Netapp, Inc.

Stephen Michael Byan

James F Lentini

Michael Neil Condict

Anshul Madan

Keith Arnold Smith

Jiri Schindler

Christopher Small

Peter Macko

William Karl Jannen

One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for performing host side deduplication. Host side deduplication may be performed upon writeable data within a write request received at a host computing device configured to access data stored by a storage server. The host side deduplication may be performed at the host computing device to determine whether the writeable data is already stored by the storage server based upon querying a host side cache comprising data stored by a storage server and/or a data structure comprising unique signatures of data stored by the storage server. If the writeable data is stored by the storage server, then a deduplication notification excluding the writeable data may be sent to the storage server, otherwise a write command comprising the writeable data may be sent. Accordingly, unnecessary network traffic of redundant data already stored by the storage server may be reduced.

Host side deduplication

A write request is received to write a data block having a logical block address to a nonvolatile storage device. The method includes writing a value of the data block to the nonvolatile storage device. The writing includes locating a position in a tree-based data structure that includes first and second nodes. The first node is configured to store a first set of data blocks having logical block addresses in a first numerical range, and the second node is configured to store a second set of data blocks having logical block addresses in a second numerical range. The position is located in the first node or the second node depending on the value of the logical block address. The writing includes storing the value of the data block in the position in the tree-based data structure.

Using a tree-based data structure to map logical addresses to physical addresses on a storage device

Systems and methods for efficiently using solid-state devices are provided. Some embodiments provide for a data processing system that uses a non-volatile solid-state device as a circular log, with the goal of aligning data access patterns to the underlying, hidden device implementation, in order to maximize performance. In addition, metadata can be interspersed with data in order to align data access patterns to the underlying device implementation. Multiple input/output (I/O) buffers can also be used to pipeline insertions of metadata and data into a linear log. The observed queuing behavior of the multiple I/O buffers can be used to determine when the utilization of the storage device is approaching saturation (e.g., in order to predict excessively-long response times). Then, the I/O load on the storage device may be shed when utilization approaches saturation. As a result, the overall response time of the system is improved.

Specializing I/O access patterns for flash storage

Systems and methods herein obtain snapshots of one or more applications, while having minimal impact on performance of the applications. Embodiments may involve obtaining snapshots of modified application data within a node without disturbing the operations of the application. Systems may be configured to leverage the fast characteristics of local storage devices while utilizing the advantages provided by the remote storage of data. One or more applications may be preconfigured to record data modifications in one or more associated application state storages located on local memory. Further, one or more systems may operate in the background to identify modifications made to the associated application state storages and to determine an appropriate moment to take one or more snapshots of the stored data and transfer the one or more snapshots to one or more remote locations to be stored. Several factors may be used to determine when an appropriate moment has occurred.

Systems and methods for providing snapshots of applications to remote locations with minimal performance impact

Described herein is a storage system having hierarchical levels of storage functions. The storage system may comprise one or more hierarchical levels, each hierarchical level comprising a server pool of one or more physical servers. Each hierarchical level may be assigned to perform a particular set of storage functions. Each physical server may implement one or more VMs, each VM executing a storage operating system that provides an overall set of storage functions. Each VM is configured to perform only the set of storage functions assigned to the hierarchical level on which the VM executes. The set of storage functions assigned to a VM may comprise a sub-set of the overall storage functions of the storage operating system. In some embodiments, VMs of a first hierarchical level provide storage transaction functions and VMs of a second hierarchical level provide storage access functions.

Storage system providing hierarchical levels of storage functions using virtual machines

Described herein is a high-availability storage system having hierarchical levels of storage functions. The storage system may comprise one or more hierarchical levels, each hierarchical level comprising physical servers and be assigned to perform a particular set of storage functions. Each physical server may implement one or more VMs configured to perform only the set of storage functions assigned to the hierarchical level on which the VM executes. VMs of a first hierarchical level may be configured to organize the VMs of a second hierarchical level into a redundant array of storage access servers for providing data reliability and high-availability of the storage system. VMs of a first hierarchical level are configured to produce and route sub-requests to the VMs of a second hierarchical level. Failure of a sub-request is detected and remedied by a VM of the first hierarchical level.

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Littleton, MA, United States of America

Stephen Michael Byan