Violin Systems LLC

Innovations in Memory LLC

Violin Memory Inc.

Vikas Ratna

Amit Garg

Timothy Stoakes

A method of managing a memory system is described, the memory system having a processor with a client interface, a buffer memory, and a storage memory. A LUN (logical unit) is exposed to the client, the LUN having a memory size, and QoS specification. When the processor receives a command from the client to write data to the LUN, determining if the QoS specification includes deduplication and: if the QoS does not include deduplication, processing the command by storing the data in the storage memory and creating metadata uniquely referencing a storage location of the data that is written; or if the QoS includes deduplication, determine if deduplication is possible while meeting a latency value as specified in the QoS specification and performing deduplication.

System and method for granular deduplication

Efficient processing of user data read requests in a deduplicated data storage system places the metadata for most frequently requested data in data structures and locations in the system hierarchy where the metadata will be most rapidly available. The total amount of such metadata makes storing all of the metadata in high speed memory expensive, and the system and method described uses both the temporal and the spatial characteristics of the user system activity in any epoch to adjust the contents of metadata cache so as to respond to the dynamics of a multi user or multi-application environment where the storage system is not made aware of the time changing mix of operations except by observation of the individual requests. A history record is used to promote metadata from the slow memory to the fast memory, and a process selection may be adjusted based on the address-space activity.

Caching of metadata for deduplicated luns

A method of managing a server is described where a service performed by a task executing on the server is configured into a plurality of sub-tasks, which may be further configured into a plurality of subsidiary tasks. When a subsidiary task executes, the completion thereof is determined to be either a successful or an unsuccessful completion. The completion status of the ensemble of subsidiary tasks is assessed on each completion of a subsidiary task, and the failure of any subsidiary task to successfully complete is deemed to be a failure to complete of the server task. The failure to complete is reported to the requesting application without waiting for the completion of any pending subsidiary task.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Vikas Ratna