Hitachi Assigned Thirteen Patents

Data reduction
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,606,910) developed by Deguchi, Akira, Santa Clara, CA, for a “method and apparatus for data reduction.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Embodiments of the invention provide data reduction in storage systems. In one embodiment, a computer comprises: a memory, and a controller operable to manage information, which corresponds to a plurality of addresses, of one or more volumes provided from a storage system to the computer and including at least one set of multiple storage areas sharing same data to be stored in the storage system. The controller is operable to manage storing of the shared same data in the memory of the computer by using the information of the storage areas.“

The patent application was filed on January 17, 2013 (13/743,596).

Storage and allocating resource
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,606,745) developed by Satoyama, Ai, Sagamihara, Japan, and Eguchi, Yoshiaki, Yokohama, Japan, for a “storage system and method for allocating resource.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In conventional unified storage systems, an I/O for block storage and an I/O for file storage are processed in a single OS without being distinguished, so that it was not possible to perform processes for speedy failure detection or for enhancing performances such as tuning of performance by directly monitoring hardware. The present invention solves the problem by having a block storage-side OS and an OS group managing multiple systems including a file system other than the block storage-side OS coexist within a storage system, wherein the OS group managing multiple systems including a file system other than the block storage-side OS is virtualized by a hypervisor, wherein a block storage micro-controller and the hypervisor can cooperate in performing processes.“

The patent application was filed on April 29, 2016 (15/142,259).

Storage system and deduplicating data
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,600,201) developed by Yoshida, Misato, and Hayasaka, Mitsuo, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage system and method for deduplicating data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The present invention provides a storage system capable of performing deduplication among nodes in a cluster configuration with a low overhead. The respective nodes mutually monitor whether there is update of deduplication information in other nodes. When it is determined in its own node that there is update in another node, it reflects the update information in another node to the deduplication information of its own node. Then, each node uses the deduplication information having reflected the deduplication information of other nodes to perform deduplication of the storage data of its own node.“

The patent application was filed on March 27, 2014 (14/424,177).

Computer realizing high-speed access and data protection of storage device
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,600,185) developed by Hatasaki, Keisuke, Kawasaki, Japan, and Aikoh, Kazuhide, Yokohama, Japan, for a “computer realizing high-speed access and data protection of storage device, computer system, and I/O request processing method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In a computer, a logical partition for calculation in which an OS and an application operate and a logical partition for storage for providing a storage function are constructed. In the logical partition for calculation, a device corresponding to a storage device is provided, while the logical partition for storage provides a volume. A memory space that can be shared by the both logical partitions is prepared, and management information describing a sorting destination or a sorting method of an I/O request issued by an application is provided in the memory. If the logical partition for calculation receives an I/O request from the application, the partition refers to the management information and sorts the I/O request to the storage device or the logical partition for storage. The logical partition for storage processes the received I/O request by the storage function and transmits the result to the storage device.“

The patent application was filed on May 12, 2016 (15/153,140).

Storage apparatus and data management
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,594,796) developed by Shimozono, Norio, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage apparatus and data management method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage apparatus and data management method capable of utilizing storage resources effectively is proposed. A storage apparatus storing primary data and analysis data obtained based on the primary data as a result of the execution of specified analysis processing by an external computing system is designed so that metadata of the analysis data includes regeneratable attribute information indicating whether or not the corresponding analysis data can be regenerated by means of the analysis processing by the external computing system, and a control unit regularly or irregularly selects the analysis data, which satisfies a specified condition and can be regenerated, based on the metadata for each piece of the analysis data and deletes the selected analysis data from one or more storage devices.“

The patent application was filed on May 23, 2013 (14/358,860).

Computer system, data management and recording medium for storing program
Hitachi Solutions, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,594,677) developed by Ishii, Yohsuke, and Kodama, Shoji, Tokyo, Japan, for a “computer system, data management method, and recording medium for storing program.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A search server for which data stored in a hierarchical control server utilizing a plurality of storage devices is the object of a search, wherein the search server is designed to update a search index to data while the data exists in an upper-hierarchy storage of the hierarchical control server. Included in a computer system are: a storage unit for storing the usage status of an upper-hierarchy storage area of a hierarchical storage having the upper-hierarchy storage area and a lower-hierarchy storage area, and a determination unit for determining, according to the stored usage status, which process should be given priority between an indexing process for data that is an index-updating candidate among data stored in the hierarchical storage, or a migration process for moving the data to the lower-hierarchy storage area.“

The patent application was filed on March 11, 2013 (14/647,653).

Computer and memory control
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,588,896) developed by Takada, Aritoki, Tokyo, Japan, for a “computer and memory control method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A computer includes a first memory, a second memory having an I/O speed lower than an I/O speed of the first memory, a storage device, and a processor. The first memory has a work area and a first cache area where data input to and output from the storage device is temporarily stored and the second memory has a second cache area where the data input to and output from the storage device is temporarily stored and a swap area to be a saving destination of data stored in the work area. The processor reduces the work area and expands the first cache area, when an input/output amount to be an amount of data input to and output from the storage device is larger than a predetermined input/output amount.“

The patent application was filed on March 4, 2014 (14/423,613).

