International Business Machines Corporation

Future Wei Technologies, Inc.

Tibco Software Inc.

Stephen P Morgan

Todd A Smith

Masood Mortazavi

Marion Lee Blount

Donavon W Johnson

Chi Young Ku

Katalin A Rader

Lance Warren Russell

Guangyu Shi

Windsor Wee Sun Hsu

Benjamin Clay Reed

Honesty Cheng Young

Larry W Henson

Edward Gustav Chron

Robert K Rader

Frederick Douglis

Ying Chen

John David Irish

Stephen Lee Manley

Shauchi Ong

John Thomas O'Quin, Ii

Marc Alan Auslander

Mark F Mergen

Albert Y Chang

Amal A Shaheen-Gouda

John C O'Quin, Iii

Peter John Nicklin

Michael D Varga

Anthony Cocchi

Frank Michael Pittelli

Achyutram Bhamidipaty

Shaheen-Gouda

Tim Harnett

Abinas Tewari

Jean-Francois Roy

A method comprising receiving a plurality of data records, storing the data records as data segments in a storage element, receiving a plurality of descriptors for each data segment, wherein each descriptor describes an aspect of data contained in the data segments, employing a first user-defined function to resolve a first minimum descriptor for each data segment and a first maximum descriptor for each data segment, composing a lightweight index for the data segments, wherein the lightweight index comprises the first minimum descriptor for each data segment and the first maximum descriptor for each data segment, and appending the lightweight index to the data segments in the storage element.

Serialization scheme for storing data and lightweight indices on devices with append-only bands

A method implemented by a network element (NE) in a network, comprising composing a first network storage entity by mapping a plurality of logical storage units to a plurality of physical storage units in a physical storage system according to a first storage metric associated with the plurality of physical storage units, arranging the plurality of logical storage units sequentially to form a logical circular buffer, and designating a current logical storage unit for writing data and an upcoming logical storage unit for writing data after the current storage unit is fully written, and rebalancing the physical storage system while the physical storage system is actively performing network storage operations by relocating at least one of the logical storage units to a different physical storage unit according to a second storage metric associated with the plurality of physical storage units.

Rebalancing and elastic storage scheme with elastic named distributed circular buffers

A method comprising receiving one or more data storage specifications from a tenant, determining that a plurality of physical storage units in a physical storage system comprises a sufficient system capacity to provision data storage for the tenant, sending a storage request message to request creation of a network storage entity for the tenant according to the data storage specifications, and receiving a storage response message indicating a first of a plurality of logical storage units allocated to the network storage entity according to the data storage specifications, wherein the plurality of logical storage units are distributed across the plurality of physical storage units, and wherein the plurality of logical storage units are arranged in a sequential order to form a logical circular buffer.

Large-scale storage and retrieval of data with well-bounded life

A shingled magnetic recording (SMR) append-only file system includes a disk comprising a plurality of concentric append-only shingled data bands having partially overlapping data tracks, wherein the data bands are associated with a circular linked list having a head data band and a tail data band, the head data band and the tail data band each comprising a plurality of data blocks. The system also includes a processor configured to write data blocks to the disk, and create a new file wherein an empty data band of the plurality of data bands is removed from the circular linked list and added to a single linked list of the new file.

SMR-aware append-only file system

A mechanism is provided that aggregates data in a way that permits data to be deleted efficiently, while minimizing the overhead necessary to support bulk deletion of data. A request is received for automatic deletion of segments in a container and a waterline is determined for the container. A determination is made if at least one segment in the container falls below the waterline. Finally, in response to one segment falling below the waterline, the segment from the container is deleted. Each object has an associated creation time, initial retention value, and retention decay curve (also known as a retention curve). At any point, based on these values and the current time, the object's current retention value may be computed. The container system continually maintains a time-varying waterline: at any point, objects with a retention value below the waterline may be deleted.

Bulk deletion through segmented files

Methods, program products, and systems implementing dynamic parsing rules are disclosed. Log data from a variety of log producers can be parsed using parsing rules to generate information about an information system. The parsing rules can include system parsing rules and custom parsing rules. A state machine can be used to detect conflicts between various parsing rules. A central server can distribute the system parsing rules and custom parsing rules to one or more remote servers for distributed processing. In a hierarchical parsing system, a first tier parser can be used to identify types of sources generating the log data. Log data from each type of log source can be sent to a second tier parser that corresponds to the type of log source.

