Netapp, Inc.

Lenovo (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Michael Neil Condict

Jonathan Randall Hinkle

David W Cosby

Steven Robert Kleiman

James F Lentini

Stephen Michael Byan

Anshul Madan

Patrick Leo Caporale

Fei Xie

William Gavin Holland

Jian Li

Theodore Brian Vojnovich

Arthur F Lent

Kishore Kasi Udayashankar

Peter Macko

Shyam Sareen

Sandip Shete

A method, a computing device, and a non-transitory machine-readable medium for booting a virtual machine. In response to a launch or initialization of a virtual machine, the virtual machine may attach a boot volume within a cloud-associated storage system. The boot volume contains a boot program. The boot program is loaded to the virtual machine from the boot volume. The virtual machine uses the boot program to acquire a boot configuration that includes a set of parameters and one or more commands for interfacing with a networked storage system and attaching a root volume within the networked storage system using a network-based storage interface protocol. The virtual machine boots its operating system from the root volume within the networked storage system.

Methods and systems for booting virtual machines in the cloud

A storage area network (SAN) includes fabric-attachable storage drives that are each directly connected to a fabric and that operate drive volumes. The SAN includes SAN software agents executed by client computing devices that are directly connected to the fabric. Each SAN software agent operates logical volumes realized by the drive volumes of the storage drives. The SAN includes a SAN manager directly connected to the fabric to manage the drive volumes of the SAN storage drives and to manage the logical volumes that the SAN software agents operate.

Storage area network having fabric-attached storage drives, SAN agent-executing client devices, and SAN manager that manages logical volume without handling data transfer between client computing device and storage drive that provides drive volume of the logical volume

Apparatuses, systems, methods, and program products are disclosed for improved storage performance based on data placement. An identifier module generates a plurality of unique identifiers. Each of the unique identifiers is associated with a storage node of a storage cluster. A rank module ranks each of the plurality of unique identifiers in response to a received data item. The ranking of a unique identifier is based on one or more characteristics associated with the received data item. A storage module selects a unique identifier of the plurality of unique identifiers with a best ranking and stores the data item on a storage node associated with the selected unique identifier.

Storage performance based on data placement

Disclosed are methods and systems for low latency modification of memory on a remote computer system. According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a method includes, at a first computing device, receiving from a second computing device, a memory access request including a security key and a unique identifier generated by the first computing device. The method further includes verifying, based on the security key and the unique identifier, that the first computing device is authorized to access a predetermined portion of memory. Also, in response to verifying that the first computing device is authorized to access the predetermined portion of memory, accessing, by the second computing device, the predetermined portion of memory.

Systems and methods for low latency access of memory between computing devices

A method, computer program product and apparatus are provided. For example, the method includes receiving, by a first data storage device within a storage area network, input output operations over a first network pathway within the storage area network. The method further includes receiving, by the first data storage device, a migration instruction that identifies a second data storage device within the storage area network and a source volume stored on the first data storage device. Still further, the method includes migrating, by the first data storage device, the source volume directly to the second data storage device over a second network pathway within the storage area network.

Direct volume migration in a storage area network

One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for performing host side deduplication. Host side deduplication may be performed upon writeable data within a write request received at a host computing device configured to access data stored by a storage server. The host side deduplication may be performed at the host computing device to determine whether the writeable data is already stored by the storage server based upon querying a host side cache comprising data stored by a storage server and/or a data structure comprising unique signatures of data stored by the storage server. If the writeable data is stored by the storage server, then a deduplication notification excluding the writeable data may be sent to the storage server, otherwise a write command comprising the writeable data may be sent. Accordingly, unnecessary network traffic of redundant data already stored by the storage server may be reduced.

Host side deduplication

A fabric-attachable storage drive self-monitors a prespecified parameter. Responsive to detecting satisfaction of a prespecified condition, the storage drive autonomously generates a reportable event regarding the self-monitored prespecified parameter, and autonomously transmits the reportable event to a prespecified location on a network fabric to which the drive is connected. The storage drive can interact with other fabric-attachable storage drives to create a logical volume according to a specified logical data storage topology on a self-organized storage device group in a peer-to-peer manner. The storage drive can be a programmable non-volatile memory Express (NVMe) storage drive exporting access thereto over an NVMe-over-fabric storage protocol, or a programmable storage drive lacking an external interface by which to connect to a host computing device storage device but that has a network interface connected to a network fabric.

