Microsoft Assigned Three Patents

Blob manipulation in an integrated structured storage system
Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (8,868,606) developed by seven co-inventors for a “blob manipulation in an integrated structured storage system.”

The co-inventors are Bradley Gene Calder, Bellevue, WA, Ju Wang, Niranjan Nilakantan, Redmond, WA, Alexander Felsobuki Nagy, Shashwat Srivastav, Xinran Wu, Seattle, WA, and Deepali Bhardwaj, Snohomish, WA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Embodiments of the present invention relate to systems, methods and computer storage media for facilitating the structured storage of binary large objects (Blobs) to be accessed by an application program being executed by a computing device. Generally, the manipulation of Blobs in a structured storage system includes receiving a request for a Blob, which may be located by way of a Blob pointer. The Blob pointer allows for the data, such as properties, of the Blob to be identified and located. Expired properties are garbage collected as a manipulation of the Blob data within a structured storage system. In an embodiment, the Blob is identified by a key that is utilized within a primary structured index to located the requested Blob. In another embodiment, the requested Blob is located utilizing a secondary hash index. In an additional embodiment, the Blob is locate utilizing a file table.”

The patent application was filed on July 22, 2013 (13/947,794).

Storage architecture for backup application
Microsoft, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (8,868,882) developed by six co-inventors for a “storage architecture for backup application.”

The co-inventors are Amit Singla, Vijay Sen, Redmond, WA, Abid Ali, Vanita Prabhu, Sachin Durge, and Pankaj Khanzode, Andhra Pradesh, India.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to a storage architecture. In aspects, an address provided by a data source is translated into a logical storage address of virtual storage. This logical storage address is translated into an identifier that may be used to store data on or retrieve data from a storage system. The address space of the virtual storage is divided into chunks that may be streamed to the storage system.”

The patent application was filed on June 8, 2011 (13/155,401). The full text of the patent can be found at  

Low cost storage for rarely read data
Microsoft, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (8,868,954) developed by nine co-inventors for a “low cost storage for rarely read data.”

The co-inventors are Shobana M. Balakrsihnan, Redmond, WA, Stephen Heil, Sammamish, WA, David T. Harper III, Seattle, WA, Adam B. Glass, Eric C. Peterson, Woodinville, WA, Sergey Legtchenko, Cambridge, Antony Ian Taylor Rowstron, Austin Nicholas Donnelly, and David Alex Butler, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Low cost storage for write once read rarely data is described. In an embodiment a storage device comprises a plurality of hard disk drives connected to a server via an interconnect fabric. The storage device comprises a cooling system which is only capable of cooling a first subset of the hard disk drives and a power supply system which is only capable of powering a second subset of the hard disk drives and in some examples, the interconnect fabric may be only capable of providing full bandwidth for a third subset of the hard disk drives. Each subset may comprise only a small fraction of hard disk drives. A control mechanism, which may be implemented in software, is provided which controls which hard disk drives are active at any time in order that the constraints set by the cooling and power supply systems and interconnect fabric are not violated.”

The patent application was filed on May 21, 2013 (13/899,497).