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:
Jan. 17, 2012
Filed:
Aug. 04, 2008
John K. Edwards, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Blake H. Lewis, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Robert M. English, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Eric Hamilton, Durham, NC (US);
Peter F. Corbett, Lexington, MA (US);
John K. Edwards, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Blake H. Lewis, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Robert M. English, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Eric Hamilton, Durham, NC (US);
Peter F. Corbett, Lexington, MA (US);
NetApp, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
An underlying physical volume of a storage system is an aggregate having a plurality of storage devices. The aggregate has its own physical volume block number (pvbn) space. A file system layout apportions the underlying physical volume into a plurality of virtual volumes of the storage system each having a virtual volume identification (vvid). Each virtual volume has its own virtual volume block number (vvbn) space. The block allocation structures of a virtual volume are sized to the virtual volume, and not to the underlying aggregate, to thereby allow operations that manage data served by the storage system (e.g., snapshot operations) to efficiently work over the virtual volumes. Each storage block in a virtual volume is identified by the triplet: pvbn, vvid, and vvbn.