Commvault Assigned Nineteen Patents

Automation of storage activities
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,824,515) developed by Vibhor, Anand, Manalapan, NJ, and Karandikar, Amey Vijaykumar, Long Branch, NJ, for an “automation of data storage activities.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A system receives data storage workflow activities that include computer-executable instructions for carrying out data storage workflow in a network data storage system. Once the workflow is received, the system deploys the workflow to one or more workflow engines that can execute the various data storage activities related to the workflow. Prior to executing a data storage activity, the system can determine which workflow engine to use based on an allocation scheme.”

The patent application was filed on June 11, 2019 (16/438,332).

Archiving virtual machines in storage
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,824,464) developed by Deshpande, Sumer Dilip, Ocean, NJ, Dornemann, Henry Wallace, Eatontown, NJ, Venkatesha, Ananda, Cupertino, CA, and Sancheti, Ashwin Gautamchand, Marlboro, NJ, for “archiving virtual machines in a data storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The data storage system according to certain aspects can manage the archiving of virtual machines to (and restoring of virtual machines from) secondary storage. The system can determine whether to archive virtual machines based on usage data or information. The usage information may include storage usage, CPU usage, memory usage, network usage, events defined by a virtual machine software or application, etc. The system may archive virtual machines that are determined to have a low level of utilization. For example, a virtual machine can be archived when its usage level falls below a threshold level. The system may create a virtual machine placeholder for an archived virtual machine, which may be a “light” or minimal version of the virtual machine that acts as if it is the actual virtual machine. By using a virtual machine placeholder, a virtual machine may appear to be active and selectable by the user.”

The patent application was filed on December 11, 2019 (16/711,248).

Targeted snapshot based on virtual machine location
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,824,459) developed by Sancheti, Ashwin Gautamchand, Marlboro, NJ, and Dornemann, Henry Wallace, Eatontown, NJ, for a “targeted snapshot based on virtual machine location.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A data storage environment can include one or more virtual machines instantiated on a host computing device. Based on physical location data of the one or more virtual machines received from the host computing device, a storage manager can control the performance of a secondary copy operation on one or more storage units that store virtual machine data associated with the one or more virtual machines and/or the performance of a secondary copy operation on the one or more virtual machines.”

The patent application was filed on August 7, 2018 (16/057,286).

Administering shared, on-line pool of storage resources for performing storage operations
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,824,337) developed by Kripalani, Sanjay Harakhchand, Morganville, NJ, for “administering a shared, on-line pool of data storage resources for performing data storage operations.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A data storage system according to certain aspects manages and administers the sharing of storage resources among clients in the shared storage pool. The shared storage pool according to certain aspects can provide readily available remote storage to clients in the pool. A share list for each client may be used to determine where data is stored within the storage pool. The share list may include clients that are known to each client, and therefore, a user may feel more at ease storing the data on the clients in the storage pool. Management and administration of the storage pool and backup and restore jobs can be performed by an entity other than the client, making backup and restore more streamlined and simple for the clients in the pool.”

The patent application was filed on October 26, 2018 (16/172,421).

Hypervisor-independent block-level live browse for access to backed up virtual machine
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,817,326) developed by Dornemann, Henry Wallace, Eatontown, NJ, Pawar, Rahul S., Marlboro, NJ, Mitkar, Amit, Manalapan, NJ, Gutta, Sunil Kumar, Hyderabad, India, Degaonkar, Sumedh Pramod, Surrey, CA, and Chen, Jianwei, Philadelphia, PA, for “hypervisor-independent block-level live browse for access to backed up virtual machine (VM) data and hypervisor-free file-level recovery (block-level pseudo-mount).“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Hypervisor-independent block-level live browse is used for directly accessing backed up virtual machine (VM) data. Hypervisor-free file-level recovery, block-level pseudo-mount) from backed up VMs also is disclosed. Backed up virtual machine (VM) data can be browsed without needing or using a hypervisor. Individual backed up VM files can be requested and restored to anywhere without a hypervisor and without the need to restore the rest of the backed up virtual disk. Hypervisor-agnostic VM backups can be browsed and recovered without a hypervisor and from anywhere, and individual backed up VM files can be restored to anywhere, (e.g., to a different VM platform, to a non-VM environment, without restoring an entire virtual disk, and without a recovery data agent at the destination.”

