Amazon Assigned Three Patents

System with air flow under HDDs

Amazon Technologies, Inc., Reno, NE, has been assigned a patent (8,400,765) developed by Peter G. Ross, Olympia, WA, for a "system with air flow under storage devices."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A computer system includes a chassis, one or more HDD drives coupled to the chassis, and one or more air passages under at least one of the HDD drives. The air passages include one or more air inlets and one or more air outlets. The inlets direct at least a portion of the air downwardly into the passages. The passages allow air to move from the air inlets to the air outlets."

The patent application was filed on Sept. 20, 2010 (12/886,472).

Tiered middleware framework for storage

Amazon Technologies, Inc., Reno, NE., has been assigned a patent (8,402,061) developed by Gregory J. Briggs, Seattle, WA, and Vincent M. Rohr, Woodinville, WA, for a "tiered middleware framework for storage."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A tiered middleware framework for transacting data between an application layer and a storage layer includes modular components. The tiered middleware framework is implemented when the arrangement of the modular components enables the tiered middleware framework to meet or exceed certain data transaction criteria. However, when the data transaction criteria are not met by the tiered middleware framework with arrangement of the modular components, the modular components in the tiered middleware framework is rearranged."

The patent application was filed on Aug. 27, 2010 (12/870,466).

Targeted consistency improvement
in distributed storage system

Amazon Technologies, Inc., Reno, NE, has been assigned a patent (8,396,840) developed by five co-inventors for a "system and method for targeted consistency improvement in a distributed storage system."

The co-inventors are Jason G. McHugh, Eric Yves Theriault, Seth W. Markle, Seattle, WA, Michael A. Uhlar, Sammamish, WA, and Alyssa H. Henry, Seattle, WA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Embodiments may include a consistency measurement component that utilizes memory-efficient sets (e.g., Bloom filters) to generate consistency metrics for read operations performed on different replicated data objects of distributed storage system. Based on the consistency metrics, the consistency measurement component may identify a subset of replicated data objects associated with low levels of consistency. The consistency measurement component may target this subset for consistency improvement by generating instructions to improve the consistency of the subset. In other cases, the consistency measurement component may notify a consistency improvement component about the targeted subset. In response, the consistency improvement component may generate instructions to improve the consistency of the targeted subset."

The patent application was filed on Sept. 22, 2010 (12/888,356).