NetApp Assigned Nine Patents

HA of storage system
in hierarchical virtual server environment

NetApp, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,386,838) developed by Stephen M. Byan, Littleton, MA, for a "high-availability of a storage system in a hierarchical virtual server environment."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Described herein is a high-availability storage system having hierarchical levels of storage functions. The storage system may comprise one or more hierarchical levels, each hierarchical level comprising physical servers and be assigned to perform a particular set of storage functions. Each physical server may implement one or more VMs configured to perform only the set of storage functions assigned to the hierarchical level on which the VM executes. VMs of a first hierarchical level may be configured to organize the VMs of a second hierarchical level into a redundant array of storage access servers for providing data reliability and high-availability of the storage system. VMs of a first hierarchical level are configured to produce and route sub-requests to the VMs of a second hierarchical level. Failure of a sub-request is detected and remedied by a VM of the first hierarchical level."

The patent application was filed on Dec. 1, 2009 (12/628,913).

RAID configuration for cached storage

NetApp, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,386,834) developed by Atul Goel, San Jose, CA, and Stephen H. Strange, Mountain View, CA, for a "RAID storage configuration for cached data storage."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A storage server receives a notification indicating a failure of a mass storage device in a storage array. The storage server determines whether a number of failures exceeds a fault tolerance level of the array and if the number of failures exceeds the fault tolerance level, recovers an address space corresponding to the failed storage device. When recovering the address space, the storage server replaces the failed storage device with a spare storage device having an identifiable pattern stored thereon and determines whether a file system on the storage system can automatically invalidate cached data blocks on the failed storage device."

The patent application was filed on April 30, 2010 (12/772,006).

Coalescing metadata for mirroring to remote node in cluster storage system

NetApp, Inc. Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,386,433) developed by Harihara S. Kadayam, Sunnyvale, CA, for "coalescing metadata for mirroring to a remote node in a cluster storage system."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Described herein are a system and method for remote mirroring/copying data and metadata sets from a local node to a remote node that reduces the number of metadata sets that are mirrored. In some embodiments, the local node may coalesce metadata sets into metadata chains, each metadata chain comprising a grouping of two or more metadata sets. In some instances, a ‘representative’ metadata set of a metadata chain may be selected for sending to the remote node for storing, wherein the other metadata sets of the metadata chain are not sent to the remote node. In these embodiments, the selected metadata set may represent all the metadata sets in the chain and be the only metadata set in the chain that is transmitted and stored to the remote node. As such, the network congestion between the local and remote nodes may be reduced."

The patent application was filed on Feb. 19, 2010 (12/709,190).

Naming replicated storage

NetApp, Inc. Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,380,955) developed by Stephen Wu, Sacramento, CA, for a "method and system for naming replicated storage."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Method and system for uniquely identifying a replicated copy of a storage volume is provided. A unique identifier is created by a storage system managing the replicated copy. The unique identifier includes a time stamp of when the identifier is being created, a system clock of the storage system and a unique address for an adapter that is used by the storage system."

The patent application was filed on Dec. 23, 2010 (12/978,202).

Implementing disk ownership in networked storage

NetApp, Inc.Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,380,824) developed by four co-inventors for a "system and method of implementing disk ownership in networked storage."

The co-inventors are Susan M. Coatney, Cupertino, CA, Alan L. Rowe, San Jose, CA, Radek Aster, Campbell, CA, and Joydeep Sen Sarma, Redwood City, CA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method and apparatus for identifying ownership by a computer of a storage device connected to a computer network is described. A first ownership information is written into a selected sector of the storage device by a computer having ownership of the device as a first indicia of ownership. A second ownership information is written into a storage device label of the storage device by the computer having ownership as a second indicia of ownership, the storage device label visible to a plurality of computers connected to the computer network. In the event that at a future time the first indicia of ownership does not match the second indicia of ownership, the first indicia of ownership is taken as definitive of ownership of the storage device."

The patent application was filed on Aug. 11, 2009 (12/539,053).

Load balancing of scan requests
to all antivirus servers in cluster

NetApp, Inc. Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,370,943) developed by Rommel Dongre and Isabelle Cnudde, Sunnyvale, CA, for "load balancing of scan requests to all antivirus servers in a cluster."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A system receives a scan request for a storage object in a clustered storage system. The system determines if an anti-virus (AV) server is executed on a preferred node in the storage system. The system requests information describing a plurality of nodes on the clustered storage system from a service manager. This information is used to select an alternate AV server which is executed on a substitute node if the initial AV server is not executed on the preferred node. The scan request is sent to the initial AV server if the initial AV server is executed on the preferred node. The scan request is sent to an alternate AV server if the initial AV server is not executed on the preferred node."

The patent application was filed on Oct. 28, 2009 (12/607,834).

Transferring and backing up LUNs and LUN clones
on primary and secondary servers

NetApp, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,364,920) developed by six co-inventors for a "system and method for transferring and backing up LUNs and LUN clones on primary and secondary servers."

The co-inventors are Brian Parkison, Santa Cruz, CA, Stephen Wu, Rancho Cordova, CA, Alan Driscoll, Freemont, CA, Vikas Yadav, Santa Clara, CA, David Minnich, Hillsborough, NC, and Rithin Shetty, Mountain View, CA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "LUN clones are transferred from a primary server to a secondary server. The LUN clones on the secondary server maintain the same data storage space saving relationship with backing LUNs of the LUN clones as exists on the primary server. Incremental backups and restores of the LUN clones between the primary and secondary servers involves transferring less than the total number of data blocks associated with the LUN clone."

The patent application was filed on April 6, 2009 (12/418,769).

Out of order delivery for data and metadata mirroring
in cluster storage system

NetApp, Inc. Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,386,425) developed by Harihara S. Kadayam, Sunnyvale, CA, and Hari Shankar, San Jose, CA, for "out of order delivery for data and metadata mirroring in a cluster storage system."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Described herein are a system and method for remote mirroring of data and metadata from a local node to a remote node using out-of-order delivery (OOD), while also providing data integrity at the remote node. OOD may utilize increased throughput of multiple connection paths between nodes. A mirroring layer/engine executing on the local node may receive related groups of data and metadata for storing to the remote node, each related group comprising one or more data sets and one metadata set that describes and is associated with each of the one or more data sets in the related group. The mirroring layer provides data integrity at the remote node by ensuring that the metadata set of a related group is stored to the remote node only after all the data sets in the related group are stored to the remote node, thus ensuring data consistency at the remote node."

The patent application was filed on Feb. 19, 2010 (12/709,185).

Storage security appliance
with out-of-band management capabilities

NetApp, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,387,127) developed by five co-inventors for "storage security appliance with out-of-band management capabilities."

The co-inventors are Andrew Narver, Menlo Park, CA, Yuval Frandzel, Anant Chaudhary, Foster City, CA, Zi-Bin Yang, San Francisco, CA, and Vaibhave Agarwal, Mountain View, CA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A data security appliance intercepts out-of-band control traffic directed to a data storage device, wherein the out-of-band control traffic includes a command to change a configuration of the data storage device. The data security appliance is reconfigured in accordance with the command in order to conform with a new configuration of the data storage device."

The patent application was filed on Nov. 28, 2007 (11/998,217).