Netapp, Inc.

Oath Inc.

Network Appliance, Inc.

Cheryl Marie Thompson

Anil Paul Thoppil

Qinghua Zheng

Ananthan Subramanian

Kevin Daniel Varghese

Ganga Bhavani Kondapalli

Sridevi Jantli

Jeevan Hunsur Eswara

Nicholas Gerald Zehender

Ronak Girishbhai Ghadiya

Venkateswarlu Tella

Palak Sharma

Garima Choudhary

Rajesh Sudarsan

Sunitha Sunil Sankar

Sindhushree K N

Dibyasri Nandi

Debanjan Paul

Dinakaran Narayanan

Peter Frank Corbett

John K Edwards

Robert M English

Tijin George

Douglas P Doucette

Sriram S Rao

Jeffrey L Heller

Techniques are provided for mirroring objects between object stores hosted by cloud providers that could have different data layout requirements. An object may be stored within an object store that supports a unified object format where the object is capable of storing compressed data. The object may be mirrored to a destination object store that may also support the unified object format or to a destination object store that does not support the unified object format. If the destination object store does not support the unified object format, then slot header metadata within the object is used to decompress the data within the object into an uncompressed format. The data is packaged from being in the uncompressed format into a fixed offset format supported by the destination object store to create a mirrored object that is stored into the destination object store while retaining compression of the data.

Mirroring objects between different cloud providers

Techniques are provided for mirroring objects between object stores hosted by cloud providers that have different data layout requirements. An object may be stored within a first object store that supports a fix offset format where uncompressed data is stored according to fixed offsets and boundaries within fixed size objects. A mirroring operation may be used to mirror the object to a second object store that supports a unified object format where compressed data can be stored at non-fixed offsets and boundaries within variable sized objects. The mirroring operation selects a compression algorithm and compresses the object on the fly to create a mirrored object having the unified object format. The mirrored object, populated with the compressed data and slot header metadata comprising compression information for how to locate and decompress the data in the mirrored object, is stored into the second object store.

Mirroring objects between different cloud providers with different data layout requirements

Techniques are provided for migrating a volume utilizing an object copy work queue and an object copy driver module. Data of the volume is stored within objects stored across a storage tier and capacity tier of a source object store. As part of migrating the volume to a destination object store, the objects are migrated to the destination cluster. Directly copying the objects involves multiple read operations to the source object store and a write operation at the destination object store. The techniques provided herein improve the efficiency of the migration by initially sending metadata from the source object store to the destination object store for performing backend object copy operations to migrate the volume. This results in fewer operations and less network usage, thus improving the efficiency and cost of migrating the volume.

Object copy driver module for object migration

A system, method, and machine-readable storage medium for retrieving data are provided. In some embodiments, a cache may receive a request for data from a client. The cache may determine that a first subset of the data is stored on a storage device and that a second subset of the data is stored at a cloud address located at a cloud storage endpoint. The cache may also receive from the storage device the first subset of data. The cache further receives from the cloud storage endpoint the second subset of data in response to transmitting a request for the second subset of data stored at the cloud address to the cloud storage endpoint. The cache then transmits to the client the first and second subsets of data from the various sources in response to the data request.

Cache retrieval based on tiered data

Techniques are provided for modifying a read path to process read operations during a storage operation, such as an operation to migrate objects storing data of a volume. The objects are stored across a storage tier and capacity tier of a source object store. As part of migrating the volume to a destination object store, the objects are migrated to the destination cluster. Directly copying the objects involves multiple read operations to the source object store and a write operation at the destination object store. The techniques provided herein improve the efficiency of the migration by initially sending metadata from the source object store to the destination object store for performing backend block copy operations to migrate the volume.

Modified read path for processing read operations during object migration

Techniques are provided for object store mirroring. Data within a storage tier of a node may be determined as being data to tier out to a primary object store based upon a property of the data. A first object is generated to comprise the data. A second object is generated to comprise the data. The first object is transmitted to the primary data store for storage in parallel with the second object being transmitted to a mirror object store for storage. Tiering of the data is designated as successful once acknowledgements are received from both the primary object that the first object was stored and the mirror object store that the second object was stored.

