International Business Machines Corporation

Robert Michael Rees

Wayne Curtis Hineman

Steven Robert Hetzler

Randal Chilton Burns

Rajagopal Ananthanarayanan

Darrell D E Long

Mario Blaum

Pin Zhou

Veera W Deenadhayalan

Luis Felipe Cabrera

Atul Goel

Bernhard Julius Klingenberg

Michael Allen Kaczmarski

Ralph Attila Becker-Szendy

Dinesh C Verma

Ramani Ranjan Routray

Jarir Kamel Chaar

Venkateswararao Jujjuri

Craig Fulmer Everhart

Gary Miles McClelland

Jason Christopher Young

Thomas K Clark

Radha P Ratnaparkhi

Zhenxing Han

David Macnaughton Wolfe

Carmen P Allen

David Maxwell Cannon

Roger C Raphael

Paul Henri Muench

Inderpal Singh Narang

John Stewart Best

Anurag Sharma

D Scott Guthridge

Umesh Deshpande

Bruce Light Hillsberg

Thanh Tan Pham

Rajamohan Gandhasri

Paul Lawrence Bradshaw

James J Seeger

Jujjuri Venkateswararao

Ramakrishna Dwivedula

Henry Robert Coy

Chiehshow Chin

Leon Daniel Baranovsky

An embodiment for a method of cost-aware tiering for data storage. The embodiment may detect data to be stored in one or more storage systems and gathering access and usage information. The embodiment may maintain a first data structure including periods of activity below a defined threshold for the detected data, and a common data structure to identify and track application-wide data patterns. The embodiment may gather static pricing information and context pricing information for the one or more storage systems and calculate a tiering threshold corresponding to a continuous period of activity below a second defined threshold required for which local storage costs exceed a tiering cost. The embodiment may calculate for inactive data segments, probabilities of the inactive data segments remaining inactive for a duration that exceeds the calculated tiering threshold. The embodiment may calculate a risk score and generate a tiering list for storing the data.

Cost-aware tiering for data storage

According to one embodiment, a computer-implemented method includes receiving an object to be stored within a storage library, computing a hash value, utilizing the object, determining a storage location within the storage library to store the hash value, and sending the hash value to the storage location and neighbor locations of the storage location within the storage library.

Hash protection within an object storage library

A computer-implemented method according to one embodiment includes initiating a read-modify-write (RMW) operation; assigning the RMW operation to a thread; identifying a storage device associated with the RMW operation; assign a log block within the storage device to the thread; determining a free shadow block location within the storage device; creating a copy of data to be written to the storage device during the RMW operation; writing the copy of the data to the free shadow block location within the storage device; updating the log block within the storage device to point to the free shadow block location to which the copy of the data is written; and writing the data to one or more blocks of a home area of the storage device.

Optimizing read-modify-write operations to a storage device by writing a copy of the write data to a shadow block

One embodiment provides a method comprising maintaining, on a storage unit, mapping data between a first set of logical addresses (e.g., logical block addresses or LBAs) viewed by a host and a first set of physical addresses (e.g., physical block addresses or PBAs) and a second set of physical addresses of the storage unit. A first logical address (e.g., LBA) of the first set of logical addresses corresponds to a first physical address (e.g., PBA) of the first set of physical addresses that maintains current data for the first logical address. The first logical address further corresponds to a second physical address (e.g., PBA) of the second set of physical addresses that maintains prior data for the first logical address. The method further comprises receiving, at the storage unit, a command from the host to perform a multi-device operation involving the first logical address. The operation is performed atomically.

Host aware update write

A backup and archival policy method, system, and non-transitory computer readable medium, includes performing correlation analytics to determine identification of a backup policy aligned with a criticality of operational data and backup data including identifying low value backup data having a value less than a predetermined low value threshold, creating a one-time archival of the operational data and the backup data including the low value backup data, and removing the low value backup data from a future data protection policy.

System, method, and recording medium for alignment of backup and archival policy

A controller including an object aggregator process that combines multiple data objects into a data segment, and transfers the data segment with reduced location metadata to storage media of at least one of multiple storage units. An erasure coder process generates code to encode the data segment into an erasure code that protects against concurrent data loss in the multiple storage units based on data reconstruction using a first responder, a second responder and a last responder.

High performance optical storage system for protection against concurrent data loss

A backup and archival policy method, system, and non-transitory computer readable medium, includes harnessing of metrics of data classification including both operational data and backup data from an end-to-end stack from a backup Information Lifecycle Governance (ILM) viewpoint.

