Microsoft Assigned Thirty-Two Patents

Peer-to-peer sharing of cloud-based content
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,143,568) developed by Kappes, Daniel, Redmond, WA, Lin, Jian, Sammamish, WA, Liokumovich, Igor, Sammamish, WA, Nanivadekar, Hemant, Bellevue, WA, and Gokhale, Mandar, Redmond, WA, for a “peer-to-peer sharing of cloud-based content.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A cloud-based storage service hosts content information that may be accessed by client machines in a peer-to-peer network. The content information is a compact representation of the content which is stored outside of the cloud-based storage service. The cloud-based storage service generates the content information and a content information hash. The content information hash is used to validate the content information when the content information is downloaded to the peer-to-peer network. The cloud-based storage service also generates metadata that describes the content information so that a client machine in the peer-to-peer network may access the content information from the cloud-based storage service.“

The patent application was filed on December 18, 2012 (13/717,727).

Cloud data storage using redundant encoding
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,141,679) developed by Gopalan, Parikshit, Sunnyvale, CA, Huang, Cheng, Redmond, WA, Simitci, Huseyin, Maple Valley, WA, and Yekhanin, Sergey, Mountain View, CA, for a “cloud data storage using redundant encoding.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Cloud data storage systems, methods, and techniques partition system data symbols into predefined-sized groups and then encode each group to form corresponding parity symbols, encode all data symbols into global redundant symbols, and store each symbol, data, parity, and redundant) in different failure domains in a manner that ensures independence of failures. In several implementations, the resultant cloud-encoded data features both data locality and ability to recover up to a predefined threshold tolerance of simultaneous erasures, unavailable data symbols) without any information loss. In addition, certain implementations also feature the placement of cloud-encoded data in domains, nodes or node groups) to provide similar locality and redundancy features simultaneous with the recovery of an entire domain of data that is unavailable due to software or hardware upgrades or failures.“

The patent application was filed on August 31, 2011 (13/221,928).

Volume having tiers of different storage traits
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,141,626) developed by Rajpal, Shiv, Mehra, Karan, Sammamish, WA, Herron, Andrew, Redmond, WA, and Cong, Shi, Issaquah, WA, for a “volume having tiers of different storage traits.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A volume system that presents a volume having an extent of logical addresses to a file system. A volume exposure system exposes the volume to the file system in a manner that the volume has multiple tiers, each offering storage of different traits. This is performed using multiple heterogenic underlying storage systems, each having different storage system-specific traits. Each underlying storage system may be hardware, software, or a combination thereof that permits each storage system to expose storage having the particular storage system-specific traits to the file system. The volume system supports each tier by mapping logical addresses of the tier to portions of underling storage systems that are consistent with the tier traits.“

The patent application was filed on March 14, 2013 (13/829,245).

Providing alert synthesis in data protection system
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,141,482) developed by Ingen, Catherine Van, Berkeley, CA, Berkowitz, Brian T., Seattle, WA, Anand, Karandeep Singh, New Delhi, India, Thangarathnam, Manikandan, Chennai, India, Kulkarni, Purushottam M., Hyderabad, India, Shelton, William T., Seattle, WA, Harikrishnan, Seetharaman, Clyde Hill, WA, Srinivasan, Sundararajan, Hyderabad, India, and Lashkari, Yezdi Z., San Francisco, CA, for a “method, system, and apparatus for providing alert synthesis in a data protection system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method for diagnosing problems with protection of a data source and recovery of the same. The method includes diagnosing a copy of data located at the storage location and diagnosing a temporal version of the copy of data. Based on the diagnosis it is determined whether an error or a warning was detected. If either were detected a response is provided with a suggested solution.“

The patent application was filed on August 30, 2013 (14/015,920).

