Huawei Technologies Assigned Eleven Patents

Data backup in storage system
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,176,058) developed by Zhang, Chengwei, Chuanshuai,and Zhang, Zongquan, Chengdu, China, for “method and apparatus for data backup in storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose a solution for data backup and recovery in a storage system. When a source device in the storage system backs up, to a backup-end device, a data block that is written after a snapshot S.sub.n, the source device performs a logical operation such as an exclusive-NOR or exclusive-OR operation on the written data block and an original data block, which is recorded in the snapshot S.sub.n, of the written data block, and then compresses a data block obtained after the logical operation, which improves a compression ratio of a data block, thereby reducing an amount of data that is sent to the backup-end device, and saving transmission bandwidth. The solution may be further applied to a scenario of data recovery in a storage system.“

The patent application was filed on March 1, 2018 (15/909,613).

File access, and storage system
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,157,143) developed by Xu, Jun, Hangzhou, China, Zhu, Guanyu, Shenzhen, China, and Yu, Qun, Beijing, China, for “file access method and apparatus, and storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A file access method and apparatus, and a storage system are provided. After receiving a file access request including a file identifier, first physical address space is accessed according to first virtual address space and a first mapping relationship between the first virtual address space and the first physical address space storing a file system. After obtaining, from the first physical address space, an index node of an object file indicated by the file identifier, a file page table is obtained according to information included in the index node, where the file page table records second physical address space of the object file. Then, second virtual address space is allocated to the object file. After establishing a second mapping relationship between the second physical address space and the second virtual address space, the object file in the second physical address space is accessed according to the second virtual address space.“

The patent application was filed on February 28, 2017 (15/445,542).

Capability value-based stored data allocation, and storage system
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,152,411) developed by Xia, Deyu, Xi’an, China, Hu, Huangang, and Zhang, Yao, Chengdu, China, for “capability value-based stored data allocation method and apparatus, and storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In a method for allocating data to multiple disks for storage, a capability value of each of the multiple disks is obtained. The capability value is ratio of a performance indicator value of a disk to a maximum capacity value of the disk. A greatest capability value is identified from multiple capability value. Based on the greatest capability value and a maximum capacity value of each of the multiple disks, allocation shares of the multiple disks are determined. Based on the determined allocation shares, data is allocated for the multiple disks. Through the method, the overall storage performance of a storage system is improved.“

The patent application was filed on March 28, 2017 (15/471,076).

File management, distributed storage, and management node
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,152,233) developed by Xu, Jun, Hangzhou, China, Zhao, Junfeng, and Wang, Yuangang, Shenzhen, China, for “file management method, distributed storage system, and management node.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A file management method, a distributed storage system, and a management node are disclosed. In the distributed storage system, after receiving a file creation request sent by a host for requesting to create a file in a distributed storage system, a management node allocates, to the file, first virtual space from global virtual address space of the distributed storage system, where local virtual address space of each storage node in the distributed storage system is corresponding to a part of the global virtual address space. Then, the management node records metadata of the file, where the metadata of the file includes information about the first virtual space, and the information about the first virtual space is used to point to local virtual address space of a storage node that is used to store the file. Further, the management node sends, the information about the first virtual space to the host.“

The patent application was filed on February 9, 2017 (15/428,527).

Storage apparatus and data access
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,140,234) developed by Wu, Rangliang, and Chen, Yuzhu, Shenzhen, China, for “storage apparatus and data access method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage apparatus includes a printed circuit board, (PCB) and multiple memory chips symmetrically arranged on two sides of the PCB, where multiple memory chips on one side of the PCB form a rank, and multiple memory chips on the other side of the PCB form a rank, a memory chip includes multiple pins, multiple cables are disposed in the PCB, and one cable of the multiple cables is connected to two pins in a same position on the two sides of the PCB.“

The patent application was filed on March 9, 2017 (15/454,177).

