Dell Products Inc.

Hytrust, Inc.

Datagravity, Inc.

Gregory James McHale

Bryan Keith Panner

Paula Long

Kumar Kanteti

Istvan Gonczi

Misha Zelikov

Janice Ann Lacy

Brian G Nadeau

Peter J Hunter

Janice Lacy

Damon Hsu-Hung

Damon J Hung

Kannan Sasi

Brian K Panner

A single system merges primary data storage, data protection, and intelligence. Intelligence is provided through in-line data analytics, and data intelligence and analytics are gathered on protected data and prior analytics, and stored in discovery points, all without impacting performance of primary storage. Real-time analysis is done in-line with the HA processing, enabling a variety of data analytics that are then used as part of a live restore operation. Data content can be live restored at an object or block level. Data recovery begins with metadata restoration, followed by near-instantaneous access to 'hot' regions of data being restored, allowing site operation to continue or resume while a restore is ongoing.

Live restore for a data intelligent storage system

A unified system provides primary storage and in-line analytics-based data protection. Additional data intelligence and analytics gathered on protected data and prior analytics are stored in discovery points. The disclosed system implements multi-threaded log writes across primary and restore nodes with write gathering across file systems; nested directories such as may be used for storing virtual machine files, where every subdirectory has an associated file system for snapshot purposes; and cloning objects on demand with background metadata and data migration.

Multi-threaded transaction log for primary and restore/intelligence

In an embodiment, a hybrid storage array one uses two or more storage device tiers provided by solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs). Random writes are collected and written to a write cache extension, such as a portion of the SSD storage tier. The write cache extension absorbs such accesses that would otherwise be written to HDD storage directly. Data structures are created in a cache memory local to an array controller representing the location on the write cache extension to which the writes were committed and a location in the storage system where they were originally intended to go. The write cache extension can be enabled all of the time, or only when the array controller write cache experiences certain operating conditions, such as when its utilization exceeds a predetermined amount. The approach improves the overall performance of the hybrid array.

Write spike performance enhancement in hybrid storage systems

A hybrid storage array one using two or more storage device tiers. In one implementation, two tiers may be provided by solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs). Host application access patterns of a certain type determined to be relatively slow, such as random writes, are detected. The random writes are collected and written to a special reserve space, such as a portion of the SSD storage tier, referred to as a write cache extension. The write cache extension absorbs such accesses that would otherwise be written to HDD storage directly. Data structures are created in a cache memory local to an array controller representing the location on SSD reserve space to which the writes were committed and a location in the storage system where they were originally intended to go. The write cache extension can be enabled all of the time, or only when the array controller write cache experiences certain operating conditions, such as when its utilization exceeds a certain predetermined amount. The approach improves the overall performance of the hybrid array.

Growing community of inventors

Brookline, NH, United States of America

Gregory James McHale