Netapp, Inc.

Oracle America, Inc.

Raytheon Bbn Technologies Corp.

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Daniel Joseph Ellard

Craig Fulmer Everhart

William Timothy Strayer

David Patrick Mankins

Christine Elaine Jones

Josh Forrest Karlin

Alden Warren Jackson

Victoria Ursula Manfredi

James H Waldo

Randall David Smith

Robert F Sproull

Hooman Vassef

Michael P Warres

Jane Alice Loizeaux

Timothy J Blackman

Systems and methods for protecting a network including providing a mapping between internal addresses as seen by devices of the protected network and external addresses; providing devices with a mapped address for a destination in response to a lookup request; rewriting, at a gateway, destination addresses of packets exiting the protected network based on the mapping; and rewriting, at the destination-network gateway, source addresses of packets entering the protected network based on the mapping. Embodiments include a gateway coupled to a protected network, an external network, and a name server. The name server, in response to a hostname lookup request, configured to provide a network device with the internal address; and the gateway with a mapping including the internal address, the addresses of the device, and the hostname. The gateway configured to rewrite destination addresses of outbound packets, and source addresses of inbound packets, based on the mapping.

Destination address rewriting to block peer-to-peer communications

In some embodiments, a first location server, in response to a request from a client to access an object, determines whether a first location information stored at the first location server indicates locations of instance(s) of the object. The first location server, in response to a determination that the first location information indicates the locations of the instances of the object, determines a first location of a first instance of the object at a first payload server and a second location of a second instance of the object at a second payload server from the first location information. The first location server determines priority values of the first and second locations. The first location server generates a reply to the request, the reply indicating the first and second locations of the first and second instances of the object, and the priority values of the first and second locations.

Transparent redirection of clients to a surrogate payload server through the use of a proxy location server

Systems and methods for protecting a network including preventing data traffic from exiting the network unless a domain name request has been performed by a device attempting to transmit the data traffic. In an embodiment, a device within the protected network attempting to send data outside the protected network requests an address for a destination outside the protected network from a domain name server (DNS). In response, the DNS provides an address of the destination to the device and a gateway. In response to receiving the address, the gateway temporarily allows access to the address. In an embodiment, a DNS is coupled to a protected network and the gateway, the DNS provides an external address to a device in response to a request; and a mapping to the gateway; the gateway, coupled to a protected network and an external network, allows traffic according to the mapping.

Destination address control to limit unauthorized communications

Location-independent references include a live reference containing a location of a remote object and a universally unique identifier (UUID) which provides a unique global reference to that remote object. If a method call to the remote object using the live reference fails, the UUID is used to obtain a new reference to the remote object and the new reference is then used to make another method call. A new reference can be obtained from an identifier directory that contains a mapping between UUIDs and location-independent references. When a remote object is first created, or when a remote object is moved from one location to another, the remote object registers with any and all such directories that it can find in its environment. These registrations are leased; that is, if they are not occasionally refreshed by the remote object which registered them, they are dropped from the directory.

Method and apparatus for generating and using location-independent distributed object references

A network storage server includes a main buffer cache to buffer writes requested by clients before committing them to primary persistent storage. The server further uses a secondary cache, implemented as low-cost, solid-state memory, such as flash memory, to store data evicted from the main buffer cache or data read from the primary persistent storage. To prevent bursts of writes to the secondary cache, data is copied from the main buffer cache to the secondary cache speculatively, before there is a need to evict data from the main buffer cache. Data can be copied to the secondary cache as soon as the data is marked as clean in the main buffer cache. Data can be written to secondary cache at a substantially constant rate, which can be at or close to the maximum write rate of the secondary cache.

Speculative copying of data from main buffer cache to solid-state secondary cache of a storage server

A client is redirected to use a surrogate payload server to access a substantially identical copy of an object that is located on a primary payload server. A proxy location server intercepts object location queries from clients and replies with the location of the surrogate payload server as the preferred source for the object rather than the location of the primary payload server.

Redundant solid-state memory devices are used to enhance the operation of a network storage system. To reduce the likelihood of substantially concurrent failure of two or more such memory devices, write allocation decisions are made so as to influence the wear on the various solid-state memory devices, so that not all of the solid-state memory devices wear out at the same rate. This can be accomplished by skewing the wear caused by erases/writes, across the solid-state memory devices, so that the devices experience unequal wear and, therefore, do not all fail at or approximately at the same time. The roles of the various flash devices are adjusted when a solid-state memory device is replaced, such that subsequent write allocation decisions are based on the maintenance history (e.g., replacement history) of the devices as well as the past write history.

Use of write allocation decisions to achieve desired levels of wear across a set of redundant solid-state memory devices

An initialization process in a storage server is made more efficient by at least partially avoiding serial and/or sequential access to the data blocks that are needed for such process. To accomplish this, the blocks needed for the initialization process are identified prior to performing the initialization process. The blocks or a list of references to the blocks are stored in a non-volatile solid-state memory, such as a flash-based memory, that is separate from the main drive subsystem and has a much shorter power-up and read-access time than the main drive subsystem. The list or stored set of blocks may be used to access the blocks more efficiently when needed, by accessing two or more of such blocks in parallel, as well as performing block accessing and volume mounting in parallel.

Non-volatile solid-state memory based adaptive playlist for storage system initialization operations

When receiving a client data access request directed to a first data container serviced by a first federation member, data of the first requested data container may be used to resolve a context identifier and identify a volume location database (VLDB) associated with a second federation member servicing a second data container. A look up request may then be sent to the VLDB to identify one or more locations of the second data container. The client's original data access request illustratively may then be responded to with the identified one or more locations of the second data container.

Referent-controlled location resolution of resources in a federated distributed system

An extensible fingerprint comprised of an ordered list of fingerprints generated by applying each of a plurality of distinct fingerprinting functions to the content of a data item. The extensible fingerprint can be extended by using a new fingerprinting function to compute a new fingerprint and adding the new fingerprint to the list so that the old extensible fingerprint of a data item is used as a prefix of the new extensible fingerprint for that data item. Thus, the fingerprint can be incrementally extended over time. A content-addressed storage system uses extensible fingerprints as addresses and can also change over time.

Extensible fingerprinting functions and content addressed storage system using the same

In a data storage system, content-containing objects to be stored are added to a storage hierarchy that is based on content relationships. The content of each stored object is encrypted and a stub is associated with that object. For each stored object other than a root object, the stub comprises a function of a decryption key for the content of that object and the stubs of all of the ancestors of that object. The stubs can be used to calculate a new stub for a data object to be inserted into the storage hierarchy and to generate a decryption key for an existing object. Since these latter calculations for an object involve the stubs of all ancestors of that object, deleting a stub for an object securely deletes that object and all its descendants. An object can be moved by recalculating its stub.

Growing community of inventors

Belmont, MA, United States of America

Daniel Joseph Ellard