The patent application was filed on April 1, 2019 (16/371,412).

Synchronizing selected portions of data in storage management
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,817,208) developed by Sinha, Prosenjit, Manalapan, NJ, for “synchronizing selected portions of data in a storage management system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Disclosed methods and systems leverage resources in a storage management system to partially synchronize primary data files based on synchronizing selected portions thereof without regard to changes that may be occurring in other non-synchronized portions. Accordingly, a number of primary data files may be partially synchronized by synchronizing designated portions thereof via auto-restore operations from backup data. This approach relies on storage management resources to designate portions of source data that is to be kept synchronized across any number of targets, detect changes to the designated portions, back up changes to secondary storage, and distribute the changes from secondary storage to the associated targets, with minimal impact to the primary data environment. The approach may be mutually applied, so that changes in any one of an associated group of source data files may be likewise detected, backed up, and distributed to the other members of the group.”

The patent application was filed on October 2, 2018 (16/150,146).

Dynamic management of effective bandwidth of storage operations
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,812,387) developed by Thanasekaran, Vijayan, Fremont, CA, for a “dynamic management of effective bandwidth of data storage operations.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Intelligent data throttling in data movement operations, such as secondary-copy operations in a storage management system. A local throttling manager may intelligently interoperate with co-resident data agents and/or a media agent executing on any given local computing device, whether a client computing device or a secondary storage computing device. The local throttling manager may allocate and manage the available bandwidth for various jobs and their constituent data streams–across the data agents and/or media agent. Effective bandwidth for the secondary-copy operation may be adjusted based on available bandwidth from the computing device due to increased demand for the bandwidth from other operations, such as services that may be hosted on the computing device.”

The patent application was filed on February 3, 2020 (16/780,725).

Multi-threaded scanning of distributed file
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,798,170) developed by Swallow, Douglas Cary, Long Branch, NJ, Pradhan, Manoj Kumar, Edison, NJ, and Zakharkin, Dmitriy Borisovich, Monmouth Junction, NJ, for a “multi-threaded scanning of distributed file systems.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments disclosed herein address the need to more efficiently backup a network-based storage environment that may be remote from a primary storage environment. For example, embodiments herein can provide a more efficient backup of a storage managed by a third-party entity. To improve the backup process, embodiments herein may optimize the number of scanning threads that are used to identify files that are to be backed up by, for example, analyzing the characteristics of the network and/or the network storage system to determine a number of scanning threads that will enable faster scanning of the network storage system while at the same time not overburden or be slowed down by a network between the network-based storage environment and the primary storage environment.”

The patent application was filed on May 24, 2019 (16/422,836).

Consolidated processing of storage-array commands by snapshot-control media agent
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,798,166) developed by Nallathambi, Vimal Kumar, Ocean Township, NJ, and Tambe, Unmil Vinay, Somerset, NJ, for a “consolidated processing of storage-array commands by a snapshot-control media agent.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A ‘snapshot-control media agent’ (snap-MA) is configured on a secondary storage computing device that operates apart from client computing devices. A ‘forwarder’ media agent operates on each client computing device that uses a storage array, yet lacks command channels to the storage array. The forwarder media agent forwards commands directed at the storage array to the snap-MA, which receives and processes commands directed at the storage array that were forwarded by the forwarder media agents. Responses from the storage array are transmitted to the respective forwarder media agent. The snap-MA pools storage-array-command devices to avoid capacity limitations in regard to communications channels at the storage array. The snap-MA operating in conjunction with the forwarder media agents enable the illustrative system to consolidate the communication of storage-array commands away from client computing devices and/or proxy media agent hosts and into the secondary storage computing device that hosts the snap-MA.”

The patent application was filed on July 29, 2019 (16/525,433).

