Microsoft Assigned Eleven Patents

Resource arbitration for shared-write access via persistent reservation
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,832,267) developed by Das, Rajsekhar, Redmond, WA, and Dion, David A., Bothell, WA, for a “resource arbitration for shared-write access via persistent reservation.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Described is a technology by which an owner node in a server cluster maintains ownership of a storage mechanism through a persistent reservation mechanism, while allowing non-owning nodes read and write access to the storage mechanism. An owner node writes a reservation key to a registration table associated with the storage mechanism. Non-owning nodes write a shared key that gives them read and write access. The owner node validates the shared keys against cluster membership data, and preempts, (e.g., removes) any key deemed not valid. The owner node also defends ownership against challenges to ownership made by other nodes, so that another node can take over ownership if a, (formerly) owning node is unable to defend, e.g., because of a failure.“

The patent application was filed on April 17, 2014 (14/255,746).

File storage system including tiers
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,824,092) developed by Shamis, Alex, Nightingale, Edmund, Jamsandekar, Mugdha, and Edara, Pavan, Redmond, WA, for a “file storage system including tiers.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Data storage systems and processes are provided including processes for handling write and read requests to a storage system. A storage system can include data stores, such as a log store, a hash store and a journal store. Data can be written to a log store, a log store can be converted to a hash store, and hash stores can be merged into a journal store. A storage system can use optimizations in writing and storing data, to provide lower latency, lower levels of write amplification and higher throughput.”

The patent application was filed on June 16, 2015 (14/741,154).

Backup and restore strategies for deduplication
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,823,981) developed by Kalach, Ran, Cheung, Chun Ho, Ian, Bellevue, WA, Oltean, Paul Adrian, Redmond, WA, and Dickson, Mathew James, Sammamish, WA, for a “backup and restore strategies for data deduplication.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques for backup and restore of optimized data streams are described. A chunk store includes each optimized data stream as a plurality of chunks including at least one data chunk and corresponding optimized stream metadata. The chunk store includes data chunks in a deduplicated manner. Optimized data streams stored in the chunk store are identified for backup. At least a portion of the chunk store is stored in backup storage according to an optimized backup technique, an un-optimized backup technique, an item level backup technique, or a data chunk identifier backup technique. Optimized data streams stored in the backup storage may be restored. A file reconstructor includes a callback module that generates calls to a restore application to request optimized stream metadata and any referenced data chunks from the backup storage. The file reconstructor reconstructs the data streams from the referenced data chunks.”

The patent application was filed on March 11, 2011 (13/045,692).

Secure storage and sharing of data by hybrid encryption
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,811,680) developed by Balasubramanian, Guru, Charlotte, NC, Wu, ChenFei, Wang, Wenyuan, Shanghai, China, and Zhao, Jingjing, Bothell, WA, for a “secure storage and sharing of data by hybrid encryption using predefined schema.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The claimed subject matter includes techniques for storing, retrieving and sharing files. An example system includes a key generator module to generate a secret key. The example system also includes a symmetric encryption module to encrypt raw data by symmetric encryption using the secret key. The example system further includes an asymmetric encryption module to encrypt the secret key and symmetric encryption information by asymmetric encryption using a public key to produce a key block. The examples system also further includes a schema module to generate a ciphertext file with predefined schema including asymmetric encryption information, the key-block, and the encrypted raw data. The example system also includes a storage module to send the ciphertext file including the encrypted raw data to a server for storage.”

The patent application was filed on June 4, 2015 (14/731,262).

Block storage by decoupling ordering from durability
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,798,631) developed by Mickens, James W., Bellevue, WA, Phanishayee, Amar, Seattle, WA, and Velayudhan Pillai, Vijaychidambaram, Madison, WI, for a “block storage by decoupling ordering from durability.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “This document relates to data storage techniques. One example can buffer write commands and cause the write commands to be committed to storage in flush epoch order. Another example can maintain a persistent log of write commands that are arranged in the persistent log in flush epoch order. Both examples may provide a prefix consistent state in the event of a crash.”

The patent application was filed on March 28, 2014 (14/229,355).

