Nimble Storage Assigned Six Patents

Caching data in storage system based on user input
Nimble Storage, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,501,417) developed by Maheshwari, Umesh, San Jose, CA, and Mehta, Varun, Los Altos Hills, CA, for a “methods and systems for caching data in a storage system based on user input.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage device includes a flash memory-based cache for a hard disk-based storage device and a controller that is configured to limit the rate of cache updates through a variety of mechanisms, including determinations that the data is not likely to be read back from the storage device within a time period that justifies its storage in the cache, compressing data prior to its storage in the cache, precluding storage of sequentially-accessed data in the cache, and/or throttling storage of data to the cache within predetermined write periods and/or according to user instruction.“

The patent application was filed on November 30, 2015 (14/953,970).

Efficient scheduling of I/O requests to reduce latency
and maximize throughput in flash storage device
Nimble Storage, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,489,141) developed by Nanduri, Anil Kumar, and Vishnumolakala, Murali Krishna, San Jose, CA, for a “efficient scheduling of Input/Output requests to reduce latency and maximize throughput in a flash storage device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In an all-flash storage array, write requests can take about 9 to 10 times longer than a read request of the same size. There could be several problems when reading or writing from all-flash storage, such as a large write request slowing down small read requests, or other write requests. Also, a large read request may slow down smaller read requests by filling the incoming requests queue. In one implementation, a determination is made on what is the maximum size of a request to flash storage that improves the throughput of a flash chip, (e.g., write requests beyond a certain size do not improve throughput). A chunklet is defined as a block of data having the calculated maximum size. As write requests come in, the write requests are broken into chunklets, and then the chunklets are queued for processing by the flash chip. One chunklet is processed at a time per write request. This way, one write request does not monopolize the use of the flash chip for a period of time, allowing other requests to be queued while the chunklet is being processed by the all-flash storage.“

The patent application was filed on December 18, 2014 (14/575,103).

Quality of service implementation in networked storage system
with hierarchical schedulers
Nimble Storage, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,483,187) developed by Karaje, Gurunatha, Gulati, Ajay, Maheshwari, Umesh, Barszczak, Tomasz, and Buca, Vanco, San Jose, CA, for a “quality of service implementation in a networked storage system with hierarchical schedulers.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods, systems, and computer programs are presented for allocating CPU cycles in a storage system. One method includes operations for receiving requests to be processed, and for associating each request to one task. A foreground task is for processing input/output requests, and the foreground task includes one or more flows. Each flow is associated with a queue and a flow counter value, where each queue is configured to hold requests. The method further includes an operation for selecting one task for processing by the CPU based on an examination of the number of cycles processed by the CPU for each task. When the selected task is the foreground task, the flow having the lowest flow counter is selected. The CPU processes a request from the queue of the selected flow, and the flow counter of the selected flow is increased based on the data consumption of the processed task.“

The patent application was filed on June 23, 2015 (14/748,179).

Creating and removing virtual machine snapshots based on groups of metrics
Nimble Storage, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,442,937) developed by Chelur, Raja Shekar, Apex, NC, Wang, Juhsun, Santa Clara, CA, and Ranganathan, Gaurav, San Jose, CA, for a “methods and systems for creating and removing virtual machine snapshots based on groups of metrics.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are described herein which minimize the impact of virtual machine snapshots on the performance virtual machines and hypervisors. In the context of a volume snapshot which may involve, (i) taking virtual machine snapshots of all virtual machines associated with the volume, (ii) taking the volume snapshot, and, (iii) removing all the virtual machine snapshots, the virtual machine snapshots may be created in a first order and removed in a second order. Specifically, snapshots for busy virtual machines, (i.e., virtual machines with higher disk write activity) may be created last and removed first. Consequently, snapshots of busy virtual machines are retained for the shorter periods of time, thereby minimizing the effect of virtual machine snapshots on those virtual machines, (and their associated hypervisors) that would be most negatively impacted by virtual machine snapshots.“

The patent application was filed on June 26, 2015 (14/752,329).

Access-based eviction of blocks from solid state drive cache memory
Nimble Storage, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,436,392) developed by Shetty, Pradeep, Karmarkar, Sandeep, Ramamoorthy, Senthil Kumar, Maheshwari, Umesh, and Buca, Vanco, San Jose, CA, for a “access-based eviction of blocks from solid state drive cache memory.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods and systems are presented for allocating CPU cycles among processes in a storage system. One method includes operations for maintaining segments in a first memory, each segment including blocks, and for maintaining a block temperature for each block in a second memory. The first memory is a read-cache where one segment is written at a time, and each block is readable from the first memory without reading the corresponding complete segment. The block temperature is based on the frequency of access to the respective block, and a segment temperature is based on the block temperature of its blocks. Additionally, the segment with the lowest segment temperature is selected for eviction from the second memory, and blocks in the selected segment with a block temperature greater than a threshold temperature are identified. The selected segment is evicted, and a segment with the identified blocks is written to the first memory.“

The patent application was filed on February 17, 2015 (14/623,731).

Preserving blocks that are neither obsolete nor cold
Nimble Storage, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,430,377) developed by Maheshwari, Umesh, San Jose, CA, for a “methods and systems for preserving blocks that are neither obsolete nor cold.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage device made up of multiple storage media is configured such that one such media serves as a cache for data stored on another of such media. The device includes a controller configured to manage the cache by consolidating information concerning obsolete data stored in the cache with information concerning data no longer desired to be stored in the cache, and erase segments of the cache containing one or more of the blocks of obsolete data and the blocks of data that are no longer desired to be stored in the cache to produce reclaimed segments of the cache.“

The patent application was filed on February 24, 2016 (15/052,531).