Authorization for transient storage devices with multiple authentication silos
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,122,895) developed by Bovee, James, Redmond, WA, for a “authorization for transient storage devices with multiple authentication silos.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”In a transient storage device, (TSD) with multiple authentication silos, a host computing device connected to the TSD is configured by the TSD to discover and act upon various types of authentication information in the silos. One or more logical combinations of authentication silos are switched to the authenticated state to grant access to an associated storage area. A particular ordering of authentication silos may be required to achieve a valid combination of authenticated silos. Ordering may be suggested by configuration information in the TSD. Ordering may also be based upon whether or not user input is required for authenticating a given authentication silo, the environment of use of the TSD, or a hierarchy from most trusted to least trusted authentication silo. With this information, the host proceeds with the most efficient authentication sequence leading to a grant of access to the storage area.“

The patent application was filed on June 25, 2008 (12/146,066).

Extending cluster allocations in extensible file system
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,122,695) developed by Pudipeddi, Ravisankar V., Ghotge, Vishal V., Havewala, Sarosh C., Thind, Ravinder S., Zbikowski, Mark J., and Goebel, David A., Redmond, WA, for a “extending cluster allocations in an extensible file system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”An extensible file system format for portable storage media is provided. The extensible file system format includes the specification of primary and secondary directory entry types that may be custom defined. The primary and secondary directory entry types can be further classified as critical and benign directory entries. The directory entry types can define whether a cluster chain corresponding to a file can be contiguously allocated.“

The patent application was filed on August 11, 2014 (14/456,419).

File system operation on multi-tiered volume
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,116,904) developed by Christiansen, Neal Robert, Bellevue, WA, Chan, Daniel, Redmond, WA, Das, Rajsekhar, Kirkland, WA, Pang, Juan-Lee, Redmond, WA, Smith, Malcolm James, Bellevue, WA, and Herron, Andrew, Redmond, WA, for a “file system operation on multi-tiered volume.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A file system that operates on an underlying volume that has multiple tiers, each tier including a particular trait set. Upon creating or otherwise identifying a file system namespace, (such as a directory or file) that is in a volume or that is to be included within the volume, a storage trait set to be applied corresponding to the file system namespace is identified. Then, the storage trait set is compared against the trait sets for the multiple tiers to identify a tier into which to store the file system namespace. The file system namespace is then caused to be stored within the identified tier. Thus, the file system is provided with a volume that has multiple tiers, (each having different trait sets) to choose from in storing files.“

The patent application was filed on March 14, 2013 (13/829,314).

Remote access control of storage devices
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,111,103) developed by Sadovsky, Vladimir, Redmond, WA, Olarig, Sompong Paul, Pleasanton, CA, Lionetti, Chris, Duvall, WA, and Hamilton, James Robert, Bellevue, WA, for a “remote access control of storage devices.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”An access control device can be communicationally coupled to a storage device and can control access thereto. The access control device can comprise information, such as identities of authorized entities, to enable the access control device to independently determine whether to provide access to an associated storage device. Alternatively, the access control device can comprise information to establish a secure connection to an authorization computing device and the access control device can implement the decisions of the authorization computing device. The access control device can control access by instructing a storage device to execute specific firmware instructions to prevent meaningful responses to data storage related requests. The access control device can also comprise storage-related cryptographic information utilized by the storage device to encrypt and decrypt data. In such a case, the access control device can control access by not releasing the storage-related cryptographic information to the storage device.“

The patent application was filed on November 26, 2012 (13/685,179).

Selecting computing nodes in cloud service using replication topologies
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,110,724) developed by Balakrishnan, Mahesh, San Jose, CA, Aguilera, Marcos K., Mountain View, CA, Tiwana, Birjodh, Ann Arbor, MI, and Ballani, Hitesh, Cambridge, Great Britain, for a “selecting computing nodes in cloud service using replication topologies.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A cloud statistics server generates statistics for a cloud service based on an identified data item and an identified operation. The cloud service may include various computing nodes and storage nodes. The cloud statistics may include expected completion times for the identified operation and the identified data item with respect to each of the computing nodes. A computing node may be selected to execute the identified operation based on the expected completion times. The generated statistics may be generated by the cloud statistics server using a network topology associated with the data item that is based on the latencies or expected transfer times between the various storage nodes and computing nodes, and a replication strategy used by the cloud service. The topology may be implemented as a directed graph with edge weights corresponding to expected transfer times between each node.“

The patent application was filed on February 8, 2011 (13/022,635).

