Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Antony Ian Taylor Rowstron

Benn Charles Thomsen

Richard John Black

Austin N Donnelly

Dushyanth Narayanan

Ioan Alexandru Stefanovici

Aaron William Ogus

Andreas Georgiou

Serguei Anatolievitch Legtchenko

Douglas James Kelly

Reinhard Sebastian Bernhard Nowozin

Alexander Lloyd Gaunt

James Hilton Clegg

Ariel Gomez Diaz

David Lara Saucedo

Eric Clarence Peterson

Christos Gkantsidis

Stephen Francis Heil

Adam B Glass

Hugh Williams

Andromachi Chatzieleftheriou

Sergey Legtchenko

Douglas Phillips

David Alex Butler

Mark Edward Shaw

Michael James Taylor

Timothy John Deegan

Shobana Balakrishnan

Pashmina Cameron

David T Harper

Christopher Michael Bishop

Patrick Neil Anderson

Rokas Drevinskas

Douglas Wayne Phillips

Hugh David Paul Williams

Peter Gyula Scholtz

John Christopher Dainty

Jiaqi Chu

Raluca Andreea Diaconu

Mengyang Yang

Neil David Lawrence

Govert Michael Verkes

Ranveer Chandra

Marcus Peinado

Alastair Wolman

Manuel Costa

Ratul Mahajan

Hitesh Ballani

Yongqiang Xiong

Thomas Karagiannis

David Tennyson Harper, Iii

Cedric Fournet

Miguel Castro

Gregory O'Shea

Thomas M Talpey

Eno Thereska

Felix Schuster

Shobana M Balakrsihnan

Matthew Caesar

Rocco De Nicola

István Haller

A holographic data storage system comprises an emitter system, a holographic recording medium, and an input waveguide network formed of one or more multimode optical waveguides. The holographic recording medium has multiple recording regions, each optically coupled to a corresponding one of multiple out-coupling regions of the input waveguide network, the holographic data storage system arranged to persistently write data of an input beam, received at any one of the out-coupling regions, to the corresponding recording region. A controller is coupled to at least one of the emitter system and at least one controllable guiding element of the input waveguide network and controls at least one optical characteristic of the input beam or the at least one guiding element, so as to guide the input beam from an in-coupling region to any selected one of the multiple out-coupling regions. Similar waveguide networks are provided for carrying reference and output beams.

Holographic storage

A method of performing a write operation in a holographic data storage system, in which schedule schedules at least one write operation across multiple non-contiguous write intervals, the write operation pertaining to a set of data to be stored in a region of a holographic recording medium. In each of the non-contiguous write intervals, the region of the holographic recording medium is exposed to an interference pattern caused by interference between a reference beam and an input beam carrying the set of data. The multiple non-contiguous write intervals have a total aggregate duration of sufficient length to cause a persistent state change in the exposed region, such that the set of data is recoverable from that region by the end of a final write interval of the multiple non-contiguous write intervals.

In an optical data transfer system, a beam modulator is configured to embed a set of data in an input beam. A multimode optical waveguide network has an in-coupling region for receiving the input beam. The multimode optical waveguide network is configured to guide the input beam to an out-coupling region of the multimode optical waveguide network. A spatial coherent detector is configured to measure a phase and an amplitude of an output optical field at multiple locations. The output optical field is at least partially defined by the input beam and thus exhibiting distortion effects caused by the passage of the beam through the multimode waveguide network. Signal processing is applied to an output of the spatial coherent detector, in order to compensate for the distortion effects, and thereby recover, from the output of the spatial coherent detector, the set of data embedded in the input beam.

Optical data transfer

A multimode optical waveguide network comprises a parent waveguide and a plurality of child waveguides. Each waveguide is a multimode optical waveguide having a first surface region, multiple second surface regions, and at least one guiding element attached to a surface of the waveguide or embedded within the waveguide, each second surface region of the parent waveguide optically coupled to the first surface region of a corresponding child waveguide. The guiding element(s) of the parent waveguide is arranged to guide a beam, from or to its first surface region, to or from any selected second surface region of its multiple second surface regions. The guiding element(s) of each of the waveguides is configurable for selecting the second surface region of that waveguide and/or responsive to at least one beam characteristic for selecting the second surface region of that waveguide via modulation of the at least one beam characteristic.

