Netapp, Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Minglong Shao

Garth Richard Goodson

Shankar Pasupathy

Sudhir Srinivasan

Andrew W Leung

Guy Maring Lohman

Kevin Scott Beyer

Volker Gerhard Markl

Timothy Clayton Bisson

Latha S Colby

Keith Arnold Smith

Quanzhong Li

A distributed object store in a network storage system uses location-independent global object identifiers (IDs) for stored data objects. The global object ID enables a data object to be seamlessly moved from one location to another without affecting clients of the storage system, i.e., 'transparent migration'. The global object ID can be part of a multilevel object handle, which also can include a location ID indicating the specific location at which the data object is stored, and a policy ID identifying a set of data management policies associated with the data object. The policy ID may be associated with the data object by a client of the storage system, for example when the client creates the object, thus allowing 'inline' policy management. An object location subsystem (OLS) can be used to locate an object when a client request does not contain a valid location ID for the object.

Object location service for network-based content repository

A hierarchically tagged cache provides abstraction between access requests for data and the cached data. The cache is managed by hierarchical layers of indexes including reference to the data. Access requests indicate a header for the requested data, which is associated with one of the layers. Cache management determines what layer is associated with the header, and can traverse the indexes, beginning at the layer associated with the header, to access the data. If the header does not exist at the index of that layer, it can be created. Indexes can be appropriately updated with indexes at each layer being referenced by one or more indexes of the layer higher up in the hierarchy.

Hierarchically tagged cache

A data storage system includes a processor, a system memory, and logical extents. Blocks of storage in one or more physical storage devices are allocated to each of the logical extents. The processor maintains a logical container for data objects and the volume includes one or more of the logical extents. The processor stores data objects that are uniquely identified by object identifiers in the logical extents. The processor also maintains a first index that is stored in the system memory and maps a range of the object identifiers to a second index. The second index is also stored in a logical extent and indicates storage locations of the data objects associated with the range of the object identifiers.

Efficient data object storage and retrieval

Example embodiments provide various techniques for fast and efficient search of attributes stored in data structures. The attributes are organized following a hierarchical structure of the file system and, in an example, the attributes are stored in a data structure where the hierarchical structure is maintained. As a result, a search within such data structure may follow one or more paths along the hierarchical structure of the file system. Attributes associated with directories and files outside of the path can be excluded from the search. Example embodiments also provide various techniques for updating signatures associated with the attributes. In an example, updates to the signatures can be made incrementally. For example, signatures can be updated when the attributes change.

Search and update of attributes in file systems

Embodiments of the present invention provide mechanisms that overcome limitations of existing indexes by creating two-dimensional (2D) spatial indexes to quickly locate data containers that match two or more predicates. This is accomplished by representing metadata attributes describing a data container as dimensions in a 2D space so that a data container can be expressed as a point or a cell in a 2D space with coordinates being a pair of values of the selected attributes. A space filling curve is used to traverse the 2D space and convert each pair of the 2D coordinates to a single space filling curve value. A 2D spatial index is then created based on the computed space filling curve values so that one value can be associated with one or more points (data containers) in the index. Advantageously, the created spatial index provides for searching and processing fewer metadata entries, thereby decreasing the time typically used to search for data.

Two-dimensional indexes for quick multiple attribute search in a catalog system

A method is disclosed for executing a predetermined query plan, the method comprising: executing a portion of the query plan; providing a reordered query plan; comparing ranking metrics for the query plans; and executing the query plan having the lower ranking metric.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Minglong Shao