De-duplication of client-side data cache for virtual disks
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,795,577) developed by Lakshman, Avinash, Fremont, CA, and Yadav, Gaurav, Mountain View, CA, for a “de-duplication of client-side data cache for virtual disks.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A computer receives a write request including an offset within a virtual disk. The computer writes the data block to a remote platform and calculates a hash value of the data. If the hash value does not exist in a first table of a block cache of the computer, the computer adds a pair to the first table: hash value/block cache data offset. Next, the computer adds a pair in a second table of the block cache: virtual disk offset of the data/hash value. A read request uses these tables to find the data in the cache without accessing the platform. The read consults the second table to find the hash value corresponding to the virtual disk offset of the block. The hash value is a key into the first table to find the block cache data offset of the data, the data is read from the cache.”

The patent application was filed on May 16, 2016 (15/156,015).

Migration of existing computing system to new hardware
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,791,025) developed by Kumarasamy, Paramasivam, Morganville, NJ, Pawar, Rahul S., Marlboro, NJ, Mitkar, Amit, Manalapan, NJ, and Degaonkar, Sumedh Pramod, Surrey, CA, for a “migration of an existing computing system to new hardware.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Software, firmware, and systems are described herein that migrate functionality of a source physical computing device to a destination physical computing device. A non-production copy of data associated with a source physical computing device is created. A configuration of the source physical computing device is determined. A configuration for a destination physical computing device is determined based at least in part on the configuration of the source physical computing device. The destination physical computing device is provided access to data and metadata associated with the source physical computing device using the non-production copy of data associated with the source physical computing device.”

The patent application was filed on May 7, 2018 (15/973,437).

Storage resource allocation by performing abbreviated resource checks of certain storage resources
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,789,133) developed by Gokhale, Parag, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Marlboro, NJ, Karandikar, Amey Vijaykumar, Long Branch, NJ, and Wang, Yu, Morganville, NJ, for a “data storage resource allocation by performing abbreviated resource checks of certain data storage resources based on relative scarcity to determine whether data storage requests would fail.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A resource allocation system begins with an ordered plan for matching requests to resources that is sorted by priority. The resource allocation system optimizes the plan by determining those requests in the plan that will fail if performed. The resource allocation system removes or defers the determined requests. In addition, when a request that is performed fails, the resource allocation system may remove requests that require similar resources from the plan. Moreover, when resources are released by a request, the resource allocation system may place the resources in a temporary holding area until the resource allocation returns to the top of the ordered plan so that lower priority requests that are lower in the plan do not take resources that are needed by waiting higher priority requests higher in the plan.”

The patent application was filed on October 17, 2017 (15/785,671).

Probabilistic data classification
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,783,168) developed by Lunde, Norman R., Middletown, NJ, for “systems and methods for probabilistic data classification.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A system for performing data classification operations. In one embodiment, the system comprises a file system configured to store a plurality of computer files and a scanning agent configured to traverse the file system and compile data regarding the attributes and content of the plurality of computer files. The system also comprises an index configured to store the data regarding attributes and content of the plurality of computer files and a file classifier configured to analyze the data regarding the attributes and content of the plurality of computer files and to classify the plurality of computer files into one or more categories based on the data regarding the attributes and content of the plurality of computer files. Results of the file classification operations can be used to set appropriate security permissions on files which include sensitive information or to control the way that a file is backed up or the schedule according to which it is archived.”

The patent application was filed on March 13, 2020 (16/818,781).

Offline indexing of content and classifying stored data
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,783,129) developed by Prahlad, Anand, Bangalore, India, Schwartz, Jeremy A., Austin, TX, Ngo, David, Shrewsbury, NJ, Brockway, Brian, Shrewsbury, NJ, Muller, Marcus S., Maynard, MA, Gokhale, Parag, and Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Marlboro, NJ, for “method and system for offline indexing of content and classifying stored data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method and system for creating an index of content without interfering with the source of the content includes an offline content indexing system that creates an index of content from an offline copy of data. The system may associate additional properties or tags with data that are not part of traditional indexing of content, such as the time the content was last available or user attributes associated with the content. Users can search the created index to locate content that is no longer available or based on the associate attributes.”

The patent application was filed on October 12, 2015 (14/880,767).