Storage apparatus and failure location identifying
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,575,855) developed by Maeda, Toru, and Matsubara, Ryosuke, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage apparatus and failure location identifying method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage apparatus has a redundant configuration equipped with a plurality of components and includes a first controller and second controller, wherein the first controller is provided with a first processor and a third processor for monitoring the first controller, wherein the second controller is provided with a second processor and a fourth processor for monitoring the second controller, wherein the first processor and the second processor are connected via a first path and the third processor and the fourth processor are connected via a second path, and wherein if a failure occurs at the first controller, the second processor blocks the first path, acquires failure information including a failure location of the first controller via the third processor, the fourth processor, and the second path, executes first failure location identifying processing, and notifies a management terminal of the failure location.“

The patent application was filed on September 6, 2013 (14/357,499).

Storage system comprising flash memory and storage control
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,575,672) developed by Yamamoto, Akira, and Yamamoto, Masayuki, Sagamihara, Japan, for a “storage system comprising flash memory and storage control method in which a storage controller is configured to determine the number of allocatable pages in a pool based on compression information.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system has a plurality of flash packages, and a storage controller for receiving a write request from a host and sending a write-data write request based on data conforming to this write request to a write-destination flash package. A virtual capacity, which is larger than the physical capacity of the flash package, is defined in the storage controller. The storage system compresses the write data, and writes the compressed write data to the write-destination flash chip.“

The patent application was filed on September 11, 2014 (14/483,808).

Computer system for backing up data
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,569,311) developed by Kamei, Hitoshi, Sagamihara, Japan, Fukatani, Takayuki, Tokyo, Japan, and Esaka, Tomonori, Yokohama, Japan, for a “computer system for backing up data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “It is provided a computer system, comprising a server and first and second storage systems. The first storage system stores deduplicated data sharing at least a part of data with other data, shared data shared by a plurality of pieces of the deduplicated data, and first type data representing a type of the stored data including the deduplicated data and the shared data. The deduplicated data is associated with the shared data by a pointer to the shared data, and includes differential data indicating a difference from the shared data. The server creates second type data representing a type of the data stored in the second storage system from the first type data. The second storage system stores the shared data associated with the deduplicate data at a reading position before a position at which the deduplicated data is read in sequential reading and stores the second type data.“

The patent application was filed on October 26, 2015 (14/922,498).

Storage system having plurality of flash packages
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,569,130) developed by Yamamoto, Akira, Sagamihara, Japan, Sugimoto, Sadahiro, Kawasaki, Japan, Araki, Akihiko, Yokohama, Japan, and Yamamoto, Masayuki, Sagamihara, Japan, for a “storage system having a plurality of flash packages.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system 100, which has a plurality of flash packages 230, has a function for minimizing the imbalance of the number of deletions of each block inside the flash package 230 and a block-unit capacity virtualization function, and efficiently manifests lessening of the imbalance of the number of deletions and reduction in the data storage capacity for the entire storage system 100 by having functions for calculating the number of deletions and the data occupancy of each flash package 230, and for transferring data between the flash packages 230 on the basis of the values of these number of deletions and data occupancy.“

The patent application was filed on December 16, 2015 (14/970,761).

Storage control device
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,563,574) developed by Yamamoto, Naoko, Tokoro, Ken, and Yamaguchi, Yasuhiko, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage control device and method of controlling storage control device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “To improve response performance of a storage control device. A storage control device 1 connected to a host computer 2 includes: a communication unit 1A that receives a command, to which a priority is set, from the host computer, a command executing unit 1B that executes the command received from the communication unit according to the priority, a cache memory 1C that is used by the command executing unit, a cache controller 1E that manages slots of the cache memory, and a plurality of storage devices 1D(1) and 1D(2) that stores data used by the host computer. The cache controller sets the priority to a slot that stores target data of the command and controls the data stored in the slot according to the priority.“

The patent application was filed on February 12, 2013 (14/760,303).

Storage system with primary and secondary data storage groups
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (9,563,383) developed by Jin, Azusa, Kawaguchi, Tomohiro, Saito, Hideo, Deguchi, Akira, and Yoshihara, Tomohiro, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage system with primary and secondary data storage groups and control method thereof .“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The primary storage sub system writes a marker that includes the sequence number and that indicates a completion of the data copy into the journal storage area of the first primary group when the data copy from a first primary data volume to a second primary data volume is completed. The primary storage sub system transmits a journal of the first primary group to a first secondary group corresponded to the first primary group and transmits a journal of a second primary group to a second secondary group corresponded to a second primary group. The secondary storage sub system reflects a journal of the first secondary group to a secondary data volume, terminates the reflection based on the marker, switches a volume that makes a volume pair with the secondary data volume from the first primary data volume to the second primary data volume, modifies a belonging of the secondary data volume from the first secondary group to the second secondary group, and reflects a journal in the journal storage area of the second secondary group to the secondary data volume.“

The patent application was filed on May 12, 2014 (14/426,565).