Rule based access for removable storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,104,893) developed by Gallardo, John, Woodinville, WA, McKenna, Sean, Seattle, WA, Dey, Sudipta, Bellevue, WA, Wang, Xiaoshan, Redmond, WA, and Kaza, Akhilesh, Sammamish, WA, for a “rule based access for removable storage.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Various techniques and solutions are described for rule-based access to removable storage devices. For example, a request can be received to perform a file system operation using a removable storage device that is formatted with a file system that does not support access controls. A rules-based check of the received request can be performed by a service by checking the request against a plurality of rules. Based on results of the rules-based check, the request can be allowed or denied.“

The patent application was filed on March 4, 2013 (13/784,632).

Abstracting programmatic representation of storage systems
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,104,534) developed by Terek, Soner, Sadovsky, Vladimir, Verma, Surendra, Bellevue, WA, and Geiger, Avi R., Seattle, WA, for a “abstracting programmatic representation of data storage systems.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Providing for a paradigm shift in block-level abstraction for storage devices is described herein. At a block-level, storage is characterized as a variable size data record, rather than a fixed size sector. In some aspects, the variable size data record can comprise a variable binary key-data pair, for addressing and identifying a variable size block of data, and for dynamically specifying the size of such block in terms of data storage. By changing the key or data values, the location, identity or size of block-level storage can be modified. Data records can be passed to and from the storage device to facilitate operational commands over ranges of such records. Block-level data compression, space management and transactional operations are provided, mitigating a need of higher level systems to characterize underlying data storage for implementation of such operations.“

The patent application was filed on February 11, 2013 (13/764,566).

Determining an identification of disc based on format of the disc
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,099,100) developed by Bhorania, Aayaz, Redmond, WA, and Lee, Kyunga, Issaquah, WA, for a “determining an identification of a disc based on a format of the disc.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A system, method, and computer-readable storage media for disc identification are disclosed. A first disc format may be identified by matching a sequence of symbols on a disc to format data. Content stored on the disc in a first location that is used to generate IDs for the first disc format may be referenced, and the content processed to generate an ID for the disc. The first location can be identified by referencing ID processing data that also identifies other locations used to generate IDs for different disc formats. Portions of the content that are accessed can include directory names, folder names, or file names.“

The patent application was filed on September 23, 2013 (14/034,318).

Content license storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,084,031) developed by Burns, Quintin S., Fort Mill, SC, for a “content license storage.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Content license storage is provided by holding, in a temporary license store on the content consumption device, a plurality of content licenses for a plurality of content streams, wherein each content license of the plurality of content licenses includes a removal date. The method further includes for each content license of the plurality of content licenses corresponding to a content stream of the plurality of content streams which is designated for archived playback, copying the content license into an embedded license store within the content stream to form an archived content stream. The method further includes removing one or more of the plurality of content licenses held at the temporary license store if the removal date included in the content license has been reached, while leaving each content license stored within an archived content stream even if the removal date has been reached.“

The patent application was filed on December 13, 2010 (12/966,850).

