Inktomi Corporation

Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.p.

Matthew Dennis Haines

Adam Louis Beguelin

John Plevyak

Brian Totty

Peter Mattis

David Gourley

Charles Martin McJilton

Eric C Peterson

Fred Charles Thomas, Iii

Daniel Thero

Paul Michael Cesario

Scot Brown Herbst

Kenneth Douglas Wood

John L Guenther

Arthur G Sandoval

Paul Boerger

Philip Michael Walker

William Girard McCollom

James Louis Long

Andrew Leonard Zee

Gregory J Lipinski

Michael Alexander Chowla

Arthur Charles Thomas Huston

Glendon A Roberts

Freeland Knight Abbott, Iii

In some examples, a client device receives, from a network-attached storage (NAS) system, installer code. Executing the installer code at the client device causes display of a user interface at the client device. Questions are presented in the user interface at the client device. Responsive to answers to the questions received in the user interface, the installer code executing at the client device installs a subset of software components relating to the NAS system the client device.

Performing administrative tasks associated with a network-attached storage system at a client

Installer code is received from a network attached storage (NAS) system at a client device. The installer code executing at the client device performs a selected subset of administrative tasks at the client device, where the administrative tasks are tasks associated with the NAS system. The selected subset of administrative tasks includes installing a backup software component.

A system is provided, the system having at least one client computer and a server computer coupled to the at least one client computer via a network. The system also has a printer coupled to the server computer and shared by the at least one client computer. The printer is perceived by each client computer to be a local printer.

Methods and systems for sharing a printer

A computer includes an enclosure, an internal mass storage device within the enclosure, and a redundancy controller within the enclosure. At least one port enables direct connection of the computer to at least one external mass storage device. The redundancy controller is configured to provide data redundancy using the internal mass storage device and the at least one external storage device if the at least one external mass storage device is connected to the at least one port.

Providing data redundancy using an internal mass storage device and an external mass storage device

A storage system includes at least one storage device on which are provided data storage volumes and an extended storage volume. The data storage volumes include a first data storage volume that is implemented with a data protection mechanism, and a second data storage volume that is implemented without the data protection mechanism. Also, an extended storage volume is provided that is initially un-allocated to any of the data storage volumes. A controller dynamically allocates at least one portion of the extended storage volume to the particular data storage volume to dynamically expand storage capacity of the particular data storage volume.

Dynamically expanding storage capacity of a storage volume

In one embodiment an encryption based storage lock comprises at least one storage media, at least one processor, at least one drive controller, and logic to; store at least a first encryption key in a persistent memory location, establish a logical association between the first encryption key and a first drive, receive a write operation in a drive controller, wherein the write operation is associated with the first drive in the network attached storage device, encrypt data associated with the write operation using the first encryption key, and store the encrypted data in the first drive in the network attached storage device.

Encryption based storage lock

Electronic enclosure

Content is managed and provided to users over a communications link using a differencing engine. The differencing engine is configured to selectively cause content to be refreshed in a cache. Specifically, the differencing engine is configured to detect whether a more recent version of a data item is available, and if so, delete a current version of the data item from the cache and retrieve and store in the cache the more recent version of the data item. Content is selected for refresh based upon a set of one or more selection criteria. The selection criteria may include, for example, the source of content, the size of content, the age of content, the type of content and users to which the content is being provided.

Approach for managing and providing content to users

The foregoing needs and other needs are addressed by the present invention, which provides, in one aspect, a mechanism for locating a data object. According to an aspect of the present invention, key values for data objects are generated, each key value may contain a first subkey value and a second subkey value. A mapping associates the first subkey values with storage locations. A particular first subkey value is mapped to storage location that contains second subkeys of a set of key values that correspond to the first subkey value. The storage location also includes additional information that may be used to locate objects associated with the set of key values.

High performance object cache

A high-performance cache is disclosed. The cache is designed for time- and space-efficiency for a diverse range of information objects. Information objects are stored in portions of a non-volatile storage device called arenas, which are contiguous regions from which space is allocated in parallel. Objects are substantially contiguously allocated within an arena and are mapped by name keys and content-based object keys to a tag table, an open directory, and a directory table. The tag table is indexed by the name keys, and stores references to sets in the directory table. The tag table is compact and therefore can be stored in fast main memory, facilitating rapid lookups. The directory table is organized so that at least a frequently-accessed portion of it also usually resides in fast main memory, which further speeds lookups. The tag and directory tables are organized to quickly determine non-presence of objects. Large objects are chunked into fragments, which are chained using a forward functional-iteration mechanism, to prevent the need for mutating existing on-disk data structures. Garbage collection periodically moves objects within an arena or to other arenas. Additionally, for a plurality of counters, the following is computed: (1) the sum of values stored in the counters, and (2) the maximum value that can be represented by the coimters. Each of the counters are decremented when the sum is greater than half of the maximum value. Each of the counters is associated with an information object, which is deleted when a counter is decremented to zero.

