US 12,380,064 B1
Efficient retention locking of a copy of a large namespace on a deduplication filesystem
Salil Dangi, Mission Viejo, CA (US); Nitin Madan, San Jose, CA (US); and Naveen Rastogi, San Jose, CA (US)
Assigned to Dell Products L.P., Round Rock, TX (US)
Filed by Dell Products L.P., Round Rock, TX (US)
Filed on Jan. 25, 2024, as Appl. No. 18/423,061.
Int. Cl. G06F 16/11 (2019.01); G06F 11/14 (2006.01)
CPC G06F 16/125 (2019.01) [G06F 11/1453 (2013.01); G06F 2201/84 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for efficient retention locking of a copy of a large namespace on a deduplication filesystem, comprising:
generating in a shared protection namespace of a backup storage device a first point-in-time copy of a first working frozen copy of an active namespace, the first working frozen copy including a first plurality of files associated with the active namespace that are stacked in at least one or more first horizontal files in the first point-in-time copy, wherein a number of files in the first plurality of files is greater than a number of first horizontal files in the at least one or more first horizontal files;
applying a retention lock to the at least one or more first horizontal files of the first point-in-time copy;
generating in the shared protection namespace of the backup storage device a second point-in-time copy of a second working frozen copy of the active namespace, the second working frozen copy including a second plurality of files associated with the active namespace that are stacked in at least one or more second horizontal files in the second point-in-time copy, wherein a number of files in the second plurality of files is greater than a number of second horizontal files in the at least one or more second horizontal files; and
applying a retention lock to the at least one or more second horizontal files of the second point-in-time copy,
wherein generating the at least one or more second horizontal files of the second point-in-time copy comprises copying one or more files of the first plurality of files from the at least one or more first horizontal files of the first point-in-time copy into the at least one or more second horizontal files of the second point-in-time copy and copying one or more files from the second working frozen copy of the active namespace into the at least one or more second horizontal files, and
wherein copying one or more files of the first plurality of files from the at least one or more first horizontal files of the first point-in-time copy into the at least one or more second horizontal files of the second point-in-time copy and copying one or more files from the second working frozen copy of the active namespace into the at least one or more second horizontal files comprises either:
determining a first subset of files of the first plurality of files that are included in the at least one or more first horizontal files of the first point-in-time copy and that are also included in the second plurality of files included in the second working frozen copy of the active namespace;
determining a second subset of files that are only included in the second plurality of files included in the second working frozen copy of the active namespace;
copying the first subset of files from the at least one or more first horizontal files of the first point-in-time copy into the at least one or more second horizontal files of the second point-in-time copy; and
copying the second subset of files from the second working frozen copy of the active namespace into the at least one or more second horizontal files of the second point-in-time copy.