second storage system (the “remote” system). A restore storage operation may be used to transfer backed-up data from the local system (e.g. a secondary copy production data) from the remote storage management systems to the client of the remote system (the “remote client ).

In the Finance-Purchasing example, a client computing device within Finance?a remote client?may have been specially configured as a’restore-only? client? In the Purchasing department’s storage management system. Remote clients are limited to receiving data backed up from the local storage management system of the Purchasing department as a restore-only client. This is done via the local storage manager for the Purchasing system. The remote storage management system for the Finance department, which is the home of the remote client’s remote client, does not know about the restore operation in the local systems, its operational parameters and any associated job status. These are maintained and tracked in the Purchasing department’s system. The remote client’s data can be restored to the local storage management system of the Purchasing department, but only if the restore-only configuration is used, it cannot take any other managerial control. The local storage management system may not create backup jobs for remote clients and may not be able to view remote client’s backed-up data. Therefore, the local storage management system can only push backed-up data to remote clients. The illustrative embodiment shows that the remote storage management software may not pull data from the local system. These limitations are compatible with the autonomy of remote Finance relative to local Purchasing. The remote and local storage management systems are autonomous. However, they can communicate in the event of cross-system restoration operations, as explained herein.

On the contrary, a remote client, in relation to the remote storage management software, is an ordinary?fullfledged client. Full-fledged clients have access to all of the services and features available in their home storage management system. This may include management and control from the storage manager. An ordinary full-fledged client can also access other services and features, such as backups and tracking of the client’s backed-up data by the storage manager or media agent(s), reporting on ordinary client operations and related storage management jobs and classification operations for client data. Also, the client may request restore jobs relative to its own data.

An illustrated system 200 and the associated methods are described in greater detail herein, e.g. with regard to FIGS. 2-5. 2-5. 1A-1H.

Information Management System Overview

Organizations simply cannot afford to lose critical data. This is because of the growing importance of protecting and leveraging data. Protecting and managing data is becoming more difficult due to runaway data growth and other modern realities. It is imperative to find efficient, powerful and user-friendly ways to manage and protect data. Depending on the size and complexity of an organization, there may be many data production sources that fall under the control of thousands, hundreds or even thousands of employees. Individual employees used to be responsible for protecting and managing their data in the past. In other cases, a patchwork of software and hardware point solutions was used. These solutions were often offered by different vendors, and sometimes had little or no interoperability.

Certain embodiments discussed herein provide systems or methods capable of addressing these shortcomings and other shortcomings of previous approaches by implementing unified information management across the organization. FIG. FIG. An organization that uses the information management system 100 can be a company, other business entity, educational institution, household or governmental agency. This information management system 100 can also be called a “storage management software.

Generally, the systems described herein may be compatible and/or provide some of the functionality of one or more U.S patents or patent application publications assigned by CommVault Systems, Inc., each which is hereby incorporated into its entirety by reference herein.

The information management software 100 can contain a wide range of computing devices. As an example, the information management software 100 could include one or more client computing device 102 and secondary storage computing device 106, as we will discuss in more detail.

Computer devices may include without limitation one or more of the following: personal computers, workstations, desktop computers or other types generally fixed computing systems like mainframe computers or minicomputers. Other computing devices include portable or mobile computing devices like laptops, tablets computers, personal information assistants, mobile phones (such a smartphones), and other mobile/portable computing devices like embedded computers, set top boxes or vehicle-mounted devices. Servers can be included in computing devices, including mail servers, file server, database servers and web servers.

In certain cases, a computing device may include virtualized and/or Cloud computing resources. A third-party cloud service provider may provide one or more virtual machines to an organization. In some cases, computing devices may include one or more virtual machines running on a physical host computing device (or “host machine?”). The organization may use one or more virtual machines to run its database server and another virtual machine as a mail server. One example is that the organization might use one virtual machine to run its database server and another as a mail server. Both virtual machines are running on the same host computer.

A virtual machine is an operating system and associated resources that is hosted on a host computer or host machine. Hypervisor is typically software and is also known as a virtual monitor, virtual machine manager or?VMM? The hypervisor acts as a bridge between the virtual machine’s hardware and its host machine. ESX Server, by VMware, Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., is an example of hypervisor used for virtualization. Other examples include Microsoft Virtual Server, Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V, and Sun xVM, both by Oracle America Inc., Santa Clara, Calif. In some embodiments, hypervisors may be hardware or firmware.

The hypervisor gives each virtual operating system virtual resources such as a processor, virtual memory, and virtual network devices. Each virtual machine can have one or more virtual drives. The data of virtual drives is stored by the hypervisor in files on the filesystem of the physical host machine. These files are called virtual machine disk images (in the instance of Microsoft virtual servers) and virtual machine disk files (in case of VMware virtual server). VMware’s ESX server provides the Virtual Machine File System, (VMFS), for storage of virtual machine files. Virtual machines read and write data to their virtual disks in the same manner as physical machines.

U.S. Pat. 102,297 describes “Examples for information management techniques in cloud computing environments.” No. No. 8,285,681 is incorporated herein. U.S. Pat. explains some techniques for managing information in virtualized computing environments. No. No. 8.307,177, also included by reference herein

The information management software 100 can include many storage devices. Primary storage devices 104, secondary storage devices (108), and others are examples. You can store any type of storage device, including hard-disk arrays and semiconductor memory (e.g. solid state storage), network-attached storage (NAS), tape libraries or other magnetic non-tape storage devices as well as optical media storage devices. DNA/RNA-based memories technology and combinations thereof. Storage devices may be part of a distributed storage system in some instances. Some storage devices can be provided in a cloud, such as a private cloud, or one managed by a third party vendor. In some cases, a storage device is a disk array or a portion thereof.

The illustrated information system 100 comprises one or more client computing devices 102 that execute at least one application 110, and one or two primary storage devices (104) that store primary data 112. In some cases, the client computing device(s), 102 and primary storage devices (104) may be called a primary storage subsystem. 117 A computing device that is part of an information management systems 100 and has a data agent 42 installed and running on it is called a client computing device (or in the context of a component in the information management systems 100, simply as a “client ?).””).

The meaning of the term “information management system” depends on the context. It can be used to refer to all the software and hardware components. In other cases, it may only refer to a subset or all of the components.

In some cases, the information system 100 may refer to a collection of components that protect, move and manage data and metadata generated from client computing devices 102. The information management system 100 does not necessarily include all the components that create and/or store primary data 112, such the client computing device 102 and applications 110, as well as the primary storage devices 104. For example, the term “information management system” could refer to: Sometimes, the term “information management system” may refer to any of the following components with corresponding data structures: storage agents, media agents, and data agents. We will describe these components in greater detail below.

Client Computing Devices.

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