Emc Corporation

Mingzhou Joe Sun

Yuan Yuan Zhang

Philip C Love

Ming Yang

Ronald Brown

Zhaohui Guo

Dylan Simon

Mario Wurzl

Xie Fen

The present invention enables a storage virtualization system to identify and preserve symlinks stored in a mixed protocol NFS+CIFS NAS system. Using the results of a multi-protocol scan, a storage virtualization system may identify which data objects are symlinks. The storage virtualization system may also determine the symlinks' target path information either by monitoring access or by referring to metadata discovered during the scan. After recording this target path information, the storage virtualization system may provide symlink expansion capabilities separate from the client computer or the NAS system. In addition, this target path information may be preserved upon symlink migration to a second NAS system.

System and method for preserving symbolic links by a storage virtualization system

The present is a system and method for preserving user account security privileges during a migration or re-direction of data from one network attached storage ('NAS') system to another. Certain NAS systems authenticate user accounts using Kerberos Delegation Technology. In addition, some NAS systems feature the ability to constrain delegation to certain services. While effective in limiting access and promoting network security, this constrained delegation restricts the ability of a storage virtualization system to migrate or re-direct data to other NAS systems, especially if the other NAS system resides or is identified by a different domain name. The present invention is a system and method for storing user account credentials that work with the former NAS system, and providing a way to translate these credentials to a new NAS system with a new domain, permitting seamless data migration and re-direction across domains.

Cross domain delegation by a storage virtualization system

A system and method provides for enabling a storage virtualization system to dynamically discover shares on a network attached storage file system is disclosed. Certain network attached storage systems represent user shares using abbreviated symbolic path names rather than full absolute path names. These network attached storage systems can correctly map the abbreviated path address to the actual file location; however, when a storage virtualization system is implemented to manage shares or files in these shares, it cannot access these files because it does not have the absolute path address. An embodiment of the present invention provides software instructions to augment the capabilities of the storage virtualization system, enabling it to map files with abbreviated share names, and therefore provide it with the ability to access these types of network attached storage systems.

System and method for absolute path discovery by a storage virtualization system

The invention is a system and method for ensuring that a storage virtualization system performs as a trusted delegate for a user attempting to access data on an authenticated server. Data is moved from a first server to a second server by a storage virtualization system. Even though the user may have been authenticated to access the first server, the storage virtualization system which re-directs user requests to the migrated data on the second server may not be authenticated. The first time a user is re-directed to the second server, the storage virtualization system will obtain request to act as a trusted delegate for the user by communicating with a third server, such as a Kerberos domain controller. After the storage virtualization system is properly authenticated as a trusted delegate for the user, future re-directed requests will be seamless and transparent to the user.

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Mingzhou Joe Sun