Nimbus Data Assigned Patent

Nimbus Data Systems, Inc. announced the granting of a patent for deduplication technology.

Efficient deduplication reduces the amount of CPU resources and DRAM required to perform deduplication with speed, enabling such all-flash arrays to offer a distinct competitive advantage in power consumption, rack density, and cost.

The patent number 8,751,763, is entitled Low-overhead deduplication within block-based storage.

Abstract states: “A write-data hash value corresponding to a block of write data is generated within a deduplicating storage system. A block of lookup table entries is retrieved from a location in a lookup table stored within a block-based storage medium, the lookup table location being indicated by a first portion of the write-data hash value and each lookup table entry including a pointer to a respective stored data volume, a portion of a hash value that corresponds to the stored data volume, and a reference count indicating a quantity of references to the stored data volume. A second portion of the write-data hash value is compared to the portions of the hash values within the block of lookup table entries, and the reference count is incremented within one of the lookup table entries for which the portion of the hash value is determined to match the second portion of the write-data hash value.”

The patent announcement follows company’s recent unveiling of its ExaFlash platform, a next-generation all-flash system that offers scale, efficiency, and a breakthrough price point. The arrays deliver up to 50x the capacity in the same rack space as competing alternatives while drawing 95% less energy. ExaFlash offers a price point as low as $0.19 per effective gigabyte (including all software and hardware). This is a direct assault on traditional HDD arrays for a range of applications, from virtualization and databases to cloud infrastructure, digital content repositories, and big data.

“Nimbus Data will continue to innovate in technology that fully monetizes the energy efficiency, rack density, and scalability of flash memory,” stated Thomas Isakovich, CEO and founder. “Tomorrow’s data centers will be leaner, greener, more agile and dramatically less expensive to operate, so long as they are powered by Nimbus Data.“