Managing replicated virtual storage at recovery sites
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,785,523) developed by Chiruvolu, Phani, Sinha, Gaurav, Singh, Devdeep, Hyderabad, India, Oshins, Jacob, Seattle, WA, and Eck, Christopher L., Sammamish, WA, for a “managing replicated virtual storage at recovery sites.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques involving replication of storage are described. A representative technique includes apparatuses and methods for receiving replicated virtual storage of a replicated virtual machine, including at least a replicated base virtual disk that substantially corresponds to a primary base virtual disk to be replicated. Copies of differencing disks or other forms of virtual storage updates are received at a recovery site, each of the differencing disks being associated with the primary base virtual disk as descendents thereof. The received copies of the differencing disks are arranged relative to the replicated base virtual disk corresponding to the manner in which the differencing disks were arranged relative to the primary base virtual disk, thereby maintaining the data view of the replicated virtual machine in synchronization with the virtual machine at the primary site.”

The patent application was filed on June 20, 2011 (13/163,760).

Storage device management
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,785,374) developed by Santaniello, Mark, Khessib, Badriddine, Redmond, WA, Caulfield, Laura, Woodinville, WA, and Sharma, Bikash, Redmond, WA, for a “storage device management in computing systems.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Various techniques of managing storage devices in a computing system are described in this application. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an input containing consumption data representing consumption of a storage device in one of the processing units and determining if the storage device in one of the processing units is consumed excessively. In response to determining that the storage device is consumed excessively, an indicator may be generated to indicate a potential program migration from the one of the processing units to another one of the processing units in the computing system.”

The patent application was filed on September 25, 2014 (14/496,078).

Re-TRIM of free space within VHDX
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,778,860) developed by Green, Dustin, Redmond, WA, Starks, John, Seattle, WA, Christiansen, Neal, Bellevue, WA, and Dai, Chung Lang, Redmond, WA, for a “re-TRIM of free space within VHDX.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An invention is disclosed for maintaining out-of-band metadata for data. In embodiments of the invention, an upper layer of a storage stack determines that the metadata of a lower layer of that storage stack may have become out of sync. In response, the upper layer may issue a series of commands to the lower layer based on the metadata. In other embodiments of the invention, an offload-copy operation on data may also transfer out-of-band metadata so that it is applied to the data at the destination.”

The patent application was filed on September 12, 2012 (13/612,517).

Block-level access to parallel storage
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,778,856) developed by Fan, Bin, Pittsburgh, PA, Kadav, Asim, Madison, WI, Nightingale, Edmund Bernard, Redmond, WA, Elson, Jeremy E., Seattle, WA, Rashid, Richard F., Prescott, AZ, and Mickens, James W., Bellevue, WA, for a “block-level access to parallel storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The subject disclosure is directed towards one or more parallel storage components for parallelizing block-level input/output associated with remote file data. Based upon a mapping scheme, the file data is partitioned into a plurality of blocks in which each may be equal in size. A translator component of the parallel storage may determine a mapping between the plurality of blocks and a plurality of storage nodes such that at least a portion of the plurality of blocks is accessible in parallel. Such a mapping, for example, may place each block in a different storage node allowing the plurality of blocks to be retrieved simultaneously and in its entirety.”

The patent application was filed on August 30, 2012 (13/598,990).

Power control for use of volatile memory as non-volatile memory
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,760,147) developed by Kelly, Bryan, Carnation, WA, Santaniello, Mark, Govindan, Sriram, Redmond, WA, and Badam, Anirudh, Issaquah, WA, for a “power control for use of volatile memory as non-volatile memory.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A computing device may comprise a volatile memory and a non-volatile storage device. Upon system shutdown, contents of the volatile memory may be preserved by memory transfer operations from the volatile memory to the non-volatile storage device. During memory preservation, the computing device may enter a low-power state. The low-power state may comprise suspension of power to a core of a processor while maintaining power to the processor’s uncore, and disablement of interrupt signals not related to memory transfer operations. Power delivery to the core of the processor may be periodically resumed to initiate additional memory transfer operations.”

The patent application was filed on January 22, 2016 (15/004,866).

Use of volatile memory as non-volatile memory
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,746,895) developed by Kelly, Bryan, Carnation, WA, Santaniello, Mark, Govindan, Sriram, Redmond, WA, and Badam, Anirudh, Issaquah, WA, for a “use of volatile memory as non-volatile memory.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A computing device may comprise a processor, a volatile memory and a non-volatile storage device. An operating system or firmware of the device may cause one or more pages of the volatile memory to be treated, by applications executing on the computing device, as non-volatile memory pages. A maximum number of pages that may be treated as non-volatile may be determined based on an amount of energy available in a battery and an amount of energy needed to transfer a page of memory to the non-volatile storage device.”

The patent application was filed on January 22, 2016 (15/004,830).