Commvault Assigned Twenty Patents

De-duplication for application-specific data
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,016,859) developed by Prahlad, Anand, Bangalore, India, Vijayan, Manoj Kumar, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, and Gokhale, Parag, Marlboro, NJ, for “de-duplication systems and methods for application-specific data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Content-aware systems and methods for improving de-duplication, or single instancing, in storage operations. In certain examples, backup agents on client devices parse application-specific data to identify data objects that are candidates for de-duplication. The backup agents can then insert markers or other indictors in the data that identify the location(s) of the particular data objects. Such markers can, in turn, assist a de-duplication manager to perform object-based de-duplication and increase the likelihood that like blocks within the data are identified and single instanced. In other examples, the agents can further determine if a data object of one file type can or should be single-instanced with a data object of a different file type. Such processing of data on the client side can provide for more efficient storage and back-end processing.”

The patent application was filed on May 29, 2018 (Appl. No.15/991,849).

Managing single instancing data
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,016,858) developed by Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Attarde, Deepak Raghunath, and Vijayan, Manoj Kumar, Marlboro, NJ, for “systems and methods for managing single instancing data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Described in detail herein are systems and methods for managing single instancing data. Using a single instance database and other constructs (e.g. sparse files), data density on archival media (e.g. magnetic tape) is improved, and the number of files per storage operation is reduced. According to one aspect of a method for managing single instancing data, for each storage operation, a chunk folder is created on a storage device that stores single instancing data. The chunk folder contains three files: 1) a file that contains data objects that have been single instanced; 2) a file that contains data objects that have not been eligible for single instancing; and 3) a metadata file used to track the location of data objects within the other files. A second storage operation subsequent to a first storage operation contains references to data objects in the chunk folder created by the first storage operation instead of the data objects themselves.”

The patent application was filed on March 31, 2015 (Appl. No.14/674,229).

Redundant distributed storage
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,016,696) developed by Ankireddypalle, Ramachandra Reddy, Eatontown, NJ, Vijayan, Manoj Kumar, Marlboro, NJ, Pandit, Sachin Subraya, Sunnyvale, CA, and Kudale, Pratima Bapusaheb, San Jose, CA, for a “redundant distributed data storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”An improved information management system is provided herein for managing secondary storage computing devices when one or more become unavailable. For example, a first secondary storage computing device in a pool of secondary storage computing devices can run a storage manager virtual machine (VM) that manages secondary copy and restore operations. A second secondary storage computing device in the pool can run a virtualization engine that manages the storage manager VM. The virtualization engine can replicate the storage manager VM data to other secondary storage computing devices in the pool. If the first secondary storage computing devices becomes unavailable, the second secondary storage computing device can instruct a third secondary storage computing device in the pool to launch a replicated storage manager VM using the replicated storage manager VM data stored therein. Thus, the third secondary storage computing device can act as the now unavailable first secondary storage computing device.”

The patent application was filed on March 20, 2019 (Appl. No.16/359,610).

Region-based distributed information management
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,012,508) developed by Mehta, Bhavyan Bharatkumar, Mumbai, India, Vibhor, Anand, Manalapan, NJ, Bharech, Suraj, Santa Clara, CA, and Upadhyay, Mrityunjay, Hyderabad, India, for a “region-based distributed information management system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A region-based distributed information management system is described herein in which some or all of the operations typically performed by a centralized storage manager can be distributed to storage managers located in the various geographic regions. These regional storage managers can manage components of the information management system located in their respective geographic region, and communicate with the centralized storage manager, also referred to herein as a (‘master storage manager’) for synchronization purposes and/or to hand off operations that cannot be performed by the regional storage manager.”

The patent application was filed on March 19, 2019 (Appl. No.16/358,424).

Dynamically allocating streams during restoration of data
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,010,261) developed by Ashraf, Waqas, Ocean, NJ, and Nekrassova, Nadejda, Atlantic Highlands, NJ, for “dynamically allocating streams during restoration of data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The systems and methods described herein dynamically allocate streams when restoring data from databases. In some embodiments, the system and methods restore data from a database by determining a number of streams to allocate to the database for restoring files of data from the database. The determined number of streams may be based on a total amount of data within the database, and/or may be based, at least in part, on the previous number of streams used during backup operations, in order to balance the benefit of allocating streams to a restoration of data with any detriments associated with changing the number of streams from the number used during previous backup operations.”

The patent application was filed on March 23, 2018 (Appl. No.15/934,318).

