Pure Storage, Inc.

Grigori Inozemtsev

John Colgrove

John Martin Hayes

Ethan L Miller

Cary A Sandvig

Christopher Golden

Jianting Cao

Andrew R Bernat

Timothy W Brennan

Alan Stuart Driscoll

Benjamin Scholbrock

Naveen Neelakantam

Neil A Vachharajani

Joshua Freilich

Arun Theebaprakasam

Jimmy Chi-Wai Chui

Iris McLeary

Swapnil Chandrashekhar Nagle

Neelesh Thakur

Gordon James Coleman

Yuhong Mao

Andrew Sillifant

A system and method comprising: receiving a request to write data stored at a first range of a first volume to a second range of a second volume, where first metadata for the first range of the first volume is associated with a range of physical addresses where the data is stored in the storage system; and responsive to receiving the request: creating second metadata for the second range of the second volume, wherein the second metadata is associated with the range of physical addresses where the data is stored in the storage system; and associating the second volume with the second metadata.

Lightweight copying of data using metadata references

Restoring a cloud-based storage system to a selected state, including: generating, over a period of time, one or more snapshot states of a cloud-based storage system, wherein each of the one or more snapshot states describes a respective configuration of the cloud-based storage system at a respective point in time within the period of time; providing, to a computing process, one or more selectable states corresponding to the one or more snapshot states of the cloud-based storage system; and transitioning, in response to a selection of a particular snapshot state from among the one or more snapshot states, the configuration of the cloud-based storage system from a current state to the particular snapshot state.

Restoring a cloud-based storage system to a selected state

Reverting between codified states in a cloud-based storage system, including: generating, in response to receiving a request to change a configuration of the cloud-based storage system to an updated state, a snapshot state of a current state of the cloud-based storage system; transitioning the configuration of the cloud-based storage system from the snapshot state to a next state toward the updated state; and reverting, in response to not configuring the cloud-based storage system in accordance with the updated state, configuration of the cloud-based storage system from the next state to the snapshot state.

Reverting between codified states in a cloud-based storage system

Writing data using references to previously stored data

Scheduling data replication operations, including: identifying, for each of a plurality of target storage systems, an amount of data to be transferred from one or more source storage systems in order to fully replicate a dataset to the target storage system; scheduling, based on the amount of data to be transferred from one or more source storage systems in order to fully replicate the dataset to each of the target storage systems, replication operations between the storage systems; and replicating the dataset from the one or more source storage systems to each of the target storage systems in accordance with the scheduling of replication operations between the storage systems.

Scheduling data replication operations

A block of a storage device of a plurality of storage devices is allocated for storage of data, wherein the allocation comprises identifying a nonce associated with the block of the storage device. An erase command for the block is transmitted to the storage device, the erase command comprising the nonce, wherein the storage device is to erase the block upon determining that the nonce matches a corresponding nonce stored locally at the storage device.

Using nonce to control erasure of data blocks of a multi-controller storage system

A system and method for performing copy offload operations. When a copy offload operation from a first volume (pointing to a first medium) to a second volume (pointing to a second medium) is requested, the copy offload operation is performed without accessing the data being copied. A third medium is created, and the first medium is recorded as the underlying medium of the third medium. The first volume is re-pointed to the third medium. Also, a fourth medium is created, the second volume is re-pointed to the fourth medium, and the second medium is recorded as the underlying medium of the targeted range of the fourth medium. All other ranges of the fourth medium have the second medium as their underlying medium.

Copying data without accessing the data

Distributing management responsibilities for a storage system that includes a storage array controller and a plurality of storage devices, including: identifying a plurality of elements in the storage system; for each of the plurality of elements in the storage system, creating a distributed manager, wherein each distributed manager is configured for gathering information describing the state of the associated element in the storage system, determining an action to perform against the associated element in the storage system, and executing an approved action against the associated element in the storage system; and creating a distributed management hierarchy that includes each of the distributed managers.

Hierarchical storage system management

Ensuring crash-safe forward progress of a system configuration update in a storage system that includes a storage array controller and a plurality of storage devices, including: determining a number of storage devices in the storage system; determining a number of unavailable storage devices in the storage system; and determining, for the one or more system configurations, whether the system configuration can be reconstructed in dependence upon the number of storage devices in the storage system and the number of unavailable storage devices in the storage system.

System configuration selection in a storage system

A method for device reservations in a storage system, performed by the storage system is provided. The method includes maintaining a list of a plurality of storage devices of the storage system or slots for the storage devices, and a status of each of the plurality of storage devices or slots for the storage devices. The method includes determining whether granting a request for a reservation of one of the plurality of storage devices or slots would result in the storage system having less than a quorum of online storage devices, and granting or rejecting the reservation, based on the determining.

Centralized, quorum-aware handling of device reservation requests in a storage system

A method for taking a storage device offline, performed by a storage system, is provided. The method includes reserving the storage device and stopping direction to increment a heartbeat counter of the storage device. The method includes verifying the heartbeat counter of the storage device is static, and performing, responsive to the verifying, an operation on the storage device, with the storage device offline relative to the storage system I/O of user data.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Grigori Inozemtsev