Read cache management based on SSD
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,133,679) developed by Chai, Yunpeng, and Sun, Dongwang, Beijing, China, for “read cache management method and apparatus based on solid state drive.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A read cache management method and apparatus based on a solid state drive, and the method includes: determining whether a read request hits a first queue and a second queue, (S101), if both the first queue and the second queue are missed, selecting and deleting an eliminated data block from the first queue, (S102), if the eliminated data block is in a stored state, inserting the eliminated data block into the second queue, (S103), and determining a target data block in a lower-level storage medium, and inserting the target data block into the first queue, (S104). According to the foregoing read cache management method and apparatus based on the solid state drive, a hit ratio of the solid state drive can be increased, a data write count of the solid state drive can be reduced, and service life of the solid state drive can be extended.“

The patent application was filed on June 29, 2017 (15/637,241).

File storage
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,133,666) developed by Wei, Mingchang, and Zhang, Wei, Shenzhen, China, for “file storage method and apparatus.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A file storage method includes: splitting each of multiple files into one or more file block objects with different sizes, and writing the file block objects obtained from file splitting into corresponding large object storage files, wherein a preset number of large object storage files are pre-created in a storage apparatus, and storage spaces occupied by the preset number of large object storage files in the storage apparatus are continuous.“

The patent application was filed on December 10, 2012 (13/709,988).

Data storage, data recovery
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,133,633) developed by Wang, Daohui, Zhang, Feng, Fan, Wei, Zhang, Zhile, and Zeng, Yongqiang, Shenzhen, China, for “data storage method, data recovery method, related apparatus, and system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A data storage method is used to improve storage consistency of a distributed storage system. The method includes: a primary storage node performs EC coding on a to-be-stored data segment to obtain a target EC stripe, determines in a storage node group to which the primary storage node belongs, m+k target storage nodes used to store m+k target EC blocks of the target EC stripe, sends a preparation message to the target storage nodes, receives a response message sent by a target storage node, and sends an execution message to the target storage nodes to instruct the target storage nodes to write target EC blocks that are in preparation logs.“

The patent application was filed on November 20, 2017 (15/817,298).

Data processing in distributed file storage
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,127,233) developed by Guo, Hongxing, Beijing, China, for “data processing method and device in distributed file storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A data processing method and a device in a distributed file storage system, where the method includes receiving, by a client agent, a data processing request which carries a file identifier, an offset address, a file length, and other information of a target file, obtaining, by the client agent, redundancy information according to the file identifier carried in the data processing request, where the redundancy information includes a quantity of data strips, N, of the distributed file storage system and a quantity of parity strips, M, of the distributed file storage system, determining a quantity of valid strips, DSC, of the target file according to the offset address and the length information, determining a quantity of actual strips, N’, of the target file according to the DSC and the M, and determining corresponding strips according to the N’ and processing the corresponding strips.“

The patent application was filed on July 22, 2015 (15/817,298).

Bad sector repair
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,127,099) developed by Zhou, Meng, Li, Yan, and Zhou, Jianhua, Chengdu, China, for “bad sector repair method and apparatus.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A bad sector repair method includes receiving a first write operation instruction sent by a host, reading data of a physical page including the first sector according to a logical block address, (LBA) of a first sector included in the first write operation instruction, allocating storage space with a same size as the physical page in a cache and setting data in the storage space to preset data when reading the data of the physical page fails, updating preset data of a storage area corresponding to the first sector and in the storage space with data that needs to be written to the first sector, and writing data in the storage space to the physical page to repair the first sector.“

The patent application was filed on February 29, 2016 (15/056,402).

Network storage, switch device, and controller
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, has been assigned a patent (10,117,140) developed by Tang, Pengcheng, Shanghai, China, Pentikousis, Konstantinos, Berlin, Germany, and Zhou, Wei, Shanghai, China, for “network storage method, switch device, and controller.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A network storage method, a switch device, and a controller are provided. The method is applicable to a controller based on OpenFlow protocol. The method includes: determining, by the controller, that a first switching equipment is to cache data requested by a first data packet, and notifying, by the controller, the first switching equipment to cache the data requested by the first data packet, and notifying the first switching equipment to establish a first flow table entry according to issued match information corresponding to the first data packet and issued action instruction information corresponding to the first data packet, wherein the action instruction information corresponding to the first data packet is adapted to instruct the first switching equipment to forward the data cached in the first switching equipment and requested by the first data packet.“

The patent application was filed on April 3, 2017 (15/477,917).