Migration of database management system to cloud storage
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,776,329) developed by Ramohalli Gopala Rao, Girish, Eatontown, NJ, Kumarasamy, Paramasivam, Morganville, NJ, Vallabhaneni, Brahmaiah, Marlboro, NJ, Polimera, Rajesh, Freehold, NJ, and Chintala, Navatha Devi, Ocean, NJ, for a “migration of a database management system to cloud storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The systems and methods provide for migrating such applications to cloud storage by automating a continuous replication of changes made to the DBMS from the DBMS to an associated cloud instance. For example, the systems and methods facilitate the migration of the DBMS via multiple processes performing in parallel–a process to create and provision a new machine instance (e.g., an EC2 instance, a process to clone and transfer parameters of the operating system/software of the DBMS, and a process that backs up and/or captures the application data of the DBMS.”

The patent application was filed on March 27, 2018 (15/937,783).

Cross-platform virtual machine backup and replication
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,776,209) developed by Pawar, Rahul S., Marlboro, NJ, and Dornemann, Henry Wallace, Eatontown, NJ, for “cross-platform virtual machine backup and replication.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”According to certain aspects, a method can include, at a first time, performing an incremental backup of first data associated with a virtual machine (VM) residing on a source client computing device from the source client computing device to one or more secondary storage devices to create a backup copy of the VM, where the VM is associated with a hypervisor of a first type, receiving an instruction to restore the first data associated with the VM from the one or more secondary storage devices, retrieving the first data from the one or more secondary storage devices, and applying the first data to second data associated with a replicated VM running on the destination client computing device, where the replicated VM is a replicated version of the VM, and where the second data corresponds to data of the VM at a time before the first time.”

The patent application was filed on November 10, 2014 (14/537,698).

Storage resource allocation list updating for storage operations
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,768,987) developed by Gokhale, Parag, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Marlboro, NJ, Karandikar, Amey Vijaykumar, Long Branch, NJ, and Wang, Yu, Morganville, NJ, for a “data storage resource allocation list updating for data storage operations.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A system and method to perform data management operations in a data management system assigns the data management request to one or more available data management resources. If the data management request fails, at least one data management resource at least partially responsible for the failure is determined, as is a category associated with the one data management resource at least partially responsible for the failure. Other data management requests are identified in a list of data management requests that request data management resources having the same category and the list of data management requests is updated to indicate that the data management system should not perform the other identified data management requests.”

The patent application was filed on June 14, 2018 (16/009,135).

Cross-hypervisor live mount of backed up virtual machine
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,768,971) developed by Dornemann, Henry Wallace, Eatontown, NJ, Mitkar, Amit, Manalapan, NJ, Kumar, Sanjay, Morganville, NJ, Kilaru, Satish Chandra, Manalapan, NJ, and Degaonkar, Sumedh Pramod, Surrey, CA, for a “cross-hypervisor live mount of backed up virtual machine data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Illustrative systems and methods enable a virtual machine (VM) to be powered up at any hypervisor regardless of hypervisor type, based on live-mounting VM data that was originally backed up into a hypervisor-independent format by a block-level backup operation. Afterwards, the backed up VM executes anywhere anytime without needing to find a hypervisor that is the same as or compatible with the original source VM’s hypervisor. The backed up VM payload data is rendered portable to any virtualized platform. Thus, a VM can be powered up at one or more test stations, data center or cloud recovery environments, and/or backup appliances, without the prior-art limitations of finding a same/compatible hypervisor for accessing and using backed up VM data. An illustrative media agent maintains cache storage that acts as a way station for data blocks retrieved from an original backup copy, and stores data blocks written by the live-mounted VM.”

The patent application was filed on January 30, 2019 (16/262,721).

Archiving objects using secondary copies
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,762,036) developed by Gokhale, Parag, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Marlboro, NJ, and Varadharajan, Prakash, Manalapan, NJ, for an “archiving data objects using secondary copies.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A system for archiving data objects using secondary copies is disclosed. The system creates one or more secondary copies of primary copy data that contains multiple data objects. The system maintains a first data structure that tracks the data objects for which the system has created secondary copies and the locations of the secondary copies. To archive data objects in the primary copy data, the system identifies data objects to be archived, verifies that previously-created secondary copies of the identified data objects exist, and replaces the identified data objects with stubs. The system maintains a second data structure that both tracks the stubs and refers to the first data structure, thereby creating an association between the stubs and the locations of the secondary copies.”

The patent application was filed on March 31, 2017 (15/476,613).