Microsoft Assigned Two Patents

Volatile memory representation of nonvolatile storage device set
Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (8,856,440) developed by Karan Mehra, Sammamish, WA, for “volatile memory representation of nonvolatile storage device set.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The storage devices of a storage device set (e.g., a RAID array) may generate a nonvolatile representation of the configuration of the storage device set, including logical disks, spaces, storage pools, and layout and provisioning plans, on the physical media of the storage devices. A computer accessing the storage device set may also generate a volatile memory representation of the storage device set to use while accessing the storage devices; however, the nonvolatile representation may not be performant due to its different usage and characteristics. Presented herein are techniques for accessing the storage device set according to a volatile memory representation comprising a hierarchy of logical disks, slabs, and extents, and an accessor comprising a provisioning component that handles slab accesses while applying provisioning plans, and that interfaces with a lower-level layout component that translates slab accesses into storage device accesses while applying layout plans to the storage device set.”

The patent application was filed on Sept. 12, 2011 (13/230,832).

Delete notifications by file systems and applications to release storage space
Microsoft, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (8,862,643) developed by four co-inventors for the “use of delete notifications by file systems and applications to release storage space.”

The co-inventors are Senthil Rajaram, Seattle, WA, Andrew Herron, Redmond, WA, Daniel W.H. Chan, Redmond, WA, and Ravinder S. Thind, Sammamish, WA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In accordance with one or more aspects, one or more portions of at least one file that have been freed are determined. One or more delete notifications are generated that identify the one or more portions of the at least one file. Each portion is identified as a range of data on a storage device, and each delete notification includes one or more ranges of data on the storage device. A determination is made as to when to send the generated delete notifications based on one or more threshold-based criteria. These generated delete notifications are then sent to a storage stack.”

The patent application was filed on March 5, 2013 (13/786,146).