Commvault Systems, Inc.
EXPANDABLE DATA STORAGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Abstract:

An illustrative expandable data storage management system includes rules for assigning data protection operations to suitable subtending storage service cells. Each cell is specially configured to protect certain data types and/or to provide certain storage resources for backup data. The system controls customer account access, authentication, service allocation, data security, and sharing of information between a centralized "hub manager" and the storage service cells that perform storage operations, including data backup, data recovery, and data lifecycle management. The system maintains a many-to-many relationship between distinct customers and storage service cells so that any storage service cell may be responsible for protecting any number of data sources of any number of distinct customers, and responsibility for protecting any given customer's data sources may be distributed among any number of storage service cells. The system supports global searching, ensuring that a user-initiated search is applied across the storage service cells.