Generating backup copies through interoperability between components of storage management and appliances for storage and deduplication
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,010,258) developed by Haridas, Ganesh, Eatontown, NJ, and Vijayan, Manoj Kumar, Marlboro, NJ, for “generating backup copies through interoperability between components of a data storage management system and appliances for data storage and deduplication.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Illustrative storage manager and media agent are enhanced to interoperate with deduplication appliances. Advantages are realized when making secondary and tertiary copies and also when restoring from a deduplication appliance. Tiered indexing minimizes how much data is retained and stored at media agents. Tiered indexing enables media agents to efficiently extract needed information from deduplication appliances to make tertiary copies and to restore backed up copies. Interoperability techniques include media agents generating separate data streams to the deduplication appliance. Each data stream carries a different kind of data, e.g., payload data, metadata content, or high-level index information. On initial backup, the media agent instructs the deduplication appliance to deduplicate the payload data stream but not the other data streams, thus intelligently applying resources to data most likely to benefit from deduplication. For tertiary copies, copies of pre-existing copies at the deduplication appliance, the media agent avoids handling payload data altogether.”

The patent application was filed on November 27, 2018 (Appl. No.16/201,897).

File manager integration with virtualization in information management system
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,010,011) developed by Varadharajan, Prakash, Manalapan, NJ, Dornemann, Henry Wallace, Eatontown, NJ, Polimera, Rajesh, Freehold, NJ, and Kandasamy, Anand, Neptune, NJ, for “File manager integration with virtualization in an information management system with an enhanced storage manager, including user control and storage management of virtual machines.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage manager that interoperates with a file manager application that integrates with virtualization substantially enables end-user control and storage management of virtual machines (VMs). The storage manager may manage information management operations relative to virtual machines based on and/or in response to messages and/or instructions received from the file manager application. The storage manager may further report results to the file manager application for presentation to the user. The file manager application, which may operate as a plug-in for a legacy file manager executing on a user’s client computing device, may comprise: displaying the VMs associated with the user, including their respective properties, enabling viewing/browsing of information about storage management operations for a VM such as backups and/or archiving, including files associated with the VM and searching and filtering criteria, control features that enable the user to control existing VMs, such as shut down, restart/activate/power-on, suspend, and/or re-configure, and also perform storage management of a VM and/or its associated files, such as create snapshot, back up, archive, restore VM from secondary storage, restore and overwrite VM, restore file(s)/folder(s) to user’s client computing device, restore file(s)/folder(s) to a production VM in primary storage, etc., control features that enable the user to provision additional VMs, such as create a new VM, create a clone VM, configure a VM, etc.”

The patent application was filed on March 1, 2018 (Appl. No.15/909,832).

Using multiple streams with network data management protocol to improve performance and granularity of backup and restore operations from/to file server
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,005,935) developed by Littlefield, Duncan Alden, Millstone Township, NJ, Karthikeyan, Sowdambiga, Marlboro, NJ, and Marella, Chiranjeevi, Telangana, India, for “using multiple streams with network data management protocol to improve performance and granularity of backup and restore operations from/to a file server.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Multiple substantially concurrent data streams with NDMP protocol improve robustness, performance, and granularity of backup and restore operations from/to a filer. NDMP data streams are initially allocated based on inventorying the root level of each filer volume. A best effort to balance the multiple NDMP data streams allocates them based on data amounts used in each volume. Orphaned files are also collected and backed up. Subsequent full backup jobs leverage a proprietary index generated in preceding full backup jobs to obtain better performance and to better balance the NDMP data streams by creating substantially co-equal groupings of source data. The index comprises granular information which is not available from querying the filer. The size of each individual backup copy from a preceding full backup job and/or the size of subtending subdirectories or individual backed up files therein is used by later backup jobs to fine tune NDMP data stream allocation.”

The patent application was filed on March 10, 2020 (Appl. No.16/814,737).

Creating secondary copies of data based on searches for content
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (11,003,626) developed by Varadharajan, Prakash, Morganville, NJ, for “creating secondary copies of data based on searches for content.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method and system for creating secondary copies of data whose contents satisfy searches within data stores is described. In some cases, the system searches for data within a data store, identifies a set of data that satisfies the search, copies the identified set of data, and transfers the copy to secondary or other storage. In some cases, the system utilizes search-based secondary copies of days during restoration processes in order to restore data similar to and/or associated with data requested to be restored.”

The patent application was filed on August 2, 2019 (Appl. No.16/530,971).

