SYSTEMS AND METHODS TO PROCESS BLOCK-LEVEL BACKUP FOR SELECTIVE FILE RESTORATION FOR VIRTUAL MACHINES

摘要

A data storage system protects virtual machines using block-level backup operations and restores the data at a file level. The system accesses the virtual machine file information from the file allocation table of the host system underlying the virtualization layer. A file index associates this virtual machine file information with the related protected blocks in a secondary storage device during the block-level backup. Using the file index, the system can identify the specific blocks in the secondary storage device associated with a selected restore file. As a result, file level granularity for restore operations is possible for virtual machine data protected by block-level backup operations without restoring more than the selected file blocks from the block-level backup data.

主权项

1. A method to restore a selected file from block-level data protection of virtual files without restoring blocks of data associated with other than the selected file in a data management system, the method comprising:
receiving, with a storage manager in a first computing device comprising computer hardware, an indication of a selected virtual file to restore from a file level table of virtual files associated with a virtual machine backed up by a block-level data protection operation, wherein the virtual machine is associated with a media agent and a host operating system having a file allocation table (FAT) comprising file information of the virtual files in an information store associated with the virtual machine; using, with the media agent, a file index to locate the transferred blocks of data in the secondary storage device that comprise at least a portion of the selected virtual file, the file index comprising file information for the blocks of data transferred from the virtual machine to the secondary storage device during a block-level data protection operation, the file information obtained from the FAT during the block-level data protection operation; automatically restoring, with the media agent, one or more transferred blocks of data in the secondary storage device that are associated with the at least the portion of the selected virtual file without restoring transferred blocks of data associated with other than the selected file to create restored blocks of data; and using the file index to locate the at least the portion of the selected virtual file in the restored one or more blocks of data, automatically recreating, with the media agent, the selected virtual file from the restored one or more blocks of data to create a recreated file.