International Business Machines Corporation

Shauchi Ong

Windsor Wee Sun Hsu

James Franklin Macon, Jr

Feng-Hsien W Shih

Michael Anthony Ko

Honesty Cheng Young

Lan Huang

Stephen P Morgan

Thomas Basilio Genduso

John Davis Palmer

Feng-Hsien Shih

Limin Hu

According to the present invention, there is provided a system for securing data with a storage system. The system includes at least one storage device. In addition, the system includes a security mechanism for recognizing an attempt to insert or remove the storage device. Moreover, the system includes a management unit to control the insertion and removal of the storage device.

System and method for securing data within a storage system

According to the present invention, there is provided a method of providing a WORM storage system, the method including a sector-append capability. The method includes receiving data to be written to a WORM storage system. In addition, the method includes identifying a target sector at which the data is to be written. Also, the method includes determining if the received data can be added to the target sector. Moreover, the method includes adding the received data to the target sector if it is determined that the received data can be added to the target sector.

System and method for enabling efficient small writes to worm	 storage

A method to manage objects in an information lifecycle management system is provided. The method includes determining a score for each of the objects based on a score of at least one feature within respective ones of each of the objects where the score of the at least one feature being associated with a valuation of the at least one feature. The method also includes managing each of the objects based on the score for each of the objects wherein higher scored objects are managed preferentially.

System and method for content-based object ranking to facilitate information lifecycle management

System and method for enabling efficient small writes to WORM storage

The disclosure provides a method for ensuring that data stored on rewritable storage is immutable. The method includes initializing selected user-addressable blocks of storage to a writable state. In addition, the method includes accepting data to be stored in specified user-addressable blocks. Also, the method includes determining if the specified block(s) is writable. Also, the method includes storing the accepted data to the rewritable storage. Moreover, the method includes setting the state of the specified block(s) to non-writable. Each user-addressable block of storage is mapped to at least one block of rewritable storage and initializing selected user-addressable blocks of storage to a writable state includes storing predetermined bit patterns into the corresponding blocks of rewritable storage such that for each selected user-addressable block of storage, the contents of the corresponding blocks of rewritable storage satisfy a predetermined mathematical relationship.

Method for achieving reliable worm storage using WMRM storage

A method for reducing data loss and unavailability by integrating multiple levels of a storage hierarchy is provided. The method includes receiving a read request. In addition, the method includes recognizing a data failure in response to the read request. The method further includes locating an alternate source of the data to be read in response to recognizing the data failure. The alternate source includes data cached at devices in the storage hierarchy, data in a backup system, and cumulative changes to the data since the last backup. Moreover, the method includes responding to the read request with data from the alternate source.

Method for reducing data loss and unavailability by integrating multiple levels of a storage hierarchy

Desired transformations such as compression, encryption and/or encoding are applied to data such that the number of duplicate chunks in the transformed data is increased and the chunks are predominantly of a predetermined size. Additionally, the unique and duplicate chunks of transformed data are identified. A variable-sized window is passed over the set of data to generate a working chunk of transformed data that is of the predetermined size. When the working chunk is a duplicate chunk of data, a next group of untransformed data is selected from the set of data, transformed and then evaluated. When the working chunk is not a duplicate chunk of data, a next group of data is selected by sliding the window over the set of data to generate another working chunk that is evaluated.

System and method for performing compression/encryption on data such that the number of duplicate blocks in the transformed data is increased

A data chunking system divides data into predominantly fixed-sized chunks such that duplicate data may be identified. The data chunking system may be used to reduce the data storage and save network bandwidth by allowing storage or transmission of primarily unique data chunks. The system may also be used to increase reliability in data storage and network transmission, by allowing an error affecting a data chunk to be repaired with an identified duplicate chunk. The data chunking system chunks data by selecting a chunk of fixed size, then moving a window along the data until a match to existing data is found. As the window moves across the data, unique chunks predominantly of fixed size are formed in the data passed over. Several embodiments provide alternate methods of determining whether a selected chunk matches existing data and methods by which the window is moved through the data. To locate duplicate data, the data chunking system remembers data by computing a mathematical function of a data chunk and inserting the computed value into a hash table.

