Netapp, Inc.

Natero, Inc.

Network Appliance, Inc.

Garth Richard Goodson

Shankar Pasupathy

Kiran Nenmeli Srinivasan

Kaladhar Voruganti

Sai Susarla

Sudhir Srinivasan

Rahul Narayan Iyer

Minglong Shao

Steven Robert Kleiman

Ravi Kumar Kavuri

Randy Thelen

Randal Thelen

Vijayan Prabhakaran

Jeffrey S Kimmel

Gokul Soundararajan

Shravan Gaonkar

Lakshmi Narayanan Bairavasundaram

Vipul Mathur

Timothy Clayton Bisson

Prashanth Radhakrishnan

Naresh M Patel

Keith Arnold Smith

Thirumale Niranjan

Craig Anthony Nigel Soules

Scott Dawkins

Kiran Srinivasan

A distributed object store in a network storage system uses location-independent global object identifiers (IDs) for stored data objects. The global object ID enables a data object to be seamlessly moved from one location to another without affecting clients of the storage system, i.e., 'transparent migration'. The global object ID can be part of a multilevel object handle, which also can include a location ID indicating the specific location at which the data object is stored, and a policy ID identifying a set of data management policies associated with the data object. The policy ID may be associated with the data object by a client of the storage system, for example when the client creates the object, thus allowing 'inline' policy management. An object location subsystem (OLS) can be used to locate an object when a client request does not contain a valid location ID for the object.

In-line policy management with multi-level object handle

Fault isolation capabilities made available by user space can be provided for a embedded network storage system without sacrificing efficiency. By giving user space processes direct access to specific devices (e.g., network interface cards and storage adapters), processes in a user space can initiate Input/Output requests without issuing system calls (and entering kernel mode). The multiple user spaces processes can initiate requests serviced by a user space device driver by sharing a read-only address space that maps the entire physical memory one-to-one. In addition, a user space process can initiate communication with another user space process by use of transmit and receive queues similar to transmit and receiver queues used by hardware devices. And, a mechanism of ensuring that virtual addresses that work in one address space reference the same physical page in another address space is used.

System and method for achieving high performance data flow among user space processes in storage systems

Object location service for network-based content repository

Distributed object store for network-based content repository

A system and method for improving the relevance of search results using data container access patterns. An indexing process tracks data access patterns and updates an access data structure. When executing a search operation, a search process first identifies a set of data containers containing the search terms. The search process then utilizes the access data structure to rank the identified data containers based on the collected data access pattern information.

System and method for improving the relevance of search results using data container access patterns

This disclosure relates generally to automated workflow for data management, and specifically to efficient data manipulation and information extraction techniques used by a versatile data analytics platform. The information extraction techniques include micro-batching and provenance tracking, as well as integration of provenance-driven policies to improve the efficacy of the analytics. Embodiments disclosed here integrate the concept of real-time or near-real-time data stream processing and event/batch processing into one data processing layer, allowing a single processing definition to be applied at different granularities.

System for dynamic batching at varying granularities using micro-batching to achieve both near real-time and batch processing characteristics

The techniques introduced here provide for efficient management of storage resources in a modern, dynamic data center through the use of virtual storage appliances. Virtual storage appliances perform storage operations and execute in or as a virtual machine on a hypervisor. A storage management system monitors a storage system to determine whether the storage system is satisfying a service level objective for an application. The storage management system then manages (e.g., instantiates, shuts down, or reconfigures) a virtual storage appliance on a physical server. The virtual storage appliance uses resources of the physical server to meet the storage related needs of the application that the storage system cannot provide. This automatic and dynamic management of virtual storage appliances by the storage management system allows storage systems to quickly react to changing storage needs of applications without requiring expensive excess storage capacity.

Dynamic storage management using virtual storage appliances

A hierarchically tagged cache provides abstraction between access requests for data and the cached data. The cache is managed by hierarchical layers of indexes including reference to the data. Access requests indicate a header for the requested data, which is associated with one of the layers. Cache management determines what layer is associated with the header, and can traverse the indexes, beginning at the layer associated with the header, to access the data. If the header does not exist at the index of that layer, it can be created. Indexes can be appropriately updated with indexes at each layer being referenced by one or more indexes of the layer higher up in the hierarchy.

Hierarchically tagged cache

A data storage system includes a processor, a system memory, and logical extents. Blocks of storage in one or more physical storage devices are allocated to each of the logical extents. The processor maintains a logical container for data objects and the volume includes one or more of the logical extents. The processor stores data objects that are uniquely identified by object identifiers in the logical extents. The processor also maintains a first index that is stored in the system memory and maps a range of the object identifiers to a second index. The second index is also stored in a logical extent and indicates storage locations of the data objects associated with the range of the object identifiers.

Efficient data object storage and retrieval

Methods and system for securely capturing workloads at a live network for replaying at a test network. The disclosed system captures file system states and workloads of a live server at the live network. In one embodiment the captured data is anonymized to protect confidentiality of the data. A file system of a test server at the test network is mirrored from a captured state of the live server. An anonymized version of the captured workloads is replayed as a request to the test server. A lost or incomplete command is recreated from the states of the live server. An order of the commands during replay can be based on an order in the captured workload, or based on a causal relationship. Performance characteristics of the live network are determined based on the response to the replayed command.

Method and system for securely capturing workloads at a live network for replaying at a test network

System and method for achieving high performance data flow among user space processes in storage system

Described herein is a flash remapping (FR) layer in a storage operating system for utilizing flash memory as a secondary permanent storage device in a storage system. The FR layer collects particular information (specified by collection parameters) of received access requests for data stored on primary storage devices of the storage system. Based on the collected information and a predetermined access pattern (specified by pattern parameters), the FR layer selects data sets on the primary storage devices to be transferred permanently to flash memory, whereby subsequent access requests to the selected data sets are redirected to flash memory. New parameters may be received by the FR layer (from a user or program) to dynamically reconfigure the functions of the FR layer. The FR layer may be implemented in the operating system without requiring other code of the storage operating system to be modified.

Software module for using flash memory as a secondary permanent storage device

Described herein are method and apparatus for performing wear leveling of erase-units of an LLRRM device that considers all active erase-units. Wear counts of all active erase-units (containing client data) and free erase-units (not containing client data) are tracked. Wear counts are used to determine low-wear active erase-units having relatively low wear counts and high-wear free erase-units having relatively high wear counts. In some embodiments, data contents of low-wear active erase-units are transferred to high-wear free erase-units, whereby the low-wear active erase-units are converted to free erase-units and may later store different client data which may increase the current rate of wear for the erase-unit. The high-wear free erase-units are converted to active erase-units that store client data that is infrequently erased/written, which may reduce the current rate of wear for the erase-unit. As such, wear is spread more evenly among erase-units of the LLRRM device.

Wear leveling for low-wear areas of low-latency random read memory

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Garth Richard Goodson