Oracle Assigned Nine Patents

Providing fairness in task servicing
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,189,281) developed by Chen, Michael Suiping, Cupertino, CA, for a “apparatus, system and method for providing fairness in task servicing.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage system that is configured to fairly service requests from different host systems particularly in congested situations. To balance the processing of tasks between different clients, the system sorts tasks received from different clients into task lists. In particular, the system sorts the incoming tasks based on the ITL, Initiator, Target, (LU) nexus information associated with each task. In some instances, a new task list is created for each ITL nexus. The sorting of tasks may provide for a more even distribution of tasks and thus a more fair processing of tasks. More specifically, because tasks from each list are processed in round-robin fashion, tasks arriving from even the slowest clients are given a substantially equal chance of being processed as the tasks arriving from the faster clients.“

The patent application was filed on October 18, 2012 (13/655,218).

Transport agnostic sequential drive recovery with mode data snooping
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,189,160) developed by Ralphs, Randall Kent, Nederland, CO, for a “transport agnostic sequential drive recovery with mode data snooping.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Implementations of the present disclosure involve a system and/or method for a target level driver of a host computer to obtain and maintain the state or mode of a physical or virtual tape drive storage system to restore the state of the tape drive storage system. The target level driver monitors one or more commands transmitted to the tape drive system from a user or administrator of the tape drive system. Through analysis and parsing of the one or more commands, the target level driver determines an operational mode state of the tape drive system and stores said mode state. Because the target level driver monitors the commands provided to the tape drive system, the stored operational mode state may include one or more operational modes not reported by the tape drive system.“

The patent application was filed on June 4, 2013 (13/909,849).

Module self-discovery in storage library
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,183,875) developed by Ries, James Lee, Erie, CO, Lane, Terry Lynn, Westminster, CO, and Ostwald, Timothy Craig, Boulder, CO, for a “module self-discovery in a storage library.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments include systems and methods for detecting logical presence and location of modules, detecting physical presence and location of modules, and mapping the logical and physical locations together for use by the storage library. For example, when an expansion module is installed, it is connected to a network and it reports its logical presence and logical network location to a base controller in the base module. A robotic mechanism is used to trigger one or more presence sensors to detect physical presence and location of the installed expansion module. The base controller or another component generates and stores a mapping between the logical location and the physical location. The storage library can use the mapping to translate between logical and physical functionality.“

The patent application was filed on June 20, 2012 (13/528,489).

File load balancing in N-level directory tree of data storage system
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,176,967) developed by Roy, Michael Lesile, Westminster, CO, Tomsula, Patrick James, Arvada, CO, and Radebaugh, Keith, Thornton, CO, for a “file load balancing in an N-level directory tree of a data storage system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Implementations of the present disclosure involve a system and/or method for storing one or more data files in an n-level directory tree of a data storage system. In general, the system and/or method computes an n-byte value from a data file name which is used to create a directory path in the data storage system, where parts of the n-byte value are used to form each directory name in the directory path. Storage and retrieval of a data file is performed by storing in or retrieving data files from the computed directory. In one embodiment, the calculated n-byte value is obtained by computing the value with a cyclic redundancy check, CRC) algorithm. Use of the CRC algorithm to compute the directory path provides a balanced set of directories and number of data files that is repeatable such that location and retrieval of the data file is accomplished without the need to search through each directory of the system.“

The patent application was filed on April 1, 2013 (13/854,742).

Buckling mechanism for tape drive loader
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,171,566) developed by Vanderheyden, William Joseph, Loveland, CO, Hursh, Joshua Adrian, Boulder, CO, Oster, Jonathan Zeller, Denver, CO, Mondale, Frederick Patton, Baiada, Daniel Mark, Boulder, CO, Krempasky, Benjamin Joseph, Honesdale, PA, and Derryberry, William Jacob, Arvada, CO, for a “buckling mechanism for a tape drive loader.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments include systems and methods for buckling in a loader assembly of a tape storage drive. Some implementations translate driving forces of an elevator of the loader assembly into driving forces that act on a pusher plate of a buckling mechanism in both buckling and unbuckling directions. For example, a plate interface can couple the pusher plate with the elevator in a manner that translates rotational motion of the elevator’s drive gear into a lateral driving force that drives the pusher plate between its home and buckling positions. Certain implementations also include a home holding mechanism for removably securing the pusher plate in the home position when the elevator is in its unloaded position.“

The patent application was filed on April 24, 2014 (14/261,238).