Autonomous generation and transmission of reportable events by fabric-attachable storage drive

A storage-area network (SAN) manager running on a computing device connected to a fabric receives a request to allocate and mount a logical volume on a client computing device connected to the fabric. The manager groups storage drives connected to the fabric by failure domains. The manager filters the storage drives by native capabilities, available capacities, and dynamic performance to remove from consideration any storage drive having insufficient native capabilities, an insufficient available capacity, and/or an insufficient dynamic performance to satisfy the request. The manager selects a set of storage drives on which to store data of the logical volume, from the remaining storage drives, taking into account the failure domains. The manager sends a command to each such storage drive to provision a drive volume, and a command to a software agent on the client device to create and mount the logical volume using these drive volumes.

Selection of fabric-attached storage drives on which to provision drive volumes for realizing logical volume on client computing device within storage area network

A storage-area network (SAN) system includes one or more storage drives directly connected to a fabric. Each storage drive provisions and operates a drive volume, and creates a security token for the drive volume. The system includes a client computing device directly connected to the fabric, and that executes a SAN software agent to create, mount, and use a logical volume realized by drive volumes of the storage drives. The client computing device accesses each drive volume using the security token for the drive volume. The system includes a SAN manager directly connected to the fabric that manages the drive volumes of the storage drives, manages the logical volume that the SAN software agent operates, receives from each storage drive the security token for the drive volume of the storage drive, and sends the security token for the drive volume of each storage drive to the SAN software agent.

Security within storage area network having fabric-attached storage drives, SAN agent-executing client devices, and SAN manager

A method, device, and non-transitory computer readable medium that manages replacement in a distributed cache environment includes determining a cache value of a new item associated with one of a plurality of I/O cache resources. A cache value of a least valuable other item in the plurality of I/O cache resources is obtained. A determination is made when the cache value of the new item is greater than the cache value of the least valuable other item in the plurality of I/O cache resources. The least valuable other item is replaced with the new item when the determination indicates the cache value of the new item is greater than the cache value of the least valuable other item.

Methods for managing replacement in a distributed cache environment and devices thereof

Programmable disk drives are configured within a peer-to-peer redundant array of independent disks (RAID) that lacks a RAID controller. A spare programmable disk drive not part of the RAID can monitor a given drive of the RAID. If the monitored drive fails, the spare drive can replace the failed drive within the RAID such that it becomes part of the RAID, and reconstruct the data on the programmable disk drive that has failed by communicating with the other drives of the RAID. For each data block to be reconstructed, each such other drive may receive just one piece of data and sends just one piece of data. Further, the spare drive may receive just one piece of data for each data block to be reconstructed, which is the data block as reconstructed from one of the other drives of the RAID.

Peer-to-peer redundant array of independent disks (RAID) lacking a RAID controller

The techniques introduced herein provide for systems and methods for estimating the effectiveness of utilizing a data deduplication process. More specifically, a content-based sampling approach for data deduplication estimation is described in which a subset of the scanned fingerprints of a dataset are included in a content-based sample that is used to determine an accurate deduplication estimate for a dataset (or volume).

Content-based sampling for deduplication estimation

The technique introduced here involves using a block address and a corresponding generation number as a 'fingerprint' to uniquely identify a sequence of data within a given storage domain. Each block address has an associated generation number which indicates the number of times that data at that block address has been modified. This technique can be employed, for example, to maintain cache coherency among multiple storage nodes. It can also be employed to avoid sending the data to a network node over a network if it already has the data.

Using logical block addresses with generation numbers as data fingerprints to provide cache coherency

The technique introduced here involves using a block address and a corresponding generation number as a 'fingerprint' to uniquely identify a sequence of data within a given storage domain. Each block address has an associated generation number which indicates the number of times that data at that block address has been modified. This technique can be employed, for example, to determine whether a given storage server already has the data, and to avoid sending the data to that storage server over a network if it already has the data. It can also be employed to maintain cache coherency among multiple storage nodes.

Growing community of inventors

Hurdle Mills, NC, United States of America

Michael Neil Condict