VMware Assigned Nine Patents

In-place snapshots of virtual disk configured with sparse extent
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,038,066) developed by Yadappanavar, Krishna, Shaikh, Faraz, Sunnyvale, CA, and Vilayannur, Murali, San Jose, CA, for a “in-place snapshots of a virtual disk configured with sparse extent.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A virtualized computer system employs a virtual disk with a space efficient, (SE) format to store data for virtual machines running therein. Data within a virtual disk with a SE format is stored in a grain, where multiple grains are included in a storage block. Writes to a grain within shared storage block in a virtual disk with an SE format are serviced by allocating a new grain and storing the write data to the new grain. Metadata associated with the client that transmitted the write request to the virtual disk is then updated to point to the new grain instead of the grain within the shared storage block.“

The patent application was filed on September 28, 2012 (13/631,418).

Dynamic virtual machine
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,037,758) developed by Sarkar, Prasenjit, Bangalore, India, Epping, Duncan Gerardus Cornelis Antonius, Utrecht, Netherlands, and Sinha, Vineet Kumar, Bangalore, India, for a “dynamic virtual machine, (VM) input-output per second,( IOPS) control based on application IO profiling and VM IO usage trend analysis.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments of the present invention include systems and methods for controlling input-output, (IO) requests of a plurality of virtual machines to a datastore. The method includes: monitoring, for each virtual machine, a throughput of IO to a datastore for a preset time interval, identifying a peak value of the throughput, calculating a value of input-output-per-second, IOPS) using the peak value, and setting the value of IOPS as an IOPS limit for a corresponding virtual machine.“

The patent application was filed on November 6, 2013 (14/072,919).

Efficient reconstruction virtual disk hierarchies across storage domains
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,037,621) developed by Hutchins, Gregory, San Francisco, CA, Kusalo, Steven Michael, Fremont, CA, Rajagopal, Haripriya, Sunnyvale, CA, Ranganathan, Jairam, Los Angeles, CA, and Zheng, Li, Palo Alto, CA, for a “efficient reconstruction of virtual disk hierarchies across storage domains.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method and software is described for recreating on a target datastore a set of hierarchical files that are present on a source datastore. A content identifier, (ID) is maintained for each component of the set of hierarchical files. The content ID of a component is updated when its contents are modified. The child component is copied from the source datastore to the target datastore. The content ID corresponding to the parent component on the source datastore is compared with content IDs corresponding to files present on the target datastore. When a matching content ID is discovered, it infers a copy of the parent component. The matching file on the target datastore is associated with the copied child component so that the matching file becomes a new parent component to the copied child component, thereby recreating the set of hierarchical files on the target.“

The patent application was filed on July 2, 2013 (13/934,127).

Managing independent virtual disk
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,032,402) developed by Zheng, Yufeng, San Jose, CA, and Zhang, Xiaopeng, Palo Alto, CA, for a “managing an independent virtual disk.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A computer-implemented method for managing an independent virtual disk. The method includes creating an independent virtual disk, in response to the creating the independent virtual disk, creating a first virtual machine, and attaching an independent virtual disk to the first virtual machine, and managing the independent virtual disk by controlling the first virtual machine that is attached to the independent virtual disk.“

The patent application was filed on March 14, 2013 (13/829,914).

Shortcut input/output in virtual machine
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,032,181) developed by Ahmad, Irfan, Mountain View, CA, and Waldspurger, Carl A., Palo Alto, CA, for a “shortcut input/output in virtual machine systems.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Read requests to a commonly accessed storage volume are conditionally issued, depending on whether or not a requested data block is already stored in memory from a prior access or to be stored in memory upon completion of a pending request. A data structure is maintained in memory to track physical memory pages and to indicate for each physical memory page the corresponding location in the storage volume from which the contents of the physical memory were read and the number of virtual memory pages that are mapped thereto.“

The patent application was filed on May 19, 2010 (12/783,205).

Avoiding physical fragmentation in virtualized storage environment
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,032,176) developed by Shaikh, Faraz, Sunnyvale, CA, and Vilayannur, Murali, San Jose, CA, for a “avoiding physical fragmentation in a virtualized storage environment.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A virtualized storage stack includes logical layers above the physical storage layer. Each logical layer allocates data blocks, and the data block allocation is propagated down to the physical storage layer. To facilitate contiguous storage, each layer of the virtualized storage stack maintains additional metadata associated with data blocks. For each data block, the metadata indicates whether the data block is free, provisioned and includes a tag that indicates when the data block was first written. Data blocks that were first written as part of the same write request share the same tag, and are mostly guaranteed to be physically co-located. Block allocations that reuse data blocks having the same tag are preferred. Such preference increases the likelihood of the blocks being contiguous in the physical storage as these blocks were allocated as part of the same first write.“

The patent application was filed on March 20, 2014 (14/220,279).

Replicating logical data storage volume
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,032,170) developed by Vaghani, Satyam B., San Jose, CA, and Jagtiani, Nikhil C., Sunnyvale, CA, for a “method for replicating a logical data storage volume.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Replicated data storage units are autonomously identified and assembled into generationally related data storage volumes. A data storage manager, implementing a re-signaturing process executed at defined intervals or manually initiated on a server or client system connected to the storage area network, scans the collection of visible data storage units to identify those related as a data storage volume. Each replicated data storage unit includes metadata that embeds an identification of the replicated data storage unit and volume accessible to the data storage manager. To assemble a set of replicated data storage units into a generational volume, the data storage unit metadata is rewritten to establish a unique data storage volume identity including information to associate the data storage volume in a lineage with the source data storage volume.“

The patent application was filed on October 25, 2012 (13/660,846).

Accelerating remote data retrieval via peer nodes
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,032,050) developed by Haeger, Edward Scarlett, Park City, UT, Cenname, Michael, Seattle, WA, and Skowronski, Andrew, Hudson, CA, for a “systems and methods for accelerating remote data retrieval via peer nodes.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”In one embodiment, a client node generates a listing of files associated with a user account, where the listing includes one or more files that are stored remotely on a server system without being synchronized to local storage of the client node. The client node further receives a request to access a file from the listing and determines whether the file is stored locally on the client node. If the file is not stored locally on the client node, the client node discovers peer client nodes that are coupled with the client node and determines whether the file is stored locally on any peer client node. If the file is stored locally on a peer client node, the client node retrieves the file from the peer client node. If the file is not stored locally on any peer client node, the client node retrieves the file from the server system.“

The patent application was filed on October 31, 2012 (13/665,637).

Discovery of storage area network devices for virtual machine
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,003,027) developed by Nayak, Samdeep, Liu, Wenhua, Sunnyvale, CA, Shih, Chiao-Chuan, San Jose, CA, Merritt, Anne Marie, and Huang, Xiangdong G., Sunnyvale, CA, for a “discovery of storage area network devices for a virtual machine.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A computer-implemented method for discovering a plurality of storage area network, (SAN) devices for a virtual machine. At a SAN device of the plurality of SAN devices, physically adjacent SAN devices connected to the SAN device are discovered. The physically adjacent SAN devices connected to the SAN device are registered at a name server.“

The patent application was filed on August 17, 2012 (13/588,742).