Waveguide network

A server system comprising processing devices, disks and a storage fabric, all arranged to operate according to a storage fabric protocol in order to communicate between the processing devices and the storage devices over the storage fabric, wherein the storage fabric is settable with a mapping determining which of the processing devices are allocated to use which of the storage devices in providing said services to the client systems. The system comprises a control function arranged to dynamically adapt the mapping in response to either: (i) failure or other downtime of one of the processing devices, storage devices, a component of the storage fabric or a connection in the storage fabric; or (ii) a current demand for the services from the client systems.

Server system

Examples are disclosed that relate to encoding data on a data-storage medium. The method comprises obtaining a representation of a measurement performed on the data-storage medium, the representation being based on a previously recorded pattern of data encoded in the data-storage medium in a layout that defines a plurality of data locations. The method further comprises inputting the representation into a data decoder comprising a trained machine-learning function, and obtaining from the data decoder, for each data location of the layout, a plurality of probability values, wherein each probability value is associated with a corresponding data value and represents the probability that the corresponding data value matches the actual data value in the previously recorded pattern of data at a same location in the layout.

Machine-learning optimization of data reading and writing

A method of reading from a storage medium to recover a group of information sectors, each comprising a respective information payload. The medium stores redundancy data comprising a plurality of separate redundancy codes for the group, each code being a linear sum of terms, each term in the sum being the information payload from a different respective one of the information sectors in the group weighted by a respective coefficient of a set of coefficients for the redundancy code. The method comprises, after the redundancy data has already been stored on the medium: identifying a set of k' information sectors to be recovered; selecting k&#x2032; of the redundancy codes; determining a square matrix E of the k&#x2032; information sectors by the k&#x2032; sets of coefficients of the selected codes; determining a matrix D being a matrix inverse of E; and recovering the k&#x2032; information payloads from the inverse matrix D.

Encoding for data recovery in storage systems

One example provides a system for reading birefringent data. The system comprises one or more light sources, a first polarization state generator positioned to generate first polarized light from light of a first wavelength band output by the one or more light sources, a second polarization state generator positioned to generate second polarized light from light of a second wavelength band output by the one or light sources, an image sensor configured to acquire an image of the sample region via the first polarized light and the second polarized light, a polarization state analyzer disposed between the sample region and the image sensor, a first bandpass filter configured to pass light of the first wavelength band onto the image sensor, and a second bandpass filter configured to pass light of the second wavelength band onto the image sensor.

Efficient reading of birefringent data

A server system comprising storage devices, processing devices and a storage fabric all operating according to a storage fabric protocol. The storage fabric comprises a plurality of individual switches having a modular design from which an overall switch is built, and the individual switches have individual respective configuration settings which determine which processing devices are allocated to use which of the storage devices. The system comprises an API enabling a software control function to configure the overall switch. The API is operable to receive from the control function an overall mapping of the storage devices to the processing devices instead of requiring the individual configuration settings of each of the individual switches to be specified by the control function, the API being configured to convert the overall mapping into the individual configuration settings of the individual switches to produce the overall mapping.

Examples are disclosed that relate to reading stored data. The method comprises obtaining a representation of a measurement performed on a data-storage medium, the representation being based on a previously recorded pattern of data encoded in the data-storage medium in a layout that defines a plurality of data locations. The method further comprises inputting the representation into a data decoder comprising a trained machine-learning function, and obtaining from the data decoder, for each data location of the layout, a plurality of probability values, wherein each probability value is associated with a corresponding data value and represents the probability that the corresponding data value matches the actual data value in the previously recorded pattern of data at a same location in the layout.

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Antony Ian Taylor Rowstron