A data storage structure, comprising: a plurality of storage units, each comprising: a storage media; and a library executive configured to manage the storage media. The structure further comprises a buffer connected to a controller, the controller comprising: a host interface configured to receive the instruction from the host machine; an object aggregator configured to combine the plurality of data objects into a data segment; a persistent write buffer configured to store the data segment; a persistent map configured to identify a location of each of the plurality of objects in the data segment; an erasure coder configured to encode the data segment into an erasure code; a destager configured to transfer the data segment from the persistent write buffer to the storage media in a given storage unit; and a library controller configured to communicate with the library executive in the given storage unit.

A computer-implemented method includes receiving a request for data; determining whether the data is stored in a linear storage media tier and/or in a second storage tier having higher performance than the linear storage media tier. The linear storage media tier includes: reels having linear media thereon, a rest area for storing the reels when not in use, linear media drive(s) configured for reading and/or writing the linear media, and mobile robot(s) for transporting the linear storage media between the rest area and the linear media drive(s). The method also includes instructing the mobile robot to transport one of the reels having the data thereon to one of the linear media drives in the linear storage media tier when the data is stored in the linear storage media tier; receiving the data from the one of the linear media drives; and sending the data.

High density hybrid storage system

Embodiments of the invention relate to receiving a write request that includes a write data and an address of a target block in tertiary storage. In response to the write request, a write-miss is detected at a cache located in persistent storage. Based on detecting the write-miss, the write data and associated metadata are written to a fast write storage location and the write request is marked as complete. In addition, the target block is retrieved from the address in the tertiary storage and stored in the cache. Contents of the fast write storage location are merged with the contents of the target block in the cache.

Fast write and management of persistent cache in a system that includes tertiary storage

Embodiments relate to a computer system for storing data on a time multiplexed redundant array of independent tapes. An aspect includes a memory device that buffers data received by the computer system to be written to a set of tape data storage devices. The data is written to the set of tape data storage devices in blocks that form parity stripes across the set of tape data storage device. Aspects further includes a tape drive that writes data to one of the set of tape data storage devices at a time in a tape-sequential manner and a processor that computes a parity value for each of the parity stripes. The tape drive writes the parity values for each of the parity stripes to a last subset of tapes of the set of tape data storage devices.

Time multiplexed redundant array of independent tapes

Embodiments of the invention provide parity logs for raid systems with variable-capacity media. In one embodiment, a system includes a first set of data storage media devices having variable capacity. The storage devices include a data portion of a parity data set for storing write data being striped to the first. The system further includes a second set of data storage media devices having variable capacity. The second set includes a linear address space of blocks for storing a parity portion of the parity data set. The linear address space is written in a log form. The first and second sets comprise at least one array in a RAID configuration. The system writes the parity portion of the parity data set to the second set, which enables each storage device among the first set to be written to full capacity.

Parity logs for RAID systems with variable capacity media

Embodiments of the invention relate to cache management of sequential write storage. Cache states of cache blocks in cache storage are tracked. The tracking incudes creating a migration candidate list that organizes the cache blocks into virtual volumes. Based on determining that a cache migration threshold has been reached, at least a subset of the cache blocks are selected from the migration candidate list for migration. The selected cache blocks are ordered into a sequential order based on the migration candidate list. At least a subset of the selected cache blocks are migrated in the sequential order, the migrating including writing contents of the selected cache blocks to the sequential write storage.

Using a migration threshold and a candidate list for cache management of sequential write storage

A system includes a linear storage media tier; a second storage tier having higher performance than the linear storage media tier; a data controller for moving data between the tiers; and a host interface responsive to disk and/or network storage commands. The linear storage media tier includes: a rest area for storing reels having linear media thereon, at least one linear media drive configured for reading and/or writing the linear media, and at least one robot for transporting the linear storage media between the rest area and the at least one linear media drive. The robot moves along a first surface via contact with the surface. A system according to another embodiment includes a linear storage media tier characterized by having a read access time to any block of data stored on any reel in the rest area in less than 10 seconds.

Access to objects of a computing environment is managed. Access to an object of the computing environment is prohibited via one cached entity corresponding to the object, while access to the object is allowed via another cached entity. The cached entities are concurrently maintained for a period of time, but the one cached entity is in a shadow state. In one example, the cached entities are session locks and the object is a file system object.

Growing community of inventors

Los Gatos, CA, United States of America

Robert Michael Rees