Symantec Assigned Patent

Symantec Operating Corp., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,650,371) developed by two co-inventors for a method and system “for efficient space management for single-instance-storage volumes.”

The co-inventors are Weibao Wu, Vadnais Heights, MN, and Xianbo Zhang, Madison, WI.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method and system for efficient space management for single-instance-storage volumes is provided. A backup module storing data within a collection of containers according to access locality and retention time of the data, wherein the retention time defines an amount of time the data is stored within the collection of containers before deletion of the data, and the access locality comprises an order in which the data is to be accessed is further provided. A compaction module compacting the stored data by selecting at least two containers among the collection of containers, wherein the selection is performed using a predetermined criteria that includes access locality and retention time of the data is also provided. The compaction module distributes the data among the at least two containers. The compaction criteria creates an imbalance among the containers to create more empty, full, or nearly full containers.”

The patent application was filed on Nov. 5, 2012 (13/668,726).