US 7,496,723 B1
Server-free archival of backup data
Ernest Patrick Hanavan, III, Winter Springs, Fla. (US)
Assigned to Symantec Operating Corporation, Mountain View, Calif. (US)
Filed on Dec. 15, 2003, as Appl. No. 10/736,272.
Int. Cl. G06F 12/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 711—162 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A storage area network (SAN), comprising:
one or more host servers, wherein one of the host servers comprises a backup server;
a plurality of storage devices;
a SAN fabric comprising one or more fabric devices configured to couple the one or more host servers to the plurality of storage devices;
wherein one or more of the host servers are configured to store primary data on one or more of the storage devices;
wherein, subsequent to the primary data being stored, one or more of the host servers are configured to initiate a backup operation of the primary data to store backup data of the stored primary data on one or more of the storage devices; and
wherein one or more of the storage devices comprise one or more archival storage devices, and wherein the backup server is configured to initiate a server-free backup through the SAN fabric of said backup data to one or more of the archival storage devices, wherein to perform said server-free backup, said backup data is copied to the one or more of the archival storage devices through the SAN fabric without said backup data passing through the backup server.