Emc IP Holding Company LLC

Emc Corporation

Jerald W Gross

Walter Forrester

Christopher H Stacey

James Theodore Compton

Eyal Zimran

Stephen A Rago

Ravi Venkata Batchu

Christian J Chuba

Christopher H E Stacey

Augustine Amegadzie

This invention is a system and a method for operating a storage server in a data network using a new architecture. The system of operating a storage server includes a secondary storage that archives or stores a data object in transformed form such that the clients of the storage server can no longer access the data directly. The method of accessing the data object that is archived or transformed in a different form to the secondary storage includes recalling only those data blocks that are required for read or write operation.

Sparse recall and writes for archived and transformed data objects

A hierarchical storage system is constructed from file servers and a policy engine server by building upon a file migration service. Offline attributes are added to file system inodes in a primary file server, file system parameters are added in the primary server, an offline read access method field is added to a connection database, and the primary file server is programmed to use these attributes and parameters for selecting a particular method (such as a partial read migration or a pass through read method) for read access to an offline file. In this fashion, the primary file server is provided with flexibility for selecting a particular one of a number of migration methods depending on various conditions, in order to improve the trade-off between the cost of storage and delay in file access.

Selection of migration methods including partial read restore in distributed storage management

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Edison, NJ, United States of America

Jerald W Gross