Virtual disk recovery and redistribution
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,081,753) developed by Paleologu, Emanuel, Kirkland, WA, Rajpal, Shiv K., Mehra, Karan, Sammamish, WA, Verma, Surendra, Bellevue, WA, and Kirubanandan, Nandagopal, Kenmore, WA, for a “virtual disk recovery and redistribution.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques for recovery and redistribution of data from a virtual disk storage system are described herein. In one or more implementations, a storage scheme derived for a virtual disk configuration is configured to implement various recovery and redistribution designed to improve recovery performance. The storage scheme implements one or more allocation techniques to produce substantially uniform or nearly uniform distributions of data across physical storage devices associated with a virtual disk. The allocation facilitates concurrent regeneration and rebalancing operations for recovery of data in the event of failures. Additionally, the storage scheme is configured to implements parallelization techniques to perform the concurrent operations including but not limited to controlling multiple parallel read/writes during recovery.“

The patent application was filed on March 14, 2013 (13/830,137).

Working set swapping using a sequentially ordered swap file
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,081,702) developed by Iyigun, Mehmet, Kirkland, WA, Bak, Yevgeniy, Eugene, Redmond, WA, Wang, Landy, and Kishan, Arun U., Kirkland, WA, for a “working set swapping using a sequentially ordered swap file.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques described enable efficient swapping of memory pages to and from a working set of pages for a process through the use of large writes and reads of pages to and from sequentially ordered locations in secondary storage. When writing pages from a working set of a process into secondary storage, the pages may be written into reserved, contiguous locations in a dedicated swap file according to a virtual address order or other order. Such writing into sequentially ordered locations enables reading in of clusters of pages in large, sequential blocks of memory, providing for more efficient read operations to return pages to physical memory.“

The patent application was filed on August 11, 2014 (14/456,128).

Background migration of virtual storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,081,510) developed by Green, Dustin L., Redmond, WA, Oshins, Jacob K., Seattle, WA, and Reuther, Lars, Kirkland, WA, for a “background migration of virtual storage.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Described is a technology by which a virtual hard disk is migrated from a source storage location to a target storage location without needing any shared physical storage, in which a machine may continue to use the virtual hard disk during migration. This facilitates use the virtual hard disk in conjunction with live-migrating a virtual machine. Virtual hard disk migration may occur fully before or after the virtual machine is migrated to the target host, or partially before and partially after virtual machine migration. Background copying, sending of write-through data, and/or servicing read requests may be used in the migration. Also described is throttling data writes and/or data communication to manage the migration of the virtual hard disk.“

The patent application was filed on June 9, 2014 (14/300,163).

Isolation of virtual machine I/O in multi-disk hosts
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,069,467) developed by Govindaraju, Naga, Redmond, WA, and Russinovich, Mark, Clyde Hill, WA, for a “isolation of virtual machine I/O in multi-disk hosts.”

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 concurrently maintaining a spanned virtual hard drive across two or more computer-storage media and a non-spanned virtual hard drive on one of computer-storage media. The method includes storing data of the spanned virtual hard drive across the computer-storage media utilizing volume spanning. While the spanned virtual hard drive is maintained on the computer storage media, the method includes storing data of the non-spanned virtual hard drive on one of the computer-storage media.“

The patent application was filed on June 1, 2011 (13/150,996).

Policy-based secure information disclosure
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,063,897) developed by Hamilton, James R., Bellevue, WA, and Sadovsky, Vladimir G., Redmond, WA, for a “policy-based secure information disclosure.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Systems and methods for storing data and retrieving data from a smart storage device is provided, where smart storage includes processing capabilities along with the ability to store information. In one aspect, a method includes detecting via bidirectional settings one or more capabilities of rules enforcement logic associated with a storage device and selecting a set of criteria and policies to be downloaded from a host or a management server that are to be downloaded onto the storage device. This includes dynamically generating conditional context aware policies syntax based on user settings or network policy and downloading a set of policies onto the storage device for future policy enforcement.“

The patent application was filed on June 26, 2008 (12/146,721).

