Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Oracle America, Inc.

Delphix Corporation

Oracle International Corporation

Matthew Allan Ahrens

Jeffrey S Bonwick

William H Moore

Mark Maybee

Subhadeep Sinha

Vinay H Srihari

Matthew Benjamin Amdur

Adam H Leventhal

Hubert Ken Sun

Michael James Stewart

Eric Noah Schrock

George Raymond Wilson

Michael L Stewart

Neil Veness Perrin

Darren James Moffat

George Wilson

Jeffrey Karr Biseda

Alexander Warner Reece

Jeffrey Biseda

Storage systems store data in a storage pool comprising storage devices or virtual devices. The storage pool may be allocated for a particular purpose. If a virtual device within the storage pool needs to be repurposed, the virtual device is removed from the storage pool. Data is moved from the removed virtual device to one or more target virtual devices. Segments of the source virtual device being removed are copied to target virtual devices. Mapping tables associating source segments with target segments are stored. If the storage system receives a request to access data stored on a virtual device that is removed, the storage system processes the mapping tables to determine where the data is stored.

Managing storage devices in a distributed storage system

A database storage system creates secure snapshots or virtual databases based on a source database that stores sensitive information. The database storage system applies a masking function to the sensitive data and stores the masked data in the secure snapshot. The database storage system creates secure snapshots that share masked database blocks with other secure snapshots. The database storage system shares masked database blocks by storing information identifying a previously created masked database block for a new secure snapshot. If a masked database block for the new secure snapshot is different from the previously created masked database block, the database storage system stores metadata including the difference between the two masked database blocks. The database storage system allows sharing any transformed database blocks across snapshot, if the transformed database blocks are obtained by applying a transformation function to data of the source database.

Creating secure virtual databases storing masked data

A storage system maintains copies of a source database to allow virtual databases to be provisioned. Transaction logs received from the source database are applied to database blocks stored in the storage system to update the database blocks. The storage system checks if there are defect in the transaction logs of the source database. If a defect in transaction logs is detected, the storage system obtains a latest copy of the source database. The storage system matches database blocks of the received copy with database blocks already available in the storage system to determine whether a corresponding database block is already available in the storage system. If a received database block is different from database blocks already available at the storage system, the received database block is stored in the storage system. The database blocks may be matched using a hash value of the database blocks.

Retrieving point-in-time copies of a source database for creating virtual databases

A processing device may generate a data encryption key configured to encrypt unique data within a clone of an encrypted data set and associated with a set of transaction identifiers of a transaction based file system. The processing device may further wrap the data encryption key with a wrapping key, create a cloned encrypted data set with the data encryption key, and store the wrapped data encryption key with the cloned encrypted data set indexed by at least one of the set of transaction identifiers.

Method and system for encrypting data

Virtual databases are provisioned using point-in-time copies of a source database. Transaction logs received from the source database are applied to a point-in-time copy of the source database to create recovery milestones comprising database blocks that can be used to provision virtual databases. The recovery milestones are created in advance of receiving a request to provision a virtual database. Each recovery milestone is validated to determine that a consistent database snapshot can be created using the recovery milestone. If a problem is identified that prevents creation of a consistent database snapshot, the problem is fixed before creating the next recovery milestone. In response to receiving a request to provision a virtual database corresponding to a point in time, a recovery milestone is identified and transaction logs applied to the recovery milestone to create a database snapshot corresponding to the requested point in time.

Creating validated database snapshots for provisioning virtual databases

A source storage system replicates snapshots stored on the source storage system to a target storage system. The source storage system stores a plurality of snapshots. The source storage system also stores parent child relationships between snapshots. The source storage system allows child snapshots of a parent snapshot to be modified independent of each other. The source storage system determines changed blocks of a snapshot compared to a previously transmitted snapshot and sends only the changed blocks to the target storage system. The source storage system determines the changed blocks of a snapshot compared to a previously replicated snapshot based on time of creation of a common ancestor of two snapshots. The source storage system transmits a data block of a snapshot if either the data block or a corresponding data block of the previously replicated snapshot was modified after the creation of the common ancestor snapshot.

