International Business Machines Corporation

Pure Storage, Inc.

Oath Inc.

Cleversafe, Inc.

Aol Inc.

Aol Musicnow LLC

Bart Richard Clifone

Jason K Resch

Andrew D Baptist

Manish Motwani

Greg R Dhuse

Wesley B Leggette

Ilya Volvovski

S Christopher Gladwin

Thomas Franklin Shirley, Jr

Thomas Darrel Cocagne

Sebastien Vas

Andrew George Peake

Patrick Aaron Tamborski

Jeffrey Jonathan Spurgat

Stephen Christopher Gladwin

Sanjaya Kumar

Alan M Frazier

Depeng Bi

Timothy Scott Franklin

Troy Steven Denkinger

Anne Marie Pewterbaugh

Anne Marie Walsh

A method for a dispersed storage network (DSN) includes electing a local master management unit for each DSN storage site. The method continues by maintaining aggregated views of each the DSN storage sites via each of the local master management units, collecting, via the local master management unit, local state information from the subset of a plurality of DSN storage units, calculating, via the local master management unit, tabulated state information and distributing the tabulated state information across all storage units within the DSN storage site, thus reaching consistency. The method includes generating, based on the tabulated state information, alerts for one or more targets within the DSN storage site and distribution of the alerts to the one or more targets within the DSN storage site. The method further includes updating the DSN management unit with the tabulated state information and alert information.

Site-centric alerting in a distributed storage system

A method for distributed monitoring of storage units of a dispersed storage network (DSN) including a plurality of sets of storage units. A managing unit of the DSN obtains configuration information relating to the DSN storage resources and selects a target storage unit to be monitored. The managing unit also determines a number of other storage units to be used in monitoring the target storage unit. Selection of the monitoring storage units includes determining, for each of a plurality of storage units of the DSN, an estimated failure correlation level with the target storage unit. Based at least in part on this information, the determined number of storage units are selected and assigned to monitor the target storage unit. The managing unit subsequently receives status information, relating to the target storage unit, from the monitoring storage units.

Monitoring of storage units in a dispersed storage network

A method for execution by a dispersed storage and task (DST) processing unit includes obtaining distributed storage and task network (DSTN) address range information for each memory device of a set of memory devices associated with a storage unit targeted for an upgrade; obtaining a list of slice names associated with selected slices stored in each memory device of the storage unit; retrieving the selected slices associated with the list of slice names; generating an integrity check value for the selected slices; storing one or more of: the integrity check value, the selected slices, or the list of slice names as original integrity information in a memory; and enabling an upgrade sequence of the DST execution unit.

Upgrading devices in a dispersed storage network

Digital content distribution systems and methods are provided for distributing for digital data files, such as digital audio and video data files. In accordance with one implementation, a token-based authentication system is provided that does not require knowledge of the individual user requesting the download of digital content data or real-time access to user account information. Instead, the token-based authentication system embeds the authentication information, or token, in the download request information itself. In this way, the download or content server authenticates the download request using the token contained in the download request information and therefore does not require any additional information to carry out this authentication, such as access to user account information.

Digital content distribution and subscription system

A method includes issuing write commands to DS storage units regarding encoded data slices. A write command causes a storage unit to store an encoded data slice, but not allow access to the stored encoded data slices. The method includes receiving write acknowledgements from at least some of DS storage units to produce received write acknowledgements. The method includes, when a write threshold number of the received write acknowledgements have been received within a given time frame, issuing commit commands to the DS storage units. A commit command causes the storage unit to allow access to the stored encoded data slice. The method includes, when the write threshold number of the received write acknowledgements have not been received within the given time frame, issuing rollback commands to the DS units. A rollback command causes the storage unit to continue to not allow access to the stored encoded data slice.

Dispersed storage write process

A method begins with a processing module determining that storage of data requires updating, wherein the data is stored as a plurality of sets of encoded data slices in DSN memory. For a first type of updating, the processing module increases the total number while maintaining the decode threshold number. The processing module then, for each set of encoded data slices, creates another encoded data slice in accordance with the dispersed storage error encoding function and the increased total number and sends the new encoded data slices to the DSN memory. For a second type of updating, the processing module increases the total number and the decode threshold number. The processing module then recovers the data and encodes it in accordance with the dispersed storage error encoding function using the increased total number and the increased decode threshold number to produce an updated plurality of sets of encoded data slices.

Adjusting data dispersal in a dispersed storage network

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Chicago, IL, United States of America

Bart Richard Clifone