Maintaining counters for high performance object cache

A method for caching information objects is provided. Information objects are stored in portions of a non-volatile storage device called arenas, which are contiguous regions from which space is allocated in parallel. Objects are contiguously allocated within an arena and are mapped to directory tables that provide an efficient search mechanism. Each object is identified by a name key and a content key. The name key is constructed by applying a hash function to the composition of the name or URL of the object along with implicit or explicit context about the request. The content key is constructed by applying a hash function to the entire contents of the object data. Buckets and blocks in the directory tables store tags and subkeys derived from the keys. Since duplicate objects that have different names will hash to the same content key, the cache can detect duplicate objects even though they have different names, and store only one copy of the object. As a result, cache storage usage is dramatically reduced, and tracking object aliases is not required. The disclosure also encompasses a computer apparatus, computer program product, and computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave that are configured similarly.

Alias-free content-indexed object cache

A method is provided for caching and delivering an alternate version from among a plurality of alternate versions of information objects. One or more alternate versions of an information object, for example, versions of the information object that are prepared in different languages or compatible with different systems, are stored in an object cache database. In the cache, a vector of alternates is associated with a key value that identifies the information object. The vector of alternates stores information that describes the alternate, the context and constraints of the object's use, and a reference to the location of the alternate's object content. When a subsequent client request for the information object is received, the cache extracts information from the client request, and attempts to select an acceptable and optimal alternate from the vector by matching the request information to the cached contextual information in the vector of alternates. This selection is performed in a time- and space-efficient manner. Accordingly, the cache can deliver different versions of an information object based on the metadata and criteria specified in a request to the cache. As a result, the information delivered by the cache is customized for the requesting client, without requiring access to the original object server.

Delivering alternate versions of objects from an object cache

A method for garbage collection in a cache of information objects is provided. A non-volatile storage device is segmented into storage areas called pools. Each pool has a pool header and a plurality of arenas. Each arena stores one or more fragments of an object. Header information for each arena is stored in the pool header in which that arena is stored. Each fragment comprises a fragment header and fragment data. The garbage collection periodically selects a pool that is storing an amount of data greater than a minimum storage value or high water mark. Each arena in the pool is examined and selected for garbage collection according to selection criteria. Each fragment within a selected arena is examined based upon a second set of selection criteria that determine whether the fragment is retained or deleted. If the fragment is deleted, all other fragments in the storage device that relate to that fragment's object are also deleted. When a fragment arena is retained, it is moved into contiguous storage in another available arena. A computer program product, computer apparatus, and data signal embodied in a carrier wave, configured to carry out the steps of the method, are also disclosed.

Garbage collection in an object cache

A method for consistently storing cached objects in the presence of failures is provided. This method ensures atomic object consistency--in the event of failure and restart, an object will either be completely present or completely absent from the cache, never truncated or corrupted. Furthermore, this consistency comes without any time-consuming data structure reconstruction on restart. In this scheme, objects are indexed by a directory table that is stored in main memory and mapped to non-volatile storage, and changes to the directory table are buffered into an open directory that is stored in main memory. Cache objects are either stored in volatile aggregation buffers or in segments of non-volatile disk storage called arenas. Objects are first coalesced into memory-based aggregation buffers, and later committed to disk. Locking is used to control parallel storage to aggregation buffers. Directory entries pointing to objects are only permitted to be written to persistent disk storage after the target objects are themselves committed to disk, preventing dangling pointers. Periodically, when the contents of open directory entries point to objects that are stably stored on disk, the open directory entries are copied into the directory table and committed to non-volatile storage. The disclosure also encompasses a computer program product, computer apparatus, and computer data signal configured similarly.

Consistent data storage in an object cache

A high-performance cache is disclosed. The cache is designed for time- and space-efficiency for a diverse range of information objects. Information objects are stored in portions of a non-volatile storage device called arenas, which are contiguous regions from which space is allocated in parallel. Objects are substantially contiguously allocated within an arena and are mapped by name keys and content-based object keys to a tag table, an open directory, and a directory table. The tag table is indexed by the name keys, and stores references to sets in the directory table. The tag table is compact and therefore can be stored in fast main memory, facilitating rapid lookups. The directory table is organized so that at least a frequently-accessed portion of it also usually resides in fast main memory, which further speeds lookups. The tag and directory tables are organized to quickly determine non-presence of objects. Large objects may be chunked into fragments, which are chained using a forward functional-iteration mechanism, to prevent the need for mutating existing on-disk data structures. Garbage collection periodically moves objects within an arena or to other arenas so that inactive objects are deleted and free space becomes contiguous. Because the objects are substantially contiguously allocated, reading and writing an typical object requires only one or two disk head actuator movements; thus, the cache can efficiently and smoothly stream data off of the storage device, providing optimal delivery of multimedia objects. The disclosure also encompasses a computer apparatus, computer program product, and computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave that are similarly configured.

Growing community of inventors

Fort Collins, CO, United States of America

Matthew Dennis Haines