Patent Issued for Graphical representation of an information management system (USPTO 11880487): Commvault Systems Inc.

2024 FEB 13 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Mutha, Manas Bhikchand (Tinton Falls, NJ, US), Sinha, Prosenjit (San Jose, CA, US), filed on August 21, 2020, was published online on January 23, 2024.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11880487 is Commvault Systems Inc. (Tinton Falls, New Jersey, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Businesses recognize the commercial value of their data and seek reliable, cost-effective ways to protect the information stored on their computer networks while minimizing impact on productivity. A company might back up critical computing systems such as databases, file servers, web servers, virtual machines, and so on as part of a daily, weekly, or monthly maintenance schedule. The company may similarly protect computing systems used by its employees, such as those used by an accounting department, marketing department, engineering department, and so forth. Given the rapidly expanding volume of data under management, companies also continue to seek innovative techniques for managing data growth, for example by migrating data to lower-cost storage over time, reducing redundant data, pruning lower priority data, etc. Enterprises also increasingly view their stored data as a valuable asset and look for solutions that leverage their data. For instance, data analysis capabilities, information management, improved data presentation and access features, and the like, are in increasing demand.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Companies collect and store massive amounts of data specific and personal to individuals, such as their employees, their users, their customers, their clients, and so on. The stored data may include names, address information (e.g., mailing address, email address, social media usernames, and so on), credit card or banking information, government issued identification information (e.g., social security numbers or national identification numbers), biographical information (e.g., sex, gender, age, and so on), login and password information, and other data or information specific to the individuals. In general, any data associated with an individual may be considered personally identifiable information (PII) and/or sensitive personal information (SPI).

“While there are many advantages to collecting and maintaining personal data, there are significant drawbacks, such as drawbacks associate with information security, data privacy, and the rights of individuals to control how and when their data is stored and utilized. For example, individuals are identifiable from their personal data (e.g., PII or SPI data), and entities or other individuals, such as bad actors, may utilize the personal data to identify an individual, contact the individual, locate the individual, or otherwise interact with the individual.

“Countries have implemented various data protection laws, such as the 1978 Privacy Act in the United States and the 2016 General Data Protection Regulation for European countries (taking effect in 2018). These laws apply rules and regulations for companies and/or other organizations to follow, without incurring significant penalties. For example, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, includes rules associated with an individual’s rights to request their personal data be removed, to transfer their personal data, to access their data, and so on, as well as rules associated with how and where a company stores or maintains personal data. Other examples of data protection policies include the United States Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which provides various provisions for safeguarding medical information, the United States Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, and many, many others.

“Information management systems attempt to store and manage data in compliance with established rules and regulations. However, continued implementation of new regulations, and the modification of existing regulations, often outpaces the restructuring and updating of the information management systems. Thus, such systems would benefit from tools that identify data storage locations and/or devices maintaining data is ways that are out of compliance with relevant regulations. Further, tools that perform actions to modify data storage operations to be compliant with data storage regulations and/or provide individuals with access to their data, would enable the information management systems to efficiently and dynamically maintain compliance with ever-changing data privacy regulations.

