HP Assigned Four Patents

HDD and removable SSD
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,762,637) developed by Fred Thomas, Fort Collins, CO, and Walter A. Gaspard, Magnolia, TX, for a “storage apparatus with a HDD and a removable solid state device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “According to an example, a data storage apparatus may include a non-volatile primary storage medium, a coupling interface to removably receive a non-volatile solid state device, a communication line connected to the non-volatile primary storage medium and the coupling interface, and a storage controller connected to the communication line. The storage controller may determine a memory type of the non-volatile solid state device, cache a first type of data in the non-volatile solid state device in response to a determination that the non-volatile to solid state device is of a first memory type, and cache a second type of data in the non-volatile solid state device in response to a determination that the non-volatile solid state device is of a second memory type, in which the second type of data differs from the first type of data.”

The patent application was filed on Aug. 13, 2013 (13/965,884).

Determining availability of data elements in storage system
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,782,364) developed by Benjamin Mead Vandiver, Arlington, MA, and Lyric Pankaj Doshi, Cambridge, MA, for “determining availability of data elements in a storage system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Data elements are stored at a plurality of nodes. Each data element is a member data element of one of a plurality of layouts. Each layout indicates a unique subset of nodes. All member data elements of the layout are stored on each node in the unique subset of nodes. A stored dependency list includes every layout that has member data elements. The dependency list is used to determine availability of data elements based on ability to access data from nodes from the plurality of nodes.”

The patent application was filed on Dec. 13, 2011 (13/324,830).

Access to storage resources over storage fabric
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,788,724) developed by Sohail Hameed, Houston, TX, Balaji Natrajan, Spring, TX, and Michael G. Myrah, Sammamish, WA, for a “storage device to provide access to storage resources over a storage fabric.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Provide access to storage resources of a storage device over a data storage fabric. Allow a zone manager of a first switch to assign a zone group to one of a plurality of phys of an expander of the storage device to allow the first switch to access storage resources of the storage device. If status of the phy that is assigned a zone group indicates a disconnection condition with the first switch, then configure the zone group of the expander of the storage device to prevent access to the storage resources of the storage device. If after the disconnection condition, the status of the phy indicates a reconnection condition with a second switch, then allow a zone manager of the second switch to assign a zone group to the phy to allow the second switch to access storage resources of the storage device.”

The patent application was filed on Nov. 30, 2012 (13/690,354).

Redundant data assignment in storage system
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,775,763) developed by five co-inventors for a “redundant data assignment in a storage system.”

The co-inventors are Arif Merchant, Los Altos, CA, Svend Frolund, Yasusuhi Saito, Alistair Veitch, Mountain View, CA, and Susan Spence, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The present invention provides techniques for assignment and layout of redundant data in data storage system. In one aspect, the data storage system stores a number M of replicas of the data. Nodes that have sufficient resources available to accommodate a requirement of data to be assigned to the system are identified. When the number of nodes is greater than M, the data is assigned to M randomly selected nodes from among those identified. The data to be assigned may include a group of data segments and when the number of nodes is less than M, the group is divided to form a group of data segments having a reduced requirement. Nodes are then identified that have sufficient resources available to accommodate the reduced requirement. In other aspects, techniques are providing for adding a new storage device node to a data storage system having a plurality of existing storage device nodes and for removing data from a storage device node in such a data storage system.”

The patent application was filed on July 13, 2007 (11/827,973).