Dynamic parsing rules

A system and method for using a conventional, unmodified operating system that routinely issues disk I/O requests in a diskless network computer. An adapter receives the disk I/O requests and translates them to network I/O requests, transparently to the CPU. The requests are satisfied using the network. In this way, the operating system need not be modified to issue network calls instead of disk requests.

System and method to use unmodified operating system on diskless computer

A system for authentication to support secure data transfer includes a protocol wherein a certificate payload, an ID payload, and a signature payload all respectively contain at least two certificates, IDs, and signatures, concatenated together. The certificates are generated by different certificate authorities (CA) that have no trust relationship with each other. One certificate can be granted to a person and another to a particular host computer intended to be used by the person, so that for secure data transfer to take place, both a certified user and a certified host computer must be involved.

Internet authentication with multiple independent certificate authorities

Surfboard

A multi-stage login procedure and system involves a first stage in which a login ID and a public key (encrypted) is transmitted from a client computer to a server computer and a key-exchange key (encrypted) is provided from the server computer to the client computer. In a second stage, a first split symmetric key and a server authentication string is generated and encrypted by the client computer and then transmitted to the server computer. In addition, the server computer generates a second split symmetric key and combines the same with the first split symmetric key to obtain a complete symmetric key for encrypting further communications from the server to the client computer. The server also generates a client authentication string, encrypts the same and transmits the encrypted string, the server authentication string (encrypted and incremented) and the second split symmetric key (encrypted) to the client computer. In a third stage, the client computer uses the server authentication string to authenticate the server. In addition, the client computer combines the second split symmetric key with the first split symmetric key to obtain the complete symmetric key for encrypting further communications from the client computer to the server computer. The client computer also decrypts, increments and encrypts the client authentication string and transmits the same to the server. The server then uses the client authentication string (after decryption and decrementation) to authenticate the client computer. Thereafter, the server provides the client computer with a first split symmetric persistent storage key (encrypted), which the client computer combines (after decryption) with a one-way hash value to obtain a persistent storage key for use by the client computer to communication information to and from persistent storage.

Security method and system for persistent storage and communications on computer network systems and computer network systems employing the same

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 system for ensuring high reliability in a block service disk array system while promoting high performance by logically writing all changes to strides on the array while physically writing ahead to a log only a subset of the changes. Specifically, for changes of only a strip or so, the changes are written to a log, along with a commit record, and then written to disk, later deleting the changes from the log. In contrast, for relatively larger changes, i.e., for an entire (or nearly entire) stride, the old stride is not overwritten by the new, but rather is written to a new location on the disk, with the new and old locations and a commit record (but not the new stride itself) being logged and with the entries for the locations in the stride mapping table swapped with each other. In an alternate embodiment, blocks can be written to temporary locations in a RAID-1 area and lazily moved to home locations in a RAID-5 area of an array of disks.

High reliability, high performance disk array storage system

A process is described in which a user enters ID and password information at a network client computer terminal. This information is combined with an asymmetric key stored in a persistent storage directly accessible to the client's computer terminal. This 'combined' information is communicated through a communication network to one or more server computers for authentication of the client. A similar identification and authentication process may be used to authenticate the server computer. Upon authentication of the client, the server provides the client computer with three symmetric keys, in encrypted format. The first key is for encrypting and decrypting persistent information associated with the client computer's control program. The second key is used to encrypt and decrypt persistent information associated with the login ID. The third key is used to encrypt and decrypt communication between the client computer and the server computer.

Security method and system for persistent storage and communications on

A distributed data processing system and method in which locks on a file are supported by a data structure that resides on either a client machine or on the file's server. When only a single client's processes are locking a file, the data structure can reside on that client. Whenever a plurality of client machines attempt to place locks on a file, the data structure is moved to the server; this forces the clients locking the file to communicate with the server when performing lock operations. When a client requests a lock from the server that cannot be granted because of an existing blocking lock, the client is informed that it should put the requesting process asleep awaiting a retry notification. When there is a change in the locks on the file that might allow such a client's now sleeping process to acquire the lock, the server sends a retry notice to the client. This awakens the sleeping process at the client, and the process then reattempts the lock operation by sending a message to the server.

File lock management in a distributed data processing system

Growing community of inventors

Mahopac, NY, United States of America

Stephen P Morgan