Three New Patents for Dot Hill, Total at 79

Dot Hill Systems Corp. announced three new additions to its patent portfolio, including two related to its AssuredSnap snapshot software for improved data protection, and a new method for safeguarding data on removable storage devices through local encryption.

The 79th U.S. patent awarded to Dot Hill is for a method for efficiently deleting obsolete snapshots. After a controller receives a command to delete a snapshot, the invention checks to see if all other snapshots associated with the same backing store (snapshot repository) are either being deleted or marked for deletion. If it is determined that all such snapshots are either being deleted or marked for deletion, the invention forgoes deleting only the requested snapshot and instead re-initializes the entire backing store – thus saving time compared to alternative approaches that delete only a single snapshot at a time.

The company’s 78th U.S. patent 7,975,115, Method and apparatus for separating snapshot preserved and write data, provides a way to manage storage snapshots. A storage snapshot is a set of reference markers, or pointers, to data stored on a disk drive, tape, or in a SAN. Snapshots streamline access to stored data and can speed up the process of data recovery.

By creating two separate areas, one for ‘Preserve Data’ and another for ‘Write Data,’ which is a working copy of the snapshot, patented innovation allows users to always be able to return to the specific point in time when the snapshot occurred and recover the original data. Preserved data is never overwritten, so that it preserves the original data pointers as they were at the time of the snapshot.

These two patented approaches are featured in Dot Hill’s AssuredSnap software, which offers a means of backing up and recovering vital data in the event of disaster. Dot Hill offers enterprise class Data Management Software including AssuredCopy, AssuredSnap, and AssuredRemote.

Dot Hill’s 77th U.S. patent 7,921,301, Method and apparatus for obscuring data on removable storage devices, provides a method and system for safeguarding information commonly stored on removable storage devices. The invention uses a simple method of local encryption which can be implemented within the array controller to protect data between the controller and cache data, or between the controller and the array data. This simple encryption scheme does not require CPU-intensive data encryption algorithms that can slow down data access. This Dot Hill innovation can be implemented with simple, low-cost hardware, does not slow down reads or writes, and works in redundant configurations.

"The continued momentum of our patent portfolio, consisting of highly relevant innovations that improve the speed, ease-of-use, reliability and security of our storage systems, can be attributed to a talented design team that is second to none in the storage industry," said Jim Kuenzel, senior vice president of engineering at Dot Hill Systems. "Dot Hill’s intellectual property holdings are key to keeping the company on the forefront of ‘what’s next’ in storage."