The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 07, 2004
Filed:
Mar. 11, 1999
Robert Chris Hickman, DuVall, WA (US);
Marco A. DeMello, Redmond, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A massively scalable architecture for providing a highly reliable storage system that is capable of handling hundreds of millions of users and tens of billions of files. The system includes one or more clusters storing data elements that are received from a plurality of clients. Each cluster comprises a plurality of storage servers. Each storage server maintains one or more indexes for responding to simple read requests such as retrieving a designated element. According to the invention, the storage system includes one or more database clusters each database cluster having one or more database servers. The storage system accesses the storage clusters in order to reply to simple read requests; however, the database clusters are used to resolve more complex queries that are based on attributes of elements stored within the storage system. In one configuration, the storage system includes a database cluster for each class of applications accessing the storage system.