Abstract: Facility for using images created by backup software to recreate an entire machine as it was at the point in time in the past when the backup was taken. The facility can be extended so as to bring up a set of machines which together serve some logical business function as in a cluster or federated servers, and further extended so that an entire data center may be virtualized from backup images. The virtualized servers provided may serve as an alternate data center standing in case of disaster or to meet maintenance windows achieving low cost Instant Disaster Recovery. A set of virtual machines may stand in for physical machines for a period of time and then resynchronized or re-seeded to physical machines via a combination of bare metal recovery and re-synchronizing from live LXJNs that form the virtual machine disks.

Abstract: Systems and programs for improving the efficiency of a sorting process in a computer system are disclosed. Data is provided in an input file external to the central processing unit of the computer system. In one embodiment, the implemented process involves investigating the contents of the input file in order to identify presorted portions thereof; incorporating the identified presorted portions of the input file into a second file external to the central processing unit, performing this step by rearranging directory information, without physically transferring the presorted portions from the input file. In sort processes involving both a string generation phase and a merge phase, the techniques described may be used in either or both phases, as well as in any output phase. Rearranging directory information rather than physically transferring data provides for greater efficiency in disk I/O.

Abstract: High performance, enterprise-level data protection system and method provides efficient block-level incremental snapshots of primary storage devices, and instant availability of such snapshots in immediately mountable form that can be directly used in place of the primary storage device. Related systems and applications are described, including an “Enterprise Image Destination” (EID) for backup images; a mirroring technique whereby a replacement physical primary facility may be created while working with a second storage unit as the primary source file system; and a technique for eliminating redundant data in backup images when multiple systems with partially common contents (e.g., operating system files, common databases, application executables, etc.) are being backed up. A number of examples showing “Fast Application Restore” (FAR) with the use of the invention are also provided.

Abstract: Systems and programs for improving the efficiency of a sorting process in a computer system are disclosed. Data is provided in an input file external to the central processing unit of the computer system. In one embodiment, the implemented process involves investigating the contents of the input file in order to identify presorted portions thereof; incorporating the identified presorted portions of the input file into a second file external to the central processing unit, performing this step by rearranging directory information, without physically transferring the presorted portions from the input file. In sort processes involving both a string generation phase and a merge phase, the techniques described may be used in either or both phases, as well as in any output phase. Rearrange directory information rather than physically transferring data provides for greater efficiency in disk I/O.

Abstract: High performance, enterprise-level data protection system and method provides efficient block-level incremental snapshots of primary storage devices, and instant availability of such snapshots in immediately mountable form that can be directly used in place of the primary storage device. Related systems and applications are described, including an “Enterprise Image Destination” (EID) for backup images; a mirroring technique whereby a replacement physical primary facility may be created while working with a second storage unit as the primary source file system; and a technique for eliminating redundant data in backup images when multiple systems with partially common contents (e.g., operating system files, common databases, application executables, etc.) are being backed up. A number of examples showing “Fast Application Restore” (FAR) with the use of the invention are also provided.

Abstract: Method for creating a consistent image, on a destination volume, of a target volume that remains in production use while the image is being created, without requiring the use of a snapshot.

Abstract: Method for creating a consistent image, on a destination volume, of a target volume that remains in production use while the image is being created, without requiring the use of a snapshot, by copying the data on the target volume to the destination volume, maintaining changes to data blocks that arise on the target volume during copy operations, copying changed blocks to the destination volume, and repeating changed block updates as necessary until there are no further changed blocks on the target volume (all as more fully described in the specification).

Abstract: Systems and programs for improving the efficiency of a sorting process in a computer system are disclosed. Data is provided in an input file external to the central processing unit of the computer system. In one embodiment, the implemented process involves investigating the contents of the input file in order to identify presorted portions thereof; incorporating the identified presorted portions of the input file into a second file external to the central processing unit, performing this step by rearranging directory information, without physically transferring the presorted portions from the input file. In sort processes involving both a string generation phase and a merge phase, the techniques described may be used in either or both phases, as well as in any output phase. Rearrange directory information rather than physically transferring data provides for greater efficiency in disk I/O.

Abstract: High performance, enterprise-level data protection system and method provides efficient block-level incremental snapshots of primary storage devices, and instant availability of such snapshots in immediately mountable form that can be directly used in place of the primary storage device. Related systems and applications are described, including an “Enterprise Image Destination” (EID) for backup images; a mirroring technique whereby a replacement physical primary facility may be created while working with a second storage unit as the primary source file system; and a technique for eliminating redundant data in backup images when multiple systems with partially common contents (e.g., operating system files, common databases, application executables, etc.) are being backed up. A number of examples showing “Fast Application Restore” (FAR) with the use of the invention are also provided.

Abstract: A method of externally sorting large files in a computer system is presented. The contents of the input file to be sorted are investigated in order to identify presorted portions thereof. The presorted portions of the input file as thus identified are incorporated as sorted strings into an external sortwork file, by rearranging directory information rather than physically transferring data. If merging is necessary, the data may then be merged by a procedure wherein blocks of sorted data to be merged are incorporated into an output (sortout) file, by rearranging directory information rather than physically transferring sorted blocks to the sortout file. As a result of the process, portions of sorted data incorporated into the sortout file may physically remain in external storage space allocated to the input file, and/or in external space allocated to sortwork, thereby eliminating or reducing reading and writing from disk during sort-merge processing.

