EMC Assigned Twelve Patents

Identifying and enforcing strict file confidentiality
in presence of system and storage administrators in a NAS
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,769,271) developed by two co-inventors for a “storage architecture for networked access by clients.”

The co-inventors are Roger F. Osmond, Littleton, MA, and Gil Goren, Ashland, MA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage architecture for networked access by clients includes a file server capable of communication with the clients via the network, physical storage organized as a plurality of logical volumes, and an encryption device in communication with both the file server and the physical storage. “

The patent application was filed on April 10, 2012 (13/443,017).

Remote verification of file protections for cloud storage
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,799,334) developed by four co-inventors for the “remote verification of file protections for cloud storage.”

The co-inventors are Emil P. Stefanov, Berkeley, CA, Marten Erik van Dijk, Somerville, MA, Alina M. Oprea, Arlington, MA, and Ari Juels, Brookline, MA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A client device or other processing device comprises a file processing module, with the file processing module being operative to provide a file to a file system for encoding, to receive from the file system a corresponding encoded file, and to verify that the file system stores at least a designated portion of an encapsulation of the encoded file. In an illustrative embodiment, the file processing module receives, in addition to or in place of the encoded file, a proof of correct encoding. The file system may comprise one or more servers associated with a cloud storage provider. Advantageously, one or more illustrative embodiments allow a client device to verify that its files are stored by a cloud storage provider in encrypted form or with other appropriate protections.”

The patent application was filed on Dec. 29, 2011 (13/339,768).

Common configuration warehouse for storage system
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,793,371) developed by four co-inventors for a “common configuration warehouse for a storage system.”

The co-inventors are Ashutosh Nanekar, Cary, NC, Wadah Sayyed, Raleigh, NC, Hwai-Yeng Chan, Cary, NC, and Joshua Hutt, Garner, NC.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Configuration information from multiple sources about hardware and software of a storage system are collected and stored in a configuration database having an extensible framework. Common application program interfaces (API) are provided for storage  utility applications to access the configuration database. A backup and restore engine collects and stores the configuration information at periodic intervals or on demand, maintains prior versions of the stored information in an archive, and restores the storage system with a selected version. A distributor engine applies format conversion and filtering to produce diagnostic bundles of configuration information for multiple utility applications. A GUI provides an administrator with a set of tools for operating the backup and restore and distributor engines and for viewing, dumping, comparing, and validating the contents of selected versions in order to diagnose and solve configuration problems.”

The patent application was filed on Nov. 16, 2011 (13/297,911).

VMs and cloud storage caching for cloud computing applications
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,805,951) developed by Sorin Faibish, Newton, MA, and Jeffrey M. Nick, Milford, MA, for “VMs and cloud storage caching for cloud computing applications.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An application is included in a VM sent to a cloud computing server. The cloud computing server has a remote access layer that fetches data blocks of the private dataset of the application from private storage as the data blocks are requested by the application, so that the application in the public cloud begins execution without waiting for the entire application dataset to be transferred to the public cloud, and the data blocks are transferred from the private dataset to the public cloud only when the data blocks are accessed by the application. The application’s private data is kept in the public cloud only when it is currently being used. If there are security concerns, the application’s private data is transferred over the public network in an encrypted form and stored in the public cloud in an encrypted form.”

The patent application was filed on Feb. 8, 2011 (13/022,946).

Expandable storage system
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,806,123) developed by four co-inventors for an “expandable storage system.”

The co-inventors are Brian Daniel Kennedy, Rutland, MA, Brian Arsenault, Leicester, MA, William F. Baxter III, Holliston, MA, and Antonio Fontes, Northbridge, MA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system having a plurality of disk drive sections, each one of the disk drive sections having a plurality of disk drives. Each one of a plurality of secondary SAS expanders is coupled to a corresponding one of the disk drive sections. Each one of the secondary SAS expanders has: (1) a plurality of first ports each one being connected to a corresponding one of the disk drives in the corresponding one of the plurality of disk drive sections coupled thereto; and (2) a second port. A main SAS expander has: (1) a first port; and (2) N second ports, each one of the N second ports of the main expander being connected to the second port of a corresponding one of the plurality of N secondary expanders. A storage processor is coupled to the second port of the main SAS expander.”

The patent application was filed on Sept. 29, 2009 (12/569,683).

Controlling cooling in storage system
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,800,884) developed by five co-inventors for a “method for controlling cooling in a storage system.”

The co-inventors are Daniel A. Dufresne II, Bow, NH, Daniel Savilonis, Brookline, MA, John Kevin Bowman, Brighton, MA, John V. Burroughs, East Sandwich, MA, and Michael Robillard, Shrewsbury, MA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states:  “A system having: a midplane having air flow channels therein; a disk drive mounted to a first side of the midplane; and a temperature sensors mounted to the midplane. The system includes a pair of electrical chassis connected to a second side of the midplane. A first one of the chassis has therein: a fan; and a fan controller for controlling speed of the fan in response to a temperature control signal. A second one of the chassis has therein: a microprocessor for: detecting temperature signals produced by the temperature sensors; comparing differences between the detected temperature signals; and selecting one of the detected temperature control signal from the compared differences as the temperature control signal. A faulty one of the temperature sensors is detected by: selecting one of the detected temperature control signal as the faulty one of the plurality of temperature sensors from the compared differences.“

The patent application was filed on July 11, 2011 (13/180,341).