Peripheral device storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,063,693) developed by Raken, Jan, Seattle, WA, Hill, Andrew W., Redmond, WA, Bingham, Jr., Robert J., Everett, WA, Kyriacou, Peter, and McLaughlin, Robyn Rebecca Reed, Seattle, WA, for a “peripheral device storage.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Peripheral device storage techniques are described. In one or more implementations, a computing device includes a housing and a power connection port that is configured to form a physical coupling to a peripheral device sufficient to retain the peripheral device against the housing and form an electrical coupling configured to receive power at the computing device from a power adapter.“

The patent application was filed on September 5, 2012 (13/603,918).

Fast and low-RAM-footprint indexing for de-dupe
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,053,032) developed by Sengupta, Sudipta, Redmond, WA, Debnath, Biplob, Minneapolis, MN, Li, Jin, Bellevue, WA, Desai, Ronakkumar N., and Oltean, Paul Adrian, Redmond, WA, for a “fast and low-RAM-footprint indexing for data deduplication.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The subject disclosure is directed towards a data deduplication technology in which a hash index service’s index maintains a hash index in a secondary storage device such as a hard drive, along with a compact index table and look-ahead cache in RAM that operate to reduce the I/O to access the secondary storage device during deduplication operations. Also described is a session cache for maintaining data during a deduplication session, and encoding of a read-only compact index table for efficiency.“

The patent application was filed on December 28, 2010 (12/979,644).

Reliable, efficient peer-to-peer storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,047,310) developed by Li, Jin, Sammamish, WA, for a “reliable, efficient peer-to-peer storage.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”An adaptive coding storage system that uses adaptive erasure resilient code, (ERC) which changes the number of fragments used for encoding according to the size of the file distributed. Adaptive ERC may greatly improve the efficiency and reliability of P2P storage. A number of procedures for P2P storage applications may also be implemented. In one embodiment small, dynamic data files are diverted to the more reliable peers or even a server, while large and static files are stored utilizing the storage capacity of the unreliable peers. Also, for balanced contribution and benefit, a peer should host the same amount of content as it stored in the P2P network. As a result, unreliable peers are allowed to distribute less data, and more reliable peers are allowed to distribute more. Also, smaller files are assigned a higher distribution cost, and the larger files are assigned a lower distribution cost.“

The patent application was filed on February 22, 2006 (11/359,276).

Sliding-window multi-class striping
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,043,546) developed by Reid, Colin, Redmond, WA, and Bernstein, Philip A., Bellevue, WA, for a “sliding-window multi-class striping.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A sequence of storage devices of a data store may include one or more stripesets for storing data stripes of different lengths and of different types. Each data stripe may be stored in a prefix or other portion of a stripeset. Each data stripe may be identified by an array of addresses that identify each page of the data stripe on each included storage device. When a first storage device of a stripeset becomes full, the stripeset may be shifted by removing the full storage device from the stripeset, and adding a next storage device of the data store to the stripeset. A class variable may be associated with storage devices of a stripeset to identify the type of data that the stripeset can store. The class variable may be increased, or otherwise modified) when a computer stores data of a different class in the stripeset.“

The patent application was filed on April 23, 2013 (13/868,887).

File system active symbolic link
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,037,620) developed by Ellison, Carl Melvin, New York, NY, and Jeffries, Charles G., Sammamish, WA, for a “file system active symbolic link.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Data stored on a storage medium can be referenced by multiple independently addressable active symbolic links, with each active symbolic link representing the data through a different transformation. The active symbolic links can be in the form of file system objects, such as files or directories. A single active symbolic link can reference the data stored in multiple collections, or, conversely, a subset of data from a single collection. Active symbolic links can be automatically created for common data transformations. Searching across active symbolic links referencing encrypted data can be performed by multiple protection-specific search engines, or a single search engine that can generate a protection-level aware search index.“

The patent application was filed on December 16, 2009 (12/639,950).