Object store mirroring based on checkpoint

Techniques are provided for implementing a unified object format. The unified object format is used to format data in a performance tier (e.g., infrequently accessed data, snapshot data, etc.) into objects that are stored into an object store for low cost, scalable, long term storage compared to storage of the performance tier. With the unified object format, compression of the data may be retained when the data is stored as the objects into the object store. Additional compression may also be provided for the data in the objects. The unified object format includes slot header metadata used to track the location of the data within the object notwithstanding the data being compressed and/or stored at non-fixed boundaries. The slot header metadata may be cached at the performance tier for improved read performance and may be repaired by a repair subsystem (a slot header repair subsystem).

Persistent metafile used to cache slot header metadata for improved read performance of objects within an object store

Repair subsystem for persistent metafile repair to improve resiliency

Techniques are provided for processing read operations while splitting a clone volume from a parent volume whose data is stored within objects of an object store. A transfer map is created to track mappings of child object identifiers to parent object identifiers of the parent objects to copy as child objects having the child object identifiers. The transfer map for the object store is traversed to copy the parent objects as the child objects for the split clone operation. The child objects are verified as being successfully created with valid data. In response to determining that the parent object has been copied as the child object, a context check is performed using the reverse map to verify a block within the child object. In response a successful context check, the read operation is processed using the block of the child object.

Read access during clone volume split operation

Techniques are provided for splitting a clone volume from a parent volume whose data is stored within objects of an object store. A transfer map is used to track mappings of selectively created child object identifiers used to subsequently copy the one or more parent objects to create child objects corresponding to the child object identifiers. A consistency point phase is performed. For each child object identifier processed during the consistency point phase, an object state for a corresponding child object is set to a copy pending state. A reverse map is populated with a reverse map entry. The transfer map is traversed to copy the one or more parent objects as the child objects for splitting the clone volume from the parent volume. The reverse map is used to verify that the child objects are successfully created with valid data.

Clone volume split of clone volume from parent volume with data tiered to object store

Techniques are provided for multi-tier write allocation. A storage system may store data within a multi-tier storage environment comprising a first storage tier (e.g., storage devices maintained by the storage system), a second storage tier (e.g., a remote object store provided by a third party storage provider), and/or other storage tiers. A determination is made that data (e.g., data of a write request received by the storage system) is to be stored within the second storage tier. The data is stored into a staging area of the first storage tier. A second storage tier location identifier, for referencing the data according to a format utilized by the second storage tier, is assigned to the data and provided to a file system hosting the data. The data is then destaged from the staging area into the second storage tier, such as within an object stored within the remote object store.

Multi-tier write allocation

Techniques are provided for orphan object detection, invalid sequence number detection, and asynchronous object cleanup. A storage system may store data within one or more tiers of storage, such as a storage tier (e.g., solid state storage and disks maintained by the storage system), a remote object store (e.g., storage provided by a third party storage provider), and/or other storage tiers. Orphan objects, within the remote object store, that are no longer used by the storage system may be detected and/or deleted. When an aggregate of volumes is deleted, corresponding objects, within the remote object store, may be identified and/or deleted. Invalid sequence numbers (e.g., lost or corrupt sequence numbers locally maintained in a metafile) assigned to objects within the remote object store may be identified, deleted, and/or fixed.

Object and sequence number management

Unified object format for retaining compression and performing additional compression for reduced storage consumption in an object store

Techniques are provided for remote object store error handling. A storage system may store data within one or more tiers of storage, such as a local storage tier (e.g., solid state storage and disks maintained by the storage system), a remote object store (e.g., storage provided by a third party storage provider), and/or other storage tiers. Because the remote object store may not provide the same data consistency and guarantees that the storage system provides for clients such as through the local storage tier, additional validation is provided by the storage system for the remote object store. For example, when data is put into an object of the remote object store, a verification get operation is performed to read and validate information within a header of the object. Other verifications and checks are performed such as using a locally stored metafile to detect corrupt or lost metadata and/or objects.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Cheryl Marie Thompson