Abstract: High performance, enterprise-level data protection system and method provides efficient block-level incremental snapshots of primary storage devices, and instant availability of such snapshots in immediately mountable form that can be directly used in place of the primary storage device. Related systems and applications are described, including an “Enterprise Image Destination” (EID) for backup images; a mirroring technique whereby a replacement physical primary facility may be created while working with a second storage unit as the primary source file system; and a technique for eliminating redundant data in backup images when multiple systems with partially common contents (e.g., operating system files, common databases, application executables, etc.) are being backed up. A number of examples showing “Fast Application Restore” (FAR) with the use of the invention are also provided.

Abstract: Methods and software for “hot migration” of data an original storage unit for a target system to destination storage unit. In one embodiment, a virtual storage device is provided, having a control block mapped to both the original storage unit, as well as to the destination storage unit. The target system is stopped, the virtual storage device is substituted for the original storage unit, and the target system is restarted. The virtual storage device directs requests to the destination storage unit, and fulfills read requests from whichever of the two storage units has a valid copy of data requested (depending, e.g., on whether the data is as yet unchanged, has been re-written, or has been copied, during the migration process). Unchanged data blocks are copies from the original storage unit to the destination storage unit. The target system is stopped, the virtual storage device is disconnected from the target system, and the destination storage unit is connected in its place.

Abstract: A method of externally sorting large files in a computer system is presented. The contents of the input file to be sorted are investigated in order to identify presorted portions thereof. The presorted portions of the input file as thus identified are incorporated as sorted strings into an external sortwork file, by rearranging directory information rather than physically transferring data. If merging is necessary, the data may then be merged by a procedure wherein blocks of sorted data to be merged are incorporated into an output (sortout) file, by rearranging directory information rather than physically transferring sorted blocks to the sortout file. As a result of the process, portions of sorted data incorporated into the sortout file may physically remain in external storage space allocated to the input file, and/or in external space allocated to sortwork, thereby eliminating or reducing reading and writing from disk during sort-merge processing.

Abstract: A method of externally sorting large files in a computer system is presented. The contents of the input file to be sorted are investigated in order to identify presorted portions thereof. The presorted portions of the input file as thus identified are incorporated as sorted strings into an external sortwork file, by rearranging directory information rather than physically transferring data. If merging is necessary, the data may then be merged by a procedure wherein blocks of sorted data to be merged are incorporated into an output (sortout) file, by rearranging directory information rather than physically transferring sorted blocks to the sortout file. As a result of the process, portions of sorted data incorporated into the sortout file may physically remain in external storage space allocated to the input file, and/or in external space allocated to sortwork, thereby eliminating or reducing reading and writing from disk during sort-merge processing.

Abstract: High performance, enterprise-level data protection system and method provides efficient block-level incremental snapshots of primary storage devices, and instant availability of such snapshots in immediately mountable form that can be directly used in place of the primary storage device. Related systems and applications are described, including an “Enterprise Image Destination” (EID) for backup images; a mirroring technique whereby a replacement physical primary facility may be created while working with a second storage unit as the primary source file system; and a technique for eliminating redundant data in backup images when multiple systems with partially common contents (e.g., operating system files, common databases, application executables, etc.) are being backed up. A number of examples showing “Fast Application Restore” (FAR) with the use of the invention are also provided.

Abstract: Method for creating a consistent image, on a destination volume, of a target volume that remains in production use while the image is being created, without requiring the use of a snapshot.

Abstract: Facility for using images created by backup software to recreate an entire machine as it was at the point in time in the past when the backup was taken. The facility can be extended so as to bring up a set of machines which together serve some logical business function as in a cluster or federated servers, and further extended so that an entire data center may be virtualized from backup images. The virtualized servers provided may serve as an alternate data center standing in case of disaster or to meet maintenance windows achieving low cost Instant Disaster Recovery. A set of virtual machines may stand in for physical machines for a period of time and then resynchronized or re-seeded to physical machines via a combination of bare metal recovery and re-synchronizing from live LXJNs that form the virtual machine disks.

Abstract: An improved method of performing a high-performance backup of a computer system is described, which reduces disk read time and thus gains efficiency by reading input file blocks sequentially rather than the order in which the block appear in the original files. The improved method involves reading the working directory maintained by the operating system to determine all of the blocks associated with the set of files or other data aggregations to be backed up. The data block identities so determined are sorted in accordance with their physical location on the disk, thereby providing a sequential order for reading. The data to be backed up from the random access storage device or devices is read in this sequential order, and written to the backup media.

Abstract: An improved method of performing a sort-merge operation on a digital computer is disclosed, which gains efficiency by reading input file blocks sequentially. The method takes into consideration the fact that records can be read in any order if they are subsequently to be sorted. Input from disk is processed by reading the working disk directory maintained by the operating system to determine all of the blocks associated with the input data to be sorted. The data block identities so determined are sorted in accordance with their physical location on the disk, thereby providing a sequential order for reading. The input data is read in this sequential order, and then, using largely conventional methods, sorted into one or more strings and merged as necessary to form the fully sorted output. Since the original record order in the file is known from the working directory that has been read, that order can be utilized if and as necessary, for example to preserve the original order of records with equal keys.

Abstract: A sort process for use on input records which reside on intelligent peripherals. The main computer accesses key values from specified fields in the input records skeletons and performs the sort on those key values or skeletons. A further aspect of the invention is a write operation whereby the sorted order of the records and their original locations are returned to the peripheral, which will create the output file of sorted records without further involvement of the main computer.