SCALABLE AUXILIARY COPY PROCESSING IN A STORAGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM USING MEDIA AGENT RESOURCES

摘要

A scalable approach is disclosed for processing auxiliary-copy jobs in a storage management system by using distributed media agent resources instead of a centralized storage manager. Enhanced media agents coordinate and control auxiliary-copy jobs and tap the storage manager to reserve data streams and provide job-specific metadata on demand. An enhanced storage manager may initially select a media agent as “coordinator” to coordinate auxiliary-copy jobs with any number of other media agents, which act as “controllers.” A coordinator media agent is generally responsible for obtaining data stream reservation information from the storage manager and assigning auxiliary-copy jobs to respective controller media agents, based on the components involved in the respective reserved data streams.

主权项

1. A storage management system for scalable auxiliary-copy processing using media agent resources, the storage management system comprising:
a storage manager for reserving one or more data streams for transfer of data in a first auxiliary-copy job from a source to a destination in the storage management system, wherein the source comprises a first copy of data generated in the storage management system, and further wherein the destination stores a second copy of the first copy, which second copy of the first copy is generated during the first auxiliary-copy job and is designated an auxiliary copy; a first media agent in communication with the storage manager; a second media agent in communication with the storage manager and with the first media agent; wherein the first media agent is configured to:
request, from the storage manager, data stream reservations for the first auxiliary-copy job, andcoordinate with the second media agent the execution of the first auxiliary-copy job via the one or more data streams reserved by the storage manager; and wherein the second media agent is configured to:
fetch, from the storage manager, job-specific metadata about the first auxiliary-copy job,generate the auxiliary copy, based at least in part on the job-specific metadata fetched from the storage manager.