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:
Jul. 24, 2012
Filed:
Apr. 09, 2008
Stefan Amann, Boeblingen, DE;
Gerhard Banzhaf, Nufringen, DE;
Kenneth Wayne Boyd, Tucson, AZ (US);
Kenneth Fairclough Day, Iii, Tucson, AZ (US);
Jeffrey William Palm, Rochester, MN (US);
Helmut H. Weber, Dettenhausen, DE;
Harry Morris Yudenfriend, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Stefan Amann, Boeblingen, DE;
Gerhard Banzhaf, Nufringen, DE;
Kenneth Wayne Boyd, Tucson, AZ (US);
Kenneth Fairclough Day, III, Tucson, AZ (US);
Jeffrey William Palm, Rochester, MN (US);
Helmut H. Weber, Dettenhausen, DE;
Harry Morris Yudenfriend, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
An enhanced mechanism for providing data protection for variable length records utilizes high performance block storage metadata. In an embodiment, an emulated record that emulates a variable length record, such as a Count-Key-Data (CKD) record or an Extended-Count-Key-Data (ECKD) record, is generated by a Host Bus Adapter (HBA) of a mainframe system. The emulated record comprises a sequence of extended fixed-length blocks, each of which includes a data block and a footer. A confluence of the footers defines a high performance block storage metadata unit associated with the emulated record and includes a checksum that covers all data blocks and all footers of the entire emulated record. In one embodiment, the checksum is checked during transit of the emulated record between a HBA and a storage subsystem (e.g., by the HBA when the emulated record is received from the storage subsystem, and/or by a switch in the data transfer path), during a hardening step when writing the emulated record to a disk, and/or during a verification step when reading the emulated record from the disk.