System and method for dividing data into predominantly fixed-sized chunks so that duplicate data chunks may be identified

A system and method of optimizing storage of common data blocks within a networked storage system comprises receiving a data block to be stored in the networked storage system, analyzing contents of the received data block to determine how many copies of the data block the system is entrusted to store and how many copies of the data block existing within the system, and to identify a location of each copy of the data block within the system, identifying performance and reliability requirements of the system, determining an optimal number of copies of the received data block to store in the system, wherein the determination is made according to a number of copies of the data block the system is entrusted to store together with the identified performance and reliability requirements of the system, and maintaining the optimal number of copies of the received data block within the system.

System and method for detecting and sharing common blocks in an object storage system

A computer-implemented method for clustering related data pages in close physical proximity to each other on a magnetic disk drive or other storage device. The method includes identifying relationships between the pages, with the relationships being established not simply by time of page access, but rather by user access patterns. The pages are clustered based on the relationships. To undertake the clustering, the pages and references can be represented and analyzed as respective vertices and edges in edge graphs.

System and method for reorganizing data on a disk drive to improve spatial locality

A hot pluggable system includes an interlock between a component fail detect module and a component lock mechanism, such that the component is locked in place when it operates properly and is automatically released to permit a person to remove the component from the system when the component fails. In this way, the risk of human errors in removing the wrong component is reduced.

Interlock for preventing human error in hot pluggable systems

A file-based Read-ahead method employs asynchronous I/O processes to fetch Demand and Read-ahead data blocks from a disk (4), depending on their physical and logical sequentialities. When a file system (10) issues an I/O address to obtain data blocks from a file, it also determines the disk location of data blocks that are logically consecutive with the demanded data. The number of such data blocks to be determined in this process is accomplished in accordance with a dynamic Read-ahead method. If the data blocks are physically consecutive, a single I/O request is sent to a disk driver to obtain both the Demand data block and to Prefetch the Read-Ahead data block(s). If, instead, the data blocks are found not to be physically consecutive, a plurality of asynchronous disk I/O requests are issued so as to separately obtain the Demand and the Read-Ahead data blocks.

Asynchronous read-ahead disk caching using multiple disk I/O processes

A data placement organization method that reduces the average seek time and the probability of maximum distance seeks of CD-ROM disks by a combination of symmetric structuring, frequency-based data placement, and data replication. The technique for fabricating a CD-ROM, including the data placement organization stage of the present invention includes a first stage wherein the data is designed, authored and prepared on a data processor or personal computer and stored on the hard disk memory. The data is then transferred from the hard disk temporary storage onto tape storage or optical disk storage. The data on the tape storage is then used as input to a CD-ROM mastering stage wherein, based on the content of the tape, holes are burned in a master CD mold which is used to press a large quantity of CDs. A data placement optimization stage is provided between the first processor stage 3 and the tape storage stage. The data placement optimization stage determines the best placement of the data received from the processor stage base on directory frequency statistics, and sends this forward to the tape storage stage so that a CD-ROM can be mastered wherein the seek time for data retrieval and the seek distances that must be travelled on the CD-ROM disc between the retrieval of data on different locations on the disc are minimized. Data replication is also to minimize retrieval distances and time.

Method for the organization of data on a CD-ROM

Lazy Write disk cache systems are often utilized in disk cache designs. In such systems, data to be written to the disk storage system is temporarily placed in cache memory for a preselected period of time until an actual update of the disk occurs. By deferring disk write operations input/output performance efficiency is enhanced. However, in sector-based disk storage systems in which data may only be read from or written to a disk in predetermined fixed amounts an attempted update of data often requires a read of data from the disk storage system to ensure that existing data is not written over during an update. The method and system of the present invention avoids this problem by maintaining a status table for each block of cache memory which includes an identification of each byte within each block of cache memory which will be updated. A required read from the disk storage system is then deferred until an update takes place, or eliminated entirely if all bytes within a cache memory block have been updated.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Shauchi Ong