Metadata for storage array
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,037,541) developed by Goebel, David A., Vashon, WA, Lyon, James M., Redmond, WA, Shelepov, Bulat, Bellevue, WA, Kleinschmidt, Robert S., and Vayman, Mark, Redmond, WA, for a “metadata for data storage array.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A data storage array may be made up of several storage devices, each of which may contain array metadata that may allow portions of the storage array to be used. A system may have a file system manager that may receive and respond to file system commands and a storage device manager that may store data on the several storage devices. Array metadata defining where data is stored within the storage array is stored on each device within the array. A policy engine may identify data to be stored on the array and determine if the data contains array metadata or other types of data and may store the data on every device, devices having specific characteristics, two or more devices, or one device.“

The patent application was filed on April 30, 2009 (12/432,877).

Memory segment remapping to address fragmentation
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,032,244) developed by Strauss, Karin, Smith, Burton J., Seattle, WA, and McKinley, Kathryn S., Bellevue, WA, for a “memory segment remapping to address fragmentation.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The techniques discussed herein identify failed segments of memory in a memory region. The techniques may then manage the failed segments of memory by logically clustering the failed segments of memory at an outlying portion of the memory region using a remapping process. The remapping process may include creating and storing remapping metadata defining segment remapping entries for the memory region. Accordingly, the failure clustering logically eliminates or reduces the memory fragmentation so that a system can allocate larger portions of contiguous memory for object storage.“

The patent application was filed on November 16, 2012 (13/678,941).

Ensuring reliability of cache data and metadata subsequent to reboot
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,032,151) developed by Iyigun, Mehmet, Bellevue, WA, Bak, Yevgeniy, Fortin, Michael, Redmond, WA, Fields, David, Kirkland, WA, Ergan, Cenk, Bellevue, WA, and Kirshenbaum, Alexander, Redmond, WA, for a “method and system for ensuring reliability of cache data and metadata subsequent to a reboot.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”To ensure that the contents of a non-volatile memory device cache may be relied upon as accurately reflecting data stored on disk storage, it may be determined whether the cache contents and/or disk contents are modified during a power transition, causing cache contents to no longer accurately reflect data stored in disk storage. The cache device may be removable from the computer, and unexpected removal of the cache device may cause cache contents to no longer accurately reflect data stored in disk storage. Cache metadata may be managed during normal operations and across power transitions, ensuring that cache metadata may be efficiently accessed and reliably saved and restored across power transitions. A state of a log used by a file system may be determined prior to and subsequent to reboot of an operating system in order to determine whether data stored on a cache device may be reliably used.“

The patent application was filed on November 14, 2008 (12/271,472).

Data replication feedback for transport input/output
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,032,032) developed by Mills, David, North Bend, WA, Luttinen, Todd, and Boctor, Victor, Redmond, WA, for a “data replication feedback for transport input/output .”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Architecture for efficiently ensuring that data is stored to the desired destination datastore such as for replication processes. A copy of data, (e.g., messages) sent to a datastore for storage is stored at an alternate location until a received signal indicates that the storage and replication was successful. As soon as the feedback signal is received, the copy is removed from the alternate location, and hence, improves input/output, (I/O) and storage patterns. The feedback mechanism can also be used for monitoring the status of data transport associated with log shipping, for example, and taking the appropriate actions when storage, (e.g., replication) is not being performed properly.“

The patent application was filed on June 26, 2008 (12/146,553).

Key management using trusted platform modules
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,026,805) developed by Acar, Tolga, Sammamish, WA, LaMacchia, Brian, Bellevue, WA, Morales, Henry Jerez, Seattle, WA, Nguyen, Lan Duy, Bellevue, WA, Robinson, David, Seattle, WA, and Tariq, Talha Bin, Bellevue, WA, for a “key management using trusted platform modules.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Described herein are techniques for distributed key management, DKM) in cooperation with Trusted Platform Modules, (TPMs). The use of TPMs strengthens the storage and processing security surrounding management of distributed keys. DKM-managed secret keys are not persistently stored in clear form. In effect, the TPMs of participating DKM nodes provide security for DKM keys, and a DKM key, once decrypted with a TPM, is available to be used from memory for ordinary cryptographic operations to encrypt and decrypt user data. TPM public keys can be used to determine the set of trusted nodes to which TPM-encrypted secret keys can be distributed.“

The patent application was filed on December 30, 2010 (12/982,235).

