Emc IP Holding Company LLC

Emc Corporation

Dell Products Inc.

Walter Forrester

Jean-Pierre Bono

Miles Aram De Forest

Philippe Armangau

Himabindu Tummala

Frederic Corniquet

Michal Marko

William C Davenport

Ahsan Rashid

Ivan Bassov

Karl M Owen

Ye Zhang

Alexander S Mathews

Morgan A Clark

David Haase

Paul Thomas McGrath

Ivan Basov

Vasudevan Subramanian

Michael C Brundage

Xianlong Liu

Ruiling Dou

Yaming Kuang

Kumari Bijayalaxmi Nanda

Yunfei Chen

Banghui Luo

Xiangping Chen

Jun Hui Liu

Feng Zhang

Sudhir Srinivasan

Rohit K Chawla

Marc A De Souter

Sitaram D Pawar

Jun Guo

Yingchao Zhou

Somnath A Gulve

Yuanyang Wu

Samuel L Mullis, Ii

Marc DeSouter

Soumyadeep Sen

Pranit Sethi

Michael Scheer

Jia Zhai

Marshall Hansi Wu

Kumar Kanteti

Changyong Yu

Ravi Venkata Batchu

Xiaohua Fan

Piers Yu

Christian J Chuba

Yuetao Jiang

Frankie Wei Fang

Christopher H E Stacey

Jerald W Gross

James P Ferrigno

Jeffrey A Monin

A method, computer program product, and computing system for processing a plurality of operations on a storage object within a file storage system at a file level. The plurality of operations are monitored for at least a threshold number of file modification operations within the file storage system. In response to monitoring the at least a threshold number of file modification operations within the file storage system, file modification information associated with the at least a threshold number of file modification operations is provided to a block level of the file storage system. A potential ransomware attack on the file storage system is identified, at the block level, based upon, at least in part, the file modification information provided from the file level.

System and method for software-defined network attached storage (SDNAS) ransomware attack detection and prevention

A method, computer program product, and computer system for receiving, by a computing device, a write request, wherein the write request may be received by a file system of the computing device. Data associated with the write request may be stored in a cache of the file system and a cache of a block storage system corresponding to the file system. A tag associated with the data in the cache of the block storage system may be received by the block storage system. The data in the cache of the block storage system may be freed after flushing the data to persistent storage based upon, at least in part, the tag associated with the data in the cache of the block storage system. As a result, there is optimization for the read path due to no double caching in the block cache.

Systems and methods for cooperative caching between file systems and block storage

Technology described herein can perform deletion of a snapshot or portion thereof. In an embodiment, a system can comprise a processor and a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations. The operations can comprise, to delete a snapshot, or a portion of a snapshot, of a real filesystem, reading an inode mapping file (IMF) of the snapshot that indexes a virtual inode number (VIN) corresponding to a real inode. The operations further can comprise identifying the real inode of the snapshot referenced by the VIN, identifying a file object corresponding to the real inode, and deleting the file object from the snapshot.

Deletion of snapshot of filesystem

A technique for managing storage space includes establishing an MSR (minimum space reservation) of a thin file system built upon a storage pool. In response to a set of storage requests to the file system to store new data, the method further includes obtaining an additional space guarantee from the storage pool. After deleting data from the file system such that the size of the file system falls below the MSR, the technique further includes performing a space reclaim operation, the space reclaim operation (i) compacting the file system to a size less than the MSR, (ii) canceling the additional space guarantee such that the storage pool no longer guarantees the additional space for the file system, and (iii) continuing to reserve the full MSR of the file system, even though the size of the file system is smaller than the MSR.

Enforcing minimum space guarantees in thinly-provisioned file systems

Techniques for scavenging blocks may include: determining, in accordance with a selected option, a set of candidate upper deck file systems, wherein at least a first of the candidate upper deck file systems has storage allocated from at least one block of a lower deck file system; and performing, in accordance with the selected option, scavenging of the set of candidate upper deck file systems to attempt to free blocks of the lower deck file system. Scavenging may include issuing a request to perform hole punching of a backed free block of the first candidate upper deck file system, wherein the backed free block has first provisioned storage that is associated with a block of the lower deck file system. The selected option may be one of multiple options each specifying a different candidate set of upper deck file systems upon which hole punching is performed when selected.

Techniques for scavenging of free provisioned blocks

Techniques for limiting storage consumed by a file system without shrinking a volume upon which the file system is deployed. The techniques are employed in a clustered environment including multiple NAS nodes, each having access to block storage including multiple storage devices. By deploying the file system on a volume of a NAS node within the clustered environment, setting the value of the FS user size to be equal to the FS volume size, and if, at a later time, it is desired to reduce the file system size, setting the value of the FS user size to a lesser value than the FS volume size, IO requests received at the NAS node can be satisfied within the logical limit of the lesser value of the FS user size without shrinking the local volume, allowing the file system size to be reduced without requiring close coordination with the block storage.