Information management of data associated with multiple cloud services
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,999,373) developed by Vijayan, Manoj Kumar, Chen, Ho-Chi, Attarde, Deepak Raghunath, Marlboro, NJ, and Joshi, Hetalkumar N., Manalapan, NJ, for an “information management of data associated with multiple cloud services.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method and system for providing information management of data from hosted services receives information management policies for a hosted account of a hosted service, requests data associated with the hosted account from the hosted service, receives data associated with the hosted account from the hosted service, and provides a preview version of the received data to a computing device. In some examples, the system indexes the received data to associate the received data with a user of an information management system, and/or provides index information related to the received data to the computing device.”

The patent application was filed on January 22, 2020 (Appl. No.16/749,902).

Storage management operations based on executable files served on demand to storage management components
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,999,368) developed by Vallabhaneni, Brahmaiah, Marlboro, NJ, and Kumarasamy, Paramasivam, Morganville, NJ, for a “storage management operations based on executable files served on demand to storage management components.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Systems and methods are disclosed for speedily upgrading (e.g., via service packs) components of a storage management system, such as media agents and data agents, which may number in the thousands. The disclosed methods and systems provide a lightweight and flexible approach. Executable files such as service packs are deployed to a network-shared file system and are served on demand to each targeted host computing device to launch a data agent and/or media agent component. New service packs (e.g., upgrades) are installed on another shared drive and the connection thereto is refreshed by each targeted storage management component to begin executing the new version on demand. The resultant overall upgrade process across the storage management system may be substantially shortened, and the network burden greatly reduced.”

The patent application was filed on July 18, 2019 (Appl. No.16/516,163).

Table level database restore in storage system
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,997,038) developed by Kumarasamy, Paramasivam, Morganville, NJ, and Vallabhaneni, Brahmaiah, Marlboro, NJ, for a “table level database restore 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 implement table level database restore. Table level database restore may refer to restoring a database table and its related data without restoring the entire database. The data storage system may use table metadata index to implement table level restore. A table metadata index may be created for each table, e.g., during a backup of the database. The table metadata index for a table can include any type of information for restoring the table and its related data. Some examples of the type of information included in the table metadata index include the following: container for the table, table backup location, system data, table index, table relationships, etc. Table metadata index can make the restoring of tables fast and efficient by packaging information that can be used to restore a table and its related data in an easily accessible manner.”

The patent application was filed on August 15, 2017 (Appl. No.15/677,898).

Using snapshot as data source
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,997,035) developed by Ngo, David, Shrewsbury, NJ, Prahlad, Anand, Bangalore, India, Gokhale, Parag, and Pawar, Rahul S., Marlboro, NJ, for “using a snapshot as a data source.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A system and method for using a snapshot as a data source is described. In some cases, the system stores a snapshot and an associated data structure or index to storage media to create a secondary copy of a volume of data. In some cases, the associated index includes application specific data about a file system or other application that created the data to identify the location of the data. The associated index may include three entries, and may be used to facilitate the recovery of data via the snapshot.”

The patent application was filed on August 27, 2019 (Appl. No.16/553,090).

Cross-hypervisor live mount of backed up virtual machine data, including management of cache storage for virtual machine data
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,996,974) 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, including management of cache storage for 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 (Appl. No.16/262,753).

Scalable auxiliary copy processing in storage management system using media agent resources
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,996,866) developed by Joshi, Hetalkumar N., Manalapan, NJ, Maranna, Chandrashekar, Teaneck, NJ, and Vijayan, Manoj Kumar, Marlboro, NJ, for a “scalable auxiliary copy processing in a data storage management system using media agent resources.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”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.”

The patent application was filed on May 24, 2019 (Appl. No.16/422,425).

Performing backup operations and indexing backup data
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,990,484) developed by Gokhale, Parag, Marlboro, NJ, Varadharajan, Prakash, Morganville, NJ, and Mazur, Pavlo, Tinton Falls, NJ, for “performing backup operations and indexing backup data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”In certain embodiments, a tiered storage system is disclosed that provides for failover protection during data backup operations. The system can provide for an index, or catalog, for identifying and enabling restoration of backup data located on a storage device. The system further maintains a set of transaction logs generated by media agent modules that identify metadata with respect to individual data chunks of a backup file on the storage device. A copy of the catalog and transaction logs can be stored at a location accessible by each of the media agent modules. In this manner, in case of a failure of one media agent module during backup, the transaction logs and existing catalog can be used by a second media agent module to resume the backup operation without requiring a restart of the backup process.”

