Solutions

Autonomic Healing

The Autonomic Healing Tool is a transparent utility provisioning tool that runs seamlessly in the background in our datacenters. It constantly scans the ODS Vault and immediately notifies our specialists (and adds a record in the event log) when it encounters a corrupted or otherwise problematic file. Before the file can cause any harm, Autonomic Healing isolates the potentially corrupted file to a predetermined quarantined location where it can safely be deleted. Additionally, a notification trigger is issued to resend a latest generation copy of the file on its next scheduled backup for that customer. Autonomic Healing means that our technology and vault repairs itself without human intervention. Autonomic Healing addresses the problems of file corruption and increases the integrity of our vault. It continually monitors customer backups for data corruption. If corrupt data is found, it corrects it, removes it, or reports that a correction is needed.

About File Corruptions
In medium or large data processing, file corruptions are almost inevitable. They may happen due to hardware failures, software applications, file system problems, connectivity problems, or insufficient resources. They may also result from unpredicted operations, methods, or behaviors.

Detecting File Corruptions
Some corrupted files can be detected by processes, such as System Admin, that check the headers/links of files. Such processes, however, check only physical consistency (valid file headers and links). Our Autonomic Healing process goes further, checking the logical validity of data (invalid names, name duplication, ID duplication, potential reconstruction failure, consistency, etc.). Admin processes and Autonomic Healing are running continuously guaranteeing anomalies can be found and fixed faster than any other method on the market. Finally, regular processes only identify problems, they do not resolve them. Our Autonomic Healing features can actually solve problems, and maintains a complete log of its activities so those problems it cannot solve can be investigated further.

When Autonomic Healing encounters a corrupted or otherwise problematic file, it writes a record in the Event Log and tries to fix the problem. If any modifications to our vault were made, it requests the ODS Appliance to perform re-synchronization of the affected backup set. If the problem can be fixed, it will be fixed and noted. If it cannot be fixed (for example, in the case of anomalies caused by third parties) our Autonomic Healing records and indicates a possible fix if one is available.

What Autonomic Healing Can Check
Autonomic Healing verifies the following to identify data corruption, damage, or inconsistency:

• Online file headers: header ID, version, compression and encryption types, invalid library links, invalid file names, header size.
• Directory metadata in DS-System Online Storage: header ID, version, invalid names, header size.
• Library links for common files.
• Delta generation consistency: file naming consistencies across online generations, session consistencies across generations.
• File and directory consistencies in DS-System Online Storage: name and ID, directory location.
• Data integrity and restorability (checks for logical corruption and logical consistency).
• Delta generation linking/reconstruction inconsistencies.
• Inconsistent library link.
• Inconsistent backup sessions (two generations of the same file in the same session)

What Autonomic Healing Can Fix
Autonomic Healing can fix the following problems:

• Completely corrupted files: deletes files affected and those that depend on them (delta generation) so that next backup will send a new master generation.
• Inconsistent file or directory IDs.
• Inconsistent directory location.
• Inconsistent file name within directories.
• Inconsistent file name across online generations.