Hybrid binary XML storage model for efficient XML processing
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,165,086) developed by Idicula, Sam, Santa Clara, CA, Sthanikam, Balasubramanyam, Foster City, CA, and Agarwal, Nipun, Saratoga, CA, for a “hybrid binary XML storage model for efficient XML processing.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method for storing XML documents a hybrid navigation/streaming format is provided to allow efficient storage and processing of queries on the XML data that provides the benefits of both navigation and streaming and ameliorates the disadvantages of each. Each XML document to be stored is independently analyzed to determine a combination of navigable and streamable storage format that optimizes the processing of the data for anticipated access patterns.“

The patent application was filed on December 6, 2010 (12/961,394).

Data storage system and processing data access request
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,164,689) developed by O’Brien, John Timothy, Milillo, Michael Steven, Louisville, CO, DeTar, Jr., George Franklin, Longmont, CO, and Madison, Jr., Carl Thomas, Windsor, CO, for a “data storage system and method of processing a data access request.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A data storage system includes a plurality of servers, a plurality of external interface providers each deployed on one of the servers, and a plurality of data storage controllers each deployed on one of the servers. Each of the providers is configured to receive a data access request, to identify one of the controllers that can satisfy the request, and to forward the request to the identified controller. The system further includes a plurality of data storage modules independent of the servers. The providers, controllers and modules are in communication with each other. Each of the controllers exclusively manages a portion of data content in at least one of the modules, and satisfies data access requests received from the providers by accessing the portion of data content in the at least one module.“

The patent application was filed on March 30, 2009 (12/414,084).

Magazine drop-out for robotic gripper
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,153,281) developed by Hill, Dean Austin, Greeley, CO, Woodbury, Matthew David, and Clos, Christopher John, Westminster, CO, for a “magazine drop-out for a robotic gripper.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments of the invention include systems and methods for providing gripper recovery using a magazine drop-out feature. Embodiments operate in context of a data storage library having a number of media cartridges physically located within slots of one or more magazines. A robotic hand assembly uses a gripper mechanism to retrieve and ferry the cartridges between the magazines and one or more media drives. In some instances, the gripper mechanism is unable to disengage from the cartridge or to disengage the cartridge from its magazine slot. Embodiments detect this condition and direct the robotic hand assembly to drop out of engagement with the cartridge through the drop-out region of the magazine slot, allowing the gripper mechanism to recover.“

The patent application was filed on May 8, 2012 (13/466,991).

Reduced disk space standby
Oracle International Corporation, Redwood City, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,146,934) developed by Hu, Wei-Ming, Palo Alto, CA, Loaiza, Juan R., Wodside, CA, Li, Yunrui, Fremont, CA, and Srihari, Vinay H., San Mateo, CA, for a “reduced disk space standby.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method and system for replicating database data is provided. One or more standby database replicas can be used for servicing read-only queries, and the amount of storage required is scalable in the size of the primary database storage. One technique is described for combining physical database replication to multiple physical databases residing within a common storage system that performs de-duplication. Having multiple physical databases allows for many read-only queries to be processed, and the de-duplicating storage system provides scalability in the size of the primary database storage. Another technique uses one or more diskless standby database systems that share a read-only copy of physical standby database files. Notification messages provide consistency between each diskless system’s in-memory cache and the state of the shared database files. Use of a transaction sequence number ensures that each database system only accesses versions of data blocks that are consistent with a transaction checkpoint.“

The patent application was filed on November 5, 2013(14/072,739).