Reverting an old snapshot on a production volume without a full sweep

摘要

It may be beneficial to revert from the production volume V to the production snapshot S. Traditional approaches required a full sweep of production volume data when reverting to a snapshot (i.e., reinitialize all data, mark all data as dirty and start replicating to update the replication volume V′ to what the production volume V stores (i.e., the former production snapshot S). However, example embodiments of the present invention provide for reverting from a production volume to a snapshot without requiring a full sweep of data in the production volume. Rather, example embodiments of the present invention stop replication of the production volume, notify a splitter of dirty location in the snapshot, synchronize the dirty locations with the replication volume and resume replication to the snapshot, thereby performing a minimal initialization.

主权项

1. A method for reverting from a production volume to a snapshot in a replication environment comprising a production site including the production volume, the snapshot, and a splitter, the method comprising:
stopping replication of the production volume; setting a revert flag in the splitter; reverting the production volume to the snapshot by notifying the splitter of dirty locations in the snapshot and tracking metadata of the dirty locations in the splitter; clearing the revert flag to notify the splitter that the revert is completed; and resuming replication of the production volume.