Replicating snapshots from a source storage system to a target storage system

A method for resilvering a storage pool includes determining whether any of a first plurality of blocks in the storage pool, comprising metadata, require resilvering, determining whether any of a second plurality of blocks in the storage pool, comprising data, require resilvering, resilvering all of the first plurality of blocks that require resilvering, and resilvering all of the second plurality of blocks that require resilvering, wherein all of the first plurality of blocks that require resilvering are resilvered prior to resilvering any of the second plurality of blocks.

Method and system for metadata-based resilvering

A computer readable medium includes executable instructions for resilvering a hierarchical block tree in a storage pool. Resilvering the hierarchical block tree involves traversing a branch of the hierarchical block tree only if a birth time of a parent block of the branch is greater than or equal to a lowest birth time on a dirty time log (DTL). Resilvering the hierarchical block tree further involves resilvering a child block in the branch only if the DTL comprises a birth time of the child block.

Method and system for pruned resilvering using a dirty time log

The invention relates to a system that includes a file system configured to create a snapshot of a hierarchical block tree (HBT) and a storage pool. After the snapshot has been created, the storage pool includes a snapshot, where the snapshot includes a copy of a first version of a root block and the HBT, where the HBT includes a second version of the root block. Further, the copy of the first version of the root block is created prior to overwriting the first version of the root block with the second version of the root block, the second version of the root block comprises references to a first block and a second block, and the copy of the first version of the root block comprises a reference to the first block and no reference to the second block.

Unlimited file system snapshots and clones

A method for writing a data block to a storage pool. The method including receiving a write operation for a block, determining whether the block comprises metadata, and if the block comprises metadata: determining a first replication type for the block, and writing the block to the storage pool in accordance with the first replication type. If the block does not comprise metadata: determining a second replication type for the block and writing the block to the storage pool in accordance with the second replication type.

Method and system for adaptive metadata replication

A method for scrubbing a storage pool is disclosed. The method includes loading a scrub queue with a number of identifiers corresponding to a number of datasets, selecting a first identifier from the scrub queue, where the first identifier corresponds to a first dataset, initiating a scrubbing of the first dataset. The method further includes, upon receiving an indication of a requirement to pause the scrubbing, pausing the scrubbing of the first dataset, creating a bookmark recording a last location within the first dataset that was scrubbed before pausing the scrubbing of the first dataset, detecting at least one change to a storage pool, and performing a modification in response to detecting the at least one change to the storage pool.

Storage pool scrubbing with concurrent snapshots

A computer readable medium including executable instructions for resilvering a hierarchical block tree in a storage pool. Resilvering the hierarchical block tree involves determining that a birth time of a parent block of a branch is greater than or equal to a lowest birth time on a dirty time log (DTL) and selectively traversing child indirect blocks in the branch to obtain a child data block, where each of the child indirect blocks includes a block pointer, a data checksum, and a birth time for a referenced block, where the birth time of each of the child indirect blocks is no greater than the birth time of the parent block. Resilvering the hierarchical block tree further involves resilvering the child data block when the DTL includes a birth time of the child data block, where one of the child indirect blocks includes the birth time of the child data block.

A method for writing data to a storage pool includes receiving a write operation to write a logical block of data to the storage pool, determining a number (n&#x2212;1) of physical blocks required to store the logical block of data, generating a parity block using the logical block of data, allocating n physical blocks in the storage pool, writing the parity block in the first of n allocated physical block, and writing the logical block of data across the remaining n&#x2212;1 allocated physical blocks, where n is less than a number of disks in the storage pool, and where each of the n allocated physical blocks is located on a different disk in the storage pool.

Method and system for data replication

A system includes a storage pool including a first disk and a second disk, a data management unit (DMU), and a storage pool allocator (SPA). The SPA is configured to receive a request from the DMU to write a logical block, allocate a first physical block on the first disk, attempt to write the logical block to the first physical block, and allocate a second physical block on the second disk, if the attempt to write the logical block to the first physical block fails.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Matthew Allan Ahrens