“Systems and methods are described herein for graphically representing an information management system based on the characteristics of within the system. The systems and methods interface with various components of the system (e.g., administrative components, index components, and so on) to identify data having certain characteristics (e.g., personal data), and generate or render information (e.g., a heat map or other visual display) that represents areas or locations within the system storing the data. Thus, the systems and methods, in some embodiments, generate or create a data-specific view into the information management system.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method performed by an information management system, the computer-implemented method comprising: performing a data backup method of customer data stored on multiple primary storage devices, wherein a first primary storage device of the multiple primary storage devices is located at a first geographical location, and wherein a second primary storage device of the multiple primary storage devices is located at a second geographical location, wherein the customer data stored at the first and second primary storage devices is hosted by different entities, wherein the customer data comprises personal data requiring authorization for access, wherein the data backup method is initiated according to a schedule that is indicated in an information management policy assigned to the customer data, wherein the information management policy comprises a set of parameters for performing data management operations on data assigned to the information management policy, wherein the set of parameters for performing data management operations comprises logical or virtual location information associated with the customer data and authorization access information needed to access the customer data; acquiring the customer data by using the authorization access information indicated in the information management policy assigned to the customer data; creating secondary copies of the customer data; storing the secondary copies in secondary storage devices, wherein the multiple primary storage devices are separate and distinct from the secondary storage devices; for each secondary copy of the secondary copies; updating one or more indices mapping a storage location of the each secondary copy to a corresponding location of the customer data on one of the multiple primary storage devices, and determining if the each secondary copy includes a specific type of the personal data; wherein at least some of the secondary copies are stored in a backup format different from a primary format of the personal data that is stored at the multiple primary storage devices; generating or updating a common index with information included in each created one or more indices corresponding to each secondary copy that included the specific type; accessing the information within the common index; using the accessed information, determining one or more of the multiple primary storage devices that store the customer data that includes the specific type; determining a level of risk for each of the determined one or more of the multiple primary storage devices; and in response to determining the level of risk for each of the determined one or more of the multiple primary storage devices: identifying a predetermined response from an information management security policy specific to the specific type and the level of risk, initiating the predetermined response with the corresponding each of the determined one or more of the multiple primary storage devices, wherein the predetermined response is a computer-implemented operation for risk mitigation of the customer data appropriate for the determined level of risk.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the computer-implemented method further comprising: identifying secondary storage devices that store name entity information and regular expression entity information that satisfies pre-determined user identification criteria, and wherein the multiple primary storage devices are in differing geographic locations.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the computer-implemented method further comprising: performing an action associated with the personal data stored within the information management system, wherein the action comprises: deleting the personal data from the secondary storage devices, moving or transferring the personal data from the secondary storage devices, encrypting the personal data, generating secondary copies of the personal data, restoring the personal data from the secondary storage devices, or redacting at least portions of the personal data.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the computer-implemented method further comprising: receiving input from a user associated with the personal data; and performing a task requested by the user to facilitate access by the user of the personal data, wherein the task includes, upon request by the user, deleting or transferring the personal data.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the personal data comprises data that qualifies as identifying data for an individual under the European General Data Protection Regulation.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the personal data comprises personally identifiable information (PII) or sensitive personal information (SPI).

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the personal data comprises data that qualifies as identifying data for an individual under the United States Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) or the United States Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the personal data comprises one or more identifiers of an individual.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the personal data comprises name entity information or regular expression entity information associated with individuals.

“10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the computer-implemented method further comprising: scanning indices associated with the secondary storage devices of the information management system to identify name entity information stored by the multiple primary storage devices.

“11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the computer-implemented method further comprising: scanning indices associated with the secondary storage devices of the information management system to identify regular expression entity information stored by the multiple primary storage devices.

“12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the multiple primary storage devices comprise cloud storage locations associated with the information management system.

“13. An information management system, wherein the information management system is configured to: perform a data backup method of customer data stored on multiple primary storage devices wherein a first primary storage device of the multiple primary storage devices is located at a first geographical location, and wherein a second primary storage device of the multiple primary storage devices is located at a second geographical location, wherein the customer data stored the first and second primary storage devices is hosted by different entities, wherein the customer data comprises personal data requiring authorization for access, wherein the data backup method is initiated according to a schedule that is indicated in an information management policy assigned to the customer data, wherein the information management policy comprises a set of parameters for performing data management operations on data assigned to the information management policy, wherein the set of parameters for performing data management operations comprises logical or virtual location information associated with the customer data and authorization access information needed to access the customer data; acquire the customer data by using the authorization access information indicated in the information management policy assigned to the customer data; create secondary copies of the customer data; store the secondary copies in secondary storage devices, wherein the multiple primary storage devices are separate and distinct from the secondary storage devices; for each secondary copy of the secondary copies; update one or more indices mapping a storage location of the each secondary copy to a corresponding location of the customer data on one of the multiple primary storage devices, and determine if the each secondary copy includes a specific type of the personal data; wherein at least some of the secondary copies are stored in a backup format different from a primary format of the personal data that is stored at the multiple primary storage devices; generate or update a common index with information included in each created one or more indices corresponding to each secondary copy that included the specific type; access the information within the common index; using the accessed information, determine one or more of the multiple primary storage devices that store the customer data that includes the specific type; determine a level of risk for each of the determined one or more of the multiple primary storage devices; and in response to determining the level of risk for each of the determined one or more of the multiple primary storage devices: identify a predetermined response from an information management security policy specific to the specific type and the level of risk, initiate the predetermined response with the corresponding each of the determined one or more of the multiple primary storage devices, wherein the predetermined response is a computer-implemented operation for risk mitigation of the customer data appropriate for the determined level of risk.

“14. The information management system of claim 13, wherein the information management system is further configured to: identify secondary storage devices that store name entity information and regular expression entity information that satisfies pre-determined user identification criteria.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For additional information on this patent, see: Mutha, Manas Bhikchand. Graphical representation of an information management system. U.S. Patent Number 11880487, filed August 21, 2020, and published online on January 23, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11880487)&db=USPAT&type=ids

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)