Netapp, Inc.

Veritas Operating Corporation

Rahul Khona

Craig Harmer

Sandeep Yadav

Dnyaneshwar Nagorao Pawar

Aalop Suresh Shah

Amber M Palekar

Cindy Zheng

Subramaniam Periyagaram

Subramanian Periyagaram

Provided is a method and system for reducing duplicate buffers in buffer cache associated with a storage device. Reducing buffer duplication in a buffer cache includes accessing a file reference pointer associated with a file in a deduplicated filesystem when attempting to load a requested data block from the file into the buffer cache. To determine if the requested data block is already in the buffer cache, aspects of the invention compare a fingerprint that identifies the requested data block against one or more fingerprints identifying a corresponding one or more sharable data blocks in the buffer cache. A match between the fingerprint of the requested data block and the fingerprint from a sharable data block in the buffer cache indicates that the requested data block is already loaded in buffer cache. The sharable data block in buffer cache is used instead thereby reducing buffer duplication in the buffer cache.

Single instance buffer cache method and system

A method and system for estimating space in a compressed volume to enable a storage server to respond to write requests before actually compressing and/or allocating data on disk. In some embodiments, in response to receiving a request to store data, the storage server estimates the amount of storage space required to store the data on disk. The storage server compares the estimated amount with the amount of available disk space. When the amount of available disk space is less than the estimated space, the storage server sends a response indicating that the request failed. Otherwise, when the amount of available disk space is greater than or equal to the estimate space, the storage server sends a response indicating that the request succeeded. The response is sent before the storage server allocates any disk space in connection with the request.

Estimating space in a compressed volume

Described are methods and apparatus for reducing latency of read and write requests for a set of storage system sites having a shared data set. An owner site may directly write to the shared data set and contains current data regarding the shared data set. The remote sites may experience substantial latency when accessing the shared data set stored at the owner site. Synchronizing and caching methods may reduce overall read latency experienced at remote sites by periodically transmitting images of the shared data set to the remote sites. Also, a migration method may be used to change ownership of the shared data set from a current owner site (that may be receiving a relatively low number of read/write requests) to a new owner site (that may be receiving a relatively high number of read/write requests) to reduce the overall read and write latency experienced in the sites.

Reducing latency of access requests in distributed storage systems having a shared data set

A method may involve assigning each of a plurality of freelists and a plurality of hashlists used to implement a cache to one of a plurality of lock groups and acquiring one of a plurality of locks. Objects on each freelist and hashlist that are assigned to the same lock group are allocated from the same one of a plurality of memory allocation pools. Each lock group is associated with a respective one of the plurality of locks. Acquiring the lock locks a freelist and several hashlists included in an associated lock group of the plurality of lock groups.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Rahul Khona