The patent application was filed on March 8, 2019 (Appl. No.16/297,437).

Efficient data management improvements
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,990,430) developed by Dwarampudi, Bheemesh R., Jackson, NJ, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Pawar, Rahul S., and Gokhale, Parag, Marlboro, NJ, for an “efficient data management improvements, such as docking limited-feature data management modules to a full-featured data management system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Software, firmware, and systems are described herein that permit an organization to dock previously-utilized, limited-feature data management modules with a full-featured data management system. By docking limited-feature data management modules to a full-featured data management system, metadata and data from the various limited-feature data management modules can be integrated and utilized more efficiently and effectively. Moreover, additional data management features can be provided to users after a more seamless transition.”

The patent application was filed on October 10, 2018 (Appl. No.16/156,863).

Cross-system storage management for transferring data across autonomous information management
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,986,181) developed by Klose, Michael F., San Jose, CA, and Nara, Prasad, Eatontown, NJ, for a “cross-system storage management for transferring data across autonomous information management systems.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Systems and methods are disclosed for cross-system storage management for transferring data across autonomous information management systems. Data may be transferred from one information management system to another information management system without interfering with or overriding each system’s autonomy. For example, a secondary copy of production data (e.g., backed up data) is transferred from a first information management system that originated the data to a component of another ‘foreign’ information management system. A first storage manager that manages the first information management system also manages the cross-system data transfer operation to a ‘foreign’ client computing device, which remains under autonomous management as a component of the foreign information management system.”

The patent application was filed on November 13, 2019 (Appl. No.16/682,980).

Natural language processing integrated with database and storage management
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,984,041) developed by Bedadala, Pavan Kumar Reddy, Piscataway, NJ, Nagendra, Shilpa, Santa Clara, CA, Polimera, Rajesh, Freehold, NJ, Vijayakumar, Aakash Chakravarthy, Chennai, India, Chen, Jie, San Jose, CA, Mathur, Neha, Tinton Falls, NJ, Pamarthi, Vinay K., Eatontown, NJ, Ramachandran, Surya Prakash, Chennai, India, Thoppe Ravindran, Prasanna Kumar, Madurai, India, Ravula, Hari Prasad, Eatontown, NJ, Sanur, Supreeth, San Jose, CA, Subramanian, Ganesh Kumar, Tirunelveli, India, Sundaresan, Priya, San Jose, CA, and Talwar, Jugpreet Singh, Santa Clara, CA, for a “natural language processing integrated with database and data storage management.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The disclosed technology can receive a voice query or text query in a natural language and translate it from natural language to a native database management language to respond to the query. For example, a human can ask his or her computer to ‘show large emails from December 2016’, and a data agent on computer can receive the voice request, convert audio associated with the voice to words in natural language, convert natural language into a SQL query, and convert the SQL query into a database management query. The data agent is trained with a corpus of technical documents and rules to determine the intent or keywords for answering the query. In some implementations, the disclosed technology can also include a chatbot and/or administrative assistant to enable a human to interface with a database management software using voice or text.”

The patent application was filed on May 10, 2018 (Appl. No.15/976,770).

Organically managing primary and secondary storage of data object based on expiry timeframe supplied by user of data object
Commvault Systems, Inc., Tinton Falls, NJ, has been assigned a patent (10,983,986) developed by Kumar, Kuldeep, Hyderabad, India, for “organically managing primary and secondary storage of a data object based on an expiry timeframe supplied by a user of the data object.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The illustrative systems and methods advantageously reduce the amount of storage space occupied by data that no longer has a useful life–as established by the data objects’ user(s) and overcoming predetermined rules required by information management policies. An illustrative data agent may receive instructions from an illustrative storage manager to perform secondary copy operations for a given set of data objects. The instructions may generally instruct that expiry-marked data objects are to be treated based on parsing each data object’s user-supplied expiry timeframe. The illustrative system (i) will delete expired data objects including expired secondary copies, (ii) will refrain from making secondary copies of expired data objects, and (iii) if an expiry-marked data object is not expired, the illustrative system will make secondary copies according to the instructions from the storage manager, but will track those expiry-marked secondary copies for future deletion after they expire, (iv) and will delete expired secondary copies even if the original expiry-marked data object has been deleted from the system prior to its expiration.”

The patent application was filed on February 20, 2019 (Appl. No.16/280,973).