Fine grained tiered storage with thin provisioning
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,775,368) developed by two co-inventors for a “fine grained tiered storage with thin provisioning.”

The co-inventors are Barry A. Burke, Tyngsboro, MA, and Yechiel Yochai, Lincoln, RI.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system for managing data includes providing at least one logical device having a table of information that maps sections of the logical device to sections of at least two storage areas. Characteristics of data associated with a one section of the logical device may be evaluated. The section of the data may moved between the at least two storage areas according to a policy and based on the characteristics of the data. The table of information is updated according to the movement of data between the at least two storage areas. Each of the at least two storage areas may correspond to a different storage tier, and each of the storage tiers may have different characteristic, such as speed of pools of storage devices within the tiers. A write target policy may be applied to store initial writes in a preferred location of the at least two storage areas.”

The patent application was filed on June 27, 2007 (11/823,156).

Managing provisioning of storage resources in network
with virtualization of resources in such network
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,782,245) developed by four co-inventors for a “system and method for managing provisioning of storage resources in a network with virtualization of resources in such a network.”

The co-inventors are Bradford B. Glade, Harvard, MA, David W. Harvey, Newton, MA, John Kemeny, Westford, MA, and Matthew D. Waxman, Waltham, MA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “This invention is a system and method for managing provisioning of resources for one or more storage networks using a new architecture.”

The patent application was filed on April 10, 2012 (13/443,002).

Managing drive problems in storage systems by tracking overall retry time
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,782,465) developed by five co-inventors for “managing drive problems in storage systems by tracking overall retry time.”

The co-inventors are Robert P. Foley, Clinton, MA, Zhiqi Liu, Hopkinton, MA, Peter Puhov, Shrewsbury, MA, David W. Harvey, Newton Centre, MA, and Wayne E. Garrett Jr., Bellingham, MA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method is used in managing drive problems in storage systems. It is determined, by a physical drive object, whether an I/O with a drive is able to be retried by another object. An overall retry time for the I/O is tracked. If the overall retry time is excessive, the drive is taken offline.”

The patent application was filed on Dec. 22, 2011 (13/334,636).

Non-disruptive storage device migration in failover cluster environment
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,775,861) developed by four co-inventors for a “non-disruptive storage device migration in failover cluster environment.”

The co-inventors are Michael E. Bappe, Loveland, CO, Helen S. Raizen, Jamaica Plain, MA, Cesareo Contreras, Northbridge, MA, and Edward L. Thigpen, Raleigh, NC.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method of performing data migration from a source storage device to a target storage device in a failover cluster includes use of a roll-forward flag to signal successful completion of a migration operation from a migration node to failover nodes of the cluster, reliably controlling host access to the target storage device to ensure that it is used only when it has been successfully synchronized to the source storage device and a commit operation has occurred that ensures that subsequent read and write operations are directed exclusively to the target storage device.”

The patent application was filed on June 28, 2012 (13/535,740).

Synchronization of storage using log files and snapshots
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,782,003) developed by R. Hugo Patterson, Los Altos, CA, for the “synchronization of storage using log files and snapshots.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system for processing data comprises a deduplicating system, an interface, and a processor. The deduplicating system stores a copy of data stored in a storage system by storing a set of segments that is able to reconstruct the data stored in the storage system. The storage system has a stored log file. The stored log file stores a data change and an associated time for the data change. The interface receives an indication to revert data stored in the storage system to a state at a snapshot time. The processor is configured to determine a first subset of the data stored in the storage system that has changed since a prior snapshot using the stored log file and to determine a second subset of the data stored in the storage system that has changed between the prior snapshot and the snapshot time using a first list of fingerprints associated with the prior snapshot and a second list of fingerprints associated with the snapshot time.”

The patent application was filed on May 13, 2011 (13/107,791).

Verifying integrity of data written by mainframe to virtual tape
and providing feedback of errors
EMC Corp., Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (8,775,756) developed by three co-inventors for “a method of verifying integrity of data written by a mainframe to a virtual tape and providing feedback of errors.“

The co-inventors are Bruce Offhaus, Waldoboro, ME, Larry W. McCloskey, Burlington, MA, and Eric M. Vaughn, Raleigh, NC.

The abstract of the patent  published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A virtual tape emulator (VTE) that performs data integrity read back verification at host sync points. The VTE first flushes data that it may have buffered to a backend storage subsystem such as a disk array. The VTE then reads all data that was written to the backend storage array between a prior sync point and the current sync point. During this feedback verification, integrity checks can be performed. An error detected during read back verification is returned to the host operation that triggered the sync operation.”

The patent application was filed on March 29, 2012 (13/433,477).