IBM Assigned Seven Patents

Controlling transportation of tape medium
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,913,337), developed by Katagiri Takashi, Mori Yuhko, and Oishi Yutaka, Kanagawa, Japan, for a “controlling transportation of tape medium.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “High performance is obtained without preventing achievement of a target read data rate. In a controller 16 of a tape drive, a command processing unit 41 receives a synchronization command, and a buffer management unit 42 passes data in a buffer to a channel input-output unit 43. Then, upon completion of writing the data to the tape, a backhitch determination unit 44 determines whether or not to execute backhitch. If it is determined that backhitch should be skipped, the speed determination unit 46 determines a tape speed that minimizes a sum of a time required to write data without backhitch within a range where a data amount of a monitor target is to be written in order to achieve a target read data rate, and a time required to write data with backhitch within the range. Then, an operation signal output unit 49 issues an instruction to change the tape speed to the determined tape speed after execution of backhitch.“

The patent application was filed on June 30, 2011 (13/510,608 )

Formatting storage volumes
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,914,605), developed by Grusy Ellen J., Hatfield Brian D., Lovrien Kurt A., and Sanchez Matthew, Tucson, AZ, for a “methods and systems for formatting storage volumes.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods, systems, and computer storage mediums including a computer program product method for formatting storage volumes are provided. One method includes creating a storage volume including a global counter and partitioned into multiple storage segments including a segment counter and partitioned into multiple stripes, wherein the global counter and each segment counter match at an initial time. The method further includes releasing the storage segments prior to completely reformatting the storage volume and subsequently incrementing the global counter such that the global counter and each segment counter no longer match at a subsequent time. The method further includes enabling a user to write data to the storage segments prior to completely reformatting the storage volume in response to incrementing the global counter. One system includes a processor for performing the above method and one computer storage medium includes a computer program product configured to perform the above method.“

The patent application was filed on January 9, 2013 (13/737,746)

Data archiving using data compression of flash copy
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,914,597), developed by Benhase Michael T., Gupta Lokesh M., Hsu Yu-Cheng and Sanchez Alfred E., Tucson, AZ, for a “data archiving using data compression of a flash copy.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Embodiments of the disclosure relate to archiving data in a storage system. An exemplary embodiment comprises making a flash copy of data in a source volume, compressing data in the flash copy wherein each track of data is compressed into a set of data pages, and storing the compressed data pages in a target volume. Data extents for the target volume may be allocated from a pool of compressed data extents. After each stride worth of data is compressed and stored in the target volume, data may be destaged to avoid destage penalties. Data from the target volume may be decompressed from a flash copy of the target volume in a reverse process to restore each data track, when the archived data is needed. Data may be compressed and uncompressed using a Lempel-Ziv-Welch process.“

The patent application was filed on March 14, 2013 (13/830,507)

Managing data storage
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,914,425), developed by Butterworth Henry Esmond, Eastleigh, UK, and Judd Ian David, Winchester, UK, for an “apparatus and method for managing data storage.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An apparatus for controlling a log-structured data storage system, operable with a first log-structured data storage area for storing data, comprises a metadata storage component for controlling the first log-structured data storage area and comprising a second log-structured data storage area for storing metadata; and means for nesting the second log-structured data storage area for storing metadata within the first log-structured data storage area. The apparatus may further comprise at least a third log-structured data storage area for storing further metadata, and means for nesting the at least a third log-structured data storage area within the second log-structured data storage area.“

The patent application was filed on August 7, 2012 (13/569,067)

Using metadata image of file system and archive instance
to restore data objects in file system
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,914,334), developed by Berman Steven M., Pittsburgh, PA, Mueller-Wicke Dominic, Mainz, Germany, Sawdon Wayne A,. and Smith James P., San Jose, CA, for a “using a metadata image of a file system and archive instance to restore data objects in the file system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for using a metadata image of a file system and archive instance to restore files in the file system. A metadata image of the file system for a point-in-time backup as of a point-in-time includes information on files and directories in the file system as of the point-in-time and an archive instance including a copy of database records in the backup database for the files in the point-in-time backup. A restore request is received. A file representation is created of each file to restore in the directory structure of the file system from the metadata image, wherein at least one of the created file representations indicates that the file is stored off-line and has an external identifier used to access information on the file in the database records in the archive instance for the point-in-time backup.“

The patent application was filed on September 12, 2012 (13/612,792)

Mitigating adjacent track erasure in HDDs
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,914,573), developed by Kelkar Bhooshan P., Nagpal Abhinay R., Pune, IN, and Patil Sandeep R., Elmsford, NY, for a “method and system for mitigating adjacent track erasure in hard disk drives.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method, system, and computer program product for mitigating adjacent track erasures in hard disks, includes: determining input/output (I/O) characteristics for a plurality of blocks on a hard disk assigning the plurality of blocks to a plurality of categories of I/O characteristics by the processor and clustering content of the blocks assigned to the same category in one or more continuous tracks on the hard disk. Each block is assigned to one category. Blocks with similar I/O characteristics are clustered on one or more continuous tracks. By performing this clustering, blocks with a high number of I/O operations are grouped and stored on fewer tracks than if they were scattered across numerous tracks. This reduces the number of tracks experiencing a high number of I/O operations, and in turn, the amount of refreshing of adjacent tracks is reduced.“

The patent application was filed on July 3, 2013 (13/935,119)

Managing traces to capture data for memory regions in memory
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,914,677), developed by Bohling Neal E., Malinowski Joseph V., Reed David C., Smith Max D., Tucson, AZ, for a “managing traces to capture data for memory regions in a memory.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for managing traces to capture data for memory regions in a memory. A trace includes a monitor parameter used by a trace procedure to monitor data in a memory device. A frequency is determined at which the trace procedure monitors the memory device. The trace procedure is invoked at the determined frequency to perform trace procedure operations comprising determining a region in the memory device according to the monitor parameter and copying data in the determined region to trace data in a data space.“

The patent application was filed on June 27, 2012 (13/535,338)