Hitachi Assigned Eleven Patents

De-duplication
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,191,934) developed by Hayasaka, Mitsuo, Kamei, Hitoshi, and Sutoh, Atsushi, Tokyo, Japan, for “de-duplication system and method thereof.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Chunk de-duplication performance is improved. A de-duplication system has a cut-out processing unit which inputs a content from a client terminal thereinto, determines a calculation range from a predetermined maximum chunk size and a predetermined minimum chunk size, divides the calculation range into at least two small calculation ranges, sets the positions of windows for rolling hash calculation so that the rolling hash calculation is continuous between the two small calculation ranges, and subjects the at least two small calculation ranges to the rolling hash calculation with shifting of the windows based on parallel processing to cut out a chunk from the content, and a de-duplication processing unit which does not store the cut-out chunk into a storage device when the chunk having the same contents as those of the cut-out chunk is already stored in the storage device.“

The patent application was filed on May 13, 2013 (14/760,721).

Storage, and data transfer
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,191,685) developed by Ishikawa, Yohey, Saito, Hideo, Kawaguchi, Tomohiro, Tokoro, Ken, Tamura, Keishi, and Johri, Abhishek, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system, storage device, and data transfer method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system capable of realizing off-load data copy among storage subsystems constituting an HA pair configuration is provided. Therefore, in an HA pair configuration where a first volume of a first storage subsystem and a second volume of a second storage subsystem respectively respond a same virtual ID to the host, when the first or the second storage subsystem receives an instruction of off-load data copy specifying a virtual ID as the copy destination from the host computer, either a first volume or a second volume is selected as a copy source volume according to a position of a copy destination volume, and data is copied from the selected copy source volume to the copy destination volume.“

The patent application was filed on June 11, 2014 (15/121,782).

Virtualize remote copy pair in three data center configuration
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,185,636) developed by Deguchi, Akira, Jin, Azusa, and Suzuki, Toru, Tokyo, Japan, for “method and apparatus to virtualize remote copy pair in three data center configuration.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A first storage system manages a first volume, with a first internal volume identifier, and to provide the first volume with a given first virtual volume identifier to a server. A second storage system manages a second volume, with a second internal volume identifier, and to provide the second volume with the given first virtual volume identifier to the server. A third storage system manages a third volume. The first storage system manages a first copy pair between the first volume and the third volume with a first internal copy identifier, and to provide a first copy pair with a given virtual copy pair identifier to the server. The second storage system manages a second copy pair between the second volume and the third volume with a second internal copy identifier, and to provide a second copy pair with the given virtual copy pair identifier to the server.“

The patent application was filed on August 15, 2014 (15/110,996).

Distributed storage
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,185,624) developed by Akutsu, Hiroaki, Kawamura, Shunji, Yasunaga, Kota, Yamamoto, Takahiro, and Kawamura, Atsushi, Tokyo, Japan, for a “distributed storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A first node group including at least three nodes is predefined in a distributed storage system. Each node of the first node group is configured to send data blocks stored in storage devices managed by the node to other nodes belonging to the first node group. A first node is configured to receive data blocks from two or more other nodes in the first node group. The first node is configured to create a redundant code using a combination of data blocks received from the two or more other nodes and store the created redundant code to a storage device different from storage devices holding the data blocks used to create the redundant code. Combinations of data blocks used to create at least two redundant codes in redundant codes created by the first node are different in combination of logical addresses of constituent data blocks.“

The patent application was filed on July 28, 2017 (15/662,510).

Transfer format for storage
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,182,110) developed by Okada, Wataru, and Shimozono, Norio, Tokyo, Japan, for “transfer format for storage system, and transfer method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “If resources allocated to a host computer exist in different physical storage nodes within a virtual storage system after performing migration to a storage system, mapping of resources among the physical storage nodes becomes necessary, and if the amount of communication between physical storage nodes that occurs during access to resources exceeds a bandwidth of the connection path, the host I/O performance may be deteriorated compared to the performance before migration. Therefore, when migration is performed from a first physical storage node to a virtual storage system composed of a plurality of second physical storage nodes, a management computer allocates resources of the second physical storage nodes within a range of bandwidth of the transfer path between the second physical storage nodes based on configuration information of the plurality of second physical storage nodes, performance information, and load information of the volume provided by the first physical storage node.“

The patent application was filed on December 13, 2013 (14/767,137).

