Symantec Assigned Two Patents

Analyzing backup objects maintained by de-dupe storage system
Symantec Corp., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,762,338) developed by four co-inventors for “analyzing backup objects maintained by a de-duplication storage system.“

The co-inventors are Mark Christiaens, Aalter, Belgium, Nick Cremelie, Ghent, Belgium, Mark Vertongen, Wetterem, Belgium, and Bastiaan Stougie, Melle, Belgium.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Analyzing backup objects maintained by a de-duplication server. A plurality of first objects may be maintained. Each first object may refer to second object(s) and each second object may refer back to at least one first object. For each respective first object, the respective first object may be analyzed to determine the one or more second objects referred to by the respective first object. Correspondingly, a command may be generated for each respective second object of the determined second object(s), thereby generating a plurality of commands. Each command may be used to verify that the respective second object refers back to the respective first object. The plurality of commands may be sorted into a disk access order. The commands may be used to verify that each second object refers back to first objects that refer to the second object.”

The patent application was filed on Feb. 12, 2010 (12/705,306).

Scalable reference management in de-dupe-based storage system
Symantec Corp., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,782,011) developed by Fanglu Guo, Los Angeles, CA, for a “system and method for scalable reference management in a deduplication based storage system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system and method for managing a resource reclamation reference list at a coarse level. A storage device is configured to store a plurality of storage objects in a plurality of storage containers, each of said storage containers being configured to store a plurality of said storage objects. A storage container reference list is maintained, wherein for each of the storage containers the storage container reference list identifies which files of a plurality of files reference a storage object within a given storage container. In response to detecting deletion of a given file that references an object within a particular storage container of the storage containers, a server is configured to update the storage container reference list by removing from the storage container reference list an identification of the given file. A reference list associating segment objects with files that reference those segment objects may not be updated response to the deletion.“

The patent application was filed on March 4, 2013 (13/784,096).