Efficient metadata storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,020,892) developed by Chan, Kevin Andrew, Duvall, WA, Copeland, Bruce Wayne, Redmond, WA, and Kambuj, Aakash, Seattle, WA, for a “efficient metadata storage .”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for efficiently storing metadata of partitioned data, (e.g., directed to a specific individual/user). A first subset of data is identified from the set of partitioned data. The first subset of data comprises data that has a high frequency of access, and may be identified, at least in part, by frequency of access metadata that is associated with the data in the set. Metadata, such as discovery information, permissions, version info, etc., that is associated with the data in the first subset can be stored in low latency, e.g., fast) storage, proving more efficient access. Metadata associated with data from the set of partitioned data that is not in the first subset, (e.g., that is not accessed frequently) can be stored in higher latency, (e.g., slower, less expensive) storage.“

The patent application was filed on July 8, 2011 (13/178,748).

Structuring storage based on latch-free B-trees
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,003,162) developed by Lomet, David, Redmond, WA, Levandoski, Justin, Seattle, WA, and Sengupta, Sudipta, Redmond, WA, for a “structuring storage based on latch-free B-trees.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A request to modify an object in storage that is associated with one or more computing devices may be obtained, the storage organized based on a latch-free B-tree structure. A storage address of the object may be determined, based on accessing a mapping table that includes map indicators mapping logical object identifiers to physical storage addresses. A prepending of a first delta record to a prior object state of the object may be initiated, the first delta record indicating an object modification associated with the obtained request. Installation of a first state change associated with the object modification may be initiated via a first atomic operation on a mapping table entry that indicates the prior object state of the object. For example, the latch-free B-tree structure may include a B-tree like index structure over records as the objects, and logical page identifiers as the logical object identifiers.“

The patent application was filed on June 20, 2012 (13/527,880).

Nonvolatile media dirty region tracking
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,003,103) developed by Paleologu, Emanuel, Kirkland, WA, Mehra, Karan, Sammamish, WA, and Moss, Darren, Redmond, WA, for a “nonvolatile media dirty region tracking.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage set, (e.g., an array of hard disk drives) may experience a failure, such as a loss of power, a software crash, or a disconnection of a storage device, while writes to the storage set are in progress. Recover from the failure may involve scanning the storage set to detect and correct inconsistencies, e.g., comparing mirrors of a data set or testing checksums). However, lacking information about the locations of pending writes to the storage set during the failure, this “cleaning” process may involve scanning the entire storage set, resulting in protracted recovery processes. Presented herein are techniques for tracking writes to the storage set by apportioning the storage set into regions of a region size, e.g., one gigabyte, and storing on the nonvolatile storage medium descriptors of “dirty” regions comprising in-progress writes. The post-failure recovery process may then be limited to the regions identified as dirty.“

The patent application was filed on September 12, 2011 (13/229,871).

Mapping RDMA semantics to high speed storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (8,984,084) developed by Pinkerton, James T., Sammamish, WA, and Talpey, Thomas M., Stow, MA, for a “mapping RDMA semantics to high speed storage.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments described herein are directed to extending remote direct memory access, (RDMA) semantics to enable implementation in a local storage system and to providing a management interface for initializing a local data store. A computer system extends RDMA semantics to provide local storage access using RDMA, where extending the RDMA semantics includes the following: mapping RDMA verbs of an RDMA verbs interface to a local data store and altering RDMA ordering semantics to allow out-of-order processing and/or out-of-order completions. The computer system also accesses various portions of the local data store using the extended RDMA semantics.“

The patent application was filed on September 30, 2013 (14/041,517).