Configure information technology infrastructure
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,180,798) developed by Kono, Yasutaka, Tokyo, Japan, for “method and apparatus to configure information technology infrastructure.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An aspect of the invention is directed to a management server coupled to a first storage array which executes a given function and coupled to a plurality of second storage arrays. The management server comprises: a memory being configured to store information of hardware configurations of the plurality of second storage arrays and to store information of one or more configuration patterns which realize the given function using a plurality of storage arrays, the plurality of storage arrays including zero or more first storage arrays and zero or more second storage arrays, and a processor, in response to receipt of a request to create configuration for the given function on the plurality of second storage arrays, being configured to select at least one configuration pattern, of the one or more configuration patterns, which can be realized by the hardware configurations of the plurality of second storage arrays.“

The patent application was filed on October 27, 2014 (15/317,249).

Storage system
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,168,945) developed by Kumagai, Naoko, and Kawakami, Norihiko, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage apparatus and storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage apparatus includes: first storage devices, second storage devices that are lower in performance than the first storage devices, and a controller coupled to an external storage apparatus including third storage devices that are lower in reliability than the first storage devices and the second storage devices and coupled to the first storage devices and the second storage devices. The controller controls data migration between the first storage devices and the second storage devices based on an I/O frequency. When the total size of data stored for a predetermined period or more among data stored in the second storage devices is equal to or larger than a predetermined size threshold, the controller transmits the data stored in the second storage devices for the predetermined period or more, to the external storage apparatus.“

The patent application was filed on October 29, 2014 (15/509,833).

Data management
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,168,919) developed by Akutsu, Hiroaki, Fukuoka, Mikio, and Katsuragi, Eijyu, Tokyo, Japan, for “system and data management method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage apparatus includes a plurality of storage devices, and a control unit for providing a predetermined storage area of the plurality of storage devices to the host computer as a virtual volume group including one or more virtual volumes. The control unit configures one or more data sets having one or more redundancy levels from the plurality of storage devices, provides a storage area of a storage pool including the plurality of data sets to a part of a storage area of the virtual volume, limits a combination of the storage devices configuring the data sets to be assigned to the virtual volume to a given number of combinations of two combinations or more, uniformly distributes the storage devices, and uses a given number of different combinations of the storage devices to be assigned to the virtual volume in units of the virtual volume group.“

The patent application was filed on July 22, 2015 (14/806,094).

Storage, and control
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,162,536) developed by Matsushita, Takaki, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage apparatus and storage control method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage apparatus includes a semiconductor storage device, and a storage controller coupled to the semiconductor storage device, and which stores data to a logical storage area provided by the semiconductor storage device. The semiconductor storage device includes one or more non-volatile semiconductor storage media, and a medium controller coupled to the semiconductor storage media. The medium controller compresses data stored in the logical storage area, and stores the compressed data in the semiconductor storage medium. The size of a logical address space of the logical storage area is larger than a total of the sizes of physical address spaces of the semiconductor storage media.“

The patent application was filed on June 30, 2017 (15/639,496).

Storage system
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,152,270) developed by Sato, Takamasa, Sakaguchi, Takashi, Jin, Azusa, Narita, Kensuke, Katoh, Yosuke, and Nagao, Takashi, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system forms a high availability pair for data duplication using a first volume of a first storage apparatus as a primary volume and a second volume of a second storage apparatus as a secondary volume. The first volume and a third volume of a third storage apparatus are used as a primary volume and a secondary volume, respectively, to form an asynchronous copy pair. The second volume and the third volume are used as a primary volume and a secondary volume, respectively, to form a standby pair. When a command to form the asynchronous copy pair is received, the storage system refuses to form the asynchronous copy pair when the standby pair is not formed yet.“

The patent application was filed on November 28, 2014 (15/509,597).

Storage system, and data write method
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,146,435) developed by Ninose, Kenta, and Ogawa, Junji, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage system and data write method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system includes a plurality of storage devices, each including a storage medium and a compression function for data, and a storage controller coupled to the plurality of storage devices. The storage controller includes compression necessity information indicating necessity of compression of the data in a write command to be transmitted to a storage device at a write destination among the plurality of storage devices. The storage device at the write destination writes, when the compression necessity information included in the received write command indicates that compression is unnecessary, the data in the storage medium without compressing the data.“

The patent application was filed on July 31, 2013 (14/766,847).