Techniques for limiting the maximum storage consumed by a file system without shrinking an underlying volume

An apparatus in one embodiment comprises a storage system having at least first and second storage tiers each comprising a plurality of storage devices. The first storage tier implements a file system having a user visible name space and a corresponding hidden data store. The second storage tier implements a cloud-based object store. The storage system is configured to controllably relocate files from the hidden data store of the file system of the first storage tier to the cloud-based object store of the second storage tier. In conjunction with the relocation of a given one of the files, the given file is replaced in the hidden data store with a corresponding stub providing user access via the user visible name space to an object comprising the given file in the cloud-based object store of the second storage tier. The controllable relocation is illustratively performed in accordance with one or more configured policies.

Multi-tier storage system with controllable relocation of files from file system tier to cloud-based object storage tier

A technique for managing storage space in a data storage system generates liability values on a per-family basis, with each family including files in the file system that are related to one another by snapping. Each family thus groups together files in the file system that generally share at least some blocks among one another based on snapshot activities. Distinct files that do not share blocks based on snapping are provided in separate families. The technique further generates worst-case storage liability of a version family by differentiating between writable data objects and read-only data objects, thus allowing administrators to provide spare storage and/or prepare for increases in storage requirements as writable data objects grow and differentiate.

Managing storage capacity in version families having both writable and read-only data objects

A method is used in managing migration of virtual file servers. The method migrates a virtual file server from a source storage processor to a destination storage processor in a storage system. The storage system includes the source and the destination storage processors. The virtual file server comprises a root file system, a configuration file system, and a set of user file systems. The method enables concurrent access to the root file system from both source and destination storage processors during the migration until the set of user file systems is migrated from the source storage processor to the destination storage processor.

Managing migration of virtual file servers

Techniques for improving storage efficiency of a data storage system are provided. The techniques include (a) performing a testing operation to evaluate whether a test condition is satisfied for a filesystem having a plurality of subspaces, each subspace being provisioned with a respective amount of storage, each subspace of the filesystem being dedicated to storing different respective types of filesystem content, wherein the test condition indicates that a first subspace has available space in excess of a threshold percentage, (b) in response to determining that the test condition is satisfied for the filesystem, performing a reduction operation on the first subspace to remove a portion of storage provisioned to that subspace while retaining the removed portion for use by the filesystem, and (c) upon a second subspace reaching a fullness threshold, provisioning the removed portion to the second subspace and storing content of the respective type of the second subspace thereon.

Techniques for rebalancing storage between subspaces

A technique for managing storage space in a data storage system implements data objects in respective files. In response to an instruction to convert a set of such files from thin to thick or from thick to thin, the data storage system checks whether it has enough available storage space to accommodate the set of files if conversion were to proceed. If so, conversion is performed, and each of the set of files is converted from thin to thick or from thick to thin, in accordance with the instruction.

Converting files between thinly and thickly provisioned states

A method, computer program product, and computer system for receiving, at a computing device, an I/O request directed to a compressed data portion of a storage system. It may be determined whether the I/O request includes one of a first portion of information and a second portion of information. An address of the compressed data portion may be obtained via downward mapping if the I/O request includes the first portion of information. The address of the compressed data portion may be obtained via upward mapping if the I/O request includes the second portion of information. The I/O request may be executed at the compressed data portion.

Mapping between volume data block and file data block system and method

Methods and apparatus are provided for reporting space savings due to data reduction in storage systems. An exemplary method comprises establishing a leaf pointer for a plurality of allocation units of data in a storage system; for at least a first allocation unit of data matching a second allocation unit of data, replacing the leaf pointer for the first allocation unit with a deduplication pointer to the leaf pointer of the second allocation unit; determining a total number of pointers as a sum of a number of the leaf pointers and a number of the deduplication pointers; determining a difference between the total number of pointers and the number of leaf pointers; and providing a data reduction attributed to deduplication based on the difference. The allocation units of data are optionally also compressed. Data reduction attributed to the compression can optionally be determined independent of the data reduction attributed to the deduplication.

Data reduction reporting in storage systems

A technique for facilitating file system operations in a data storage system provides multiple version family databases. Each version family database identifies members of a respective version family, i.e., a respective set of files in a file system that are related by file snapping. When a snap of a file is created, the file system updates a version family database for the version family that includes the file, such that the version family database identifies both the file and the snap.

Tracking version families in a file system

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Berkeley Heights, NJ, United States of America

Walter Forrester