Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.P.

Emc Corporation

James Preston Rice

Philip C Love

Slawomir K Ilnicki

The present invention provides a system and method for handling large transactions by a storage virtualization system. Current storage virtualization systems can only manage a limited number of data objects stored on an associated NAS system because of the cost or hardware constraints of physical main memory. The present invention will enable a storage virtualization system to increase the number of data objects managed by a factor of five or more by using an associated secondary memory store, such as a disk, to store information or metadata about data objects stored on associated NAS systems. The invention also provides a method for moving metadata from the storage virtualization system memory to the secondary store and back, and recovering metadata if corrupted. The invention thereby increases the number of data objects handled by the storage virtualization system with negligible loss of performance as perceived by clients of the storage virtualization system.

System and method for handling large transactions in a storage virtualization system

A method of allowing a secure and transparent communication between a user device and servers of a data access network system via a firewall and a gateway is described. The method includes the step of designating a plurality of ports in the firewall for the gateway, each corresponding to one of a number of ports in the gateway. Each of the gateway ports can be dynamically assigned to correspond to the port of one of the servers. The method also includes a step of proxifying an object reference used in a user request for a target server from the user device in order to establish secure connection between the user device and the target server. This step is first performed by replacing the IP address and the port number of the target server of the user request with a dynamically assigned gateway port and the IP address of the gateway. Then the dynamically assigned gateway port and the gateway's IP address are mapped to the port of and IP address of the target server such that the user request is not required to expose the IP address and port number of the target server at the gateway.

Method and apparatus for allowing a secure and transparent communication between a user device and servers of a data access network system via a firewall and a gateway

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Menlo Park, CA, United States of America

James Preston Rice