Hitachi Assigned Nine Patents

Shared storage between multiple cloud environments
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,572,175) developed by Nakajima, Akio, and Deguchi, Akira, Santa Clara, CA, for “method and apparatus of shared storage between multiple cloud environments.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A computer system is coupled to a first storage system in a first site and a second storage system in a second site. The computer system comprises: a memory configured to store information which indicates that data in each segment of a plurality of segments of a logical unit is stored in the first storage system or the second storage system, and a processor configured to: receive an instruction to deploy an application, the instruction including access characteristic of the application, and determine if a snapshot of the logical volume is to be created either in the first storage system or the second storage system based on the access characteristic of the application and the information stored in the memory.”

The patent application was filed on June 5, 2015 (15/538,241).

Storage system
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,572,171) developed by Takaoka, Nobumitsu, Yamamoto, Akira, Kawaguchi, Tomohiro, Watanabe, Yasuo, Yoshii, Yoshihiro, and Matsugami, Kazuki, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage system according to an aspect of the present invention includes one or more storage devices for storing write data to which a write request from a host computer is directed, and a storage controller that provides one or more volumes to the host computer. Further, the storage system manages the time when a write request is last received from the host computer for each partition within the volume. Then, the storage controller performs a deduplication process upon detecting the partition not receiving a write request for a predetermined time or more from the time when the write request is last received.”

The patent application was filed on February 29, 2016 (15/769,424).

Storage system
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,558,383) developed by Sakashita, Yuki, Chiba, Takeru, Sugimoto, Sadahiro,and Kawaguchi, Tomohiro, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage system includes a plurality of nodes connected with a network and configured to provide volumes, a plurality of drive units, and a management system. Each of the plurality of drive units consists of a plurality of storage drives and is accessible from one or more of the plurality of nodes without intervention of the other nodes. The management system or one of the plurality of nodes is configured to determine number of storage drives to be included in a new distribution range to distribute data of a first volume based on access frequency to the first volume.”

The patent application was filed on October 8, 2015 (15/755,986).

Data management
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,545,949) developed by Fukunaka, Katsuhiro, and Yamamoto, Nobuyuki, Tokyo, Japan, for “data management system and data management method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A data management system including a plurality of servers each having a processor, a memory, and a storage device, the system receiving and storing data using the plurality of servers and multiplexing the data, wherein the servers are provided with: a first determination unit that determines the consistency of the multiplexed data, a second determination unit that has a greater number of allowable server failures than the first determination unit for determining the consistency of the multiplexed data but a greater minimum number of times of server-to-sever communications for determining the consistency of the data, a combination unit that receives a data consistency determination result from the first determination unit or the second determination unit, and that, if the determination result includes consistency guaranteeing data, outputs the consistency guaranteed data, and a data storage unit that stores the data output by the combination unit.”

The patent application was filed on June 3, 2014 (15/125,715).

Storage device
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,545,684) developed by Koseki, Hideyuki, and Arai, Masahiro, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage device relating to one aspect of the present invention has a storage controller and multiple memory devices. The memory devices manage capacity equivalent to the size of a memory space provided to the storage controller among regions of a non-volatile storage medium as logical capacity and manage the remaining regions as reserve capacity. When a device controller determines that a portion of the memory regions in the non-volatile storage medium is in an unusable state, the device controller notifies the storage controller of the size of the memory regions in the unusable state. On the basis of a policy set by the memory device, the storage controller determines the reduction amount of the logical capacity and the reserve capacity and notifies the memory device of the determined reduction amount of the logical capacity.”

The patent application was filed on May 13, 2015 (15/546,041).

Storage monitoring
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,585,620) developed by Nikaido, Akira, and Kuroda, Takaki, Tokyo, Japan, for a “storage monitoring system for monitoring components in a storage system in a distributed manner.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method for a storage monitoring system including a storage device, a manager, and agents, wherein said manager: stores information about a first range of components of a first type that are among types of components included in the storage device, and that are to be monitored by a first agent of the agents, said stored information being associated with information about the first agent, notifies the first agent of the information about the first range of components to be monitored, stores information about a second range of components of the first type that are among the types of components, and that are to be monitored by a second agent of the agents, said stored information being associated with information about the second agent, and notifies the second agent of the information about the second range of components to be monitored.”

The patent application was filed on July 28, 2015 (15/551,249).

Storage system and information management
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,579,433) developed by

Shibayama, Tsukasa, Ebara, Hiroto, Tsuchiya, Akiyoshi, and Kawaguchi, Tomohiro, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and information management method having a representative node and a plurality of general nodes including a plurality of resources.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”According to one embodiment, a storage system includes a representative node and a plurality of general nodes including a plurality of resources. Each of the general nodes stores resource status information indicating respective statuses of the plurality of resources in a first storage unit thereof. The representative node stores resource status information collected from the plurality of general nodes in a second storage unit thereof, decides whether to acquire the resource status information from the first storage unit of the general node or to acquire the resource status information from the second storage unit based on a received request, and transmits the resource status information acquired from a decided acquisition destination to an issuing source of the request.”

The patent application was filed on May 8, 2019 (16/406,177).

Storage apparatus and information processing program
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,579,304) developed by

Kurokawa, Midori, and Koga, Tsutomu, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage apparatus and information processing program.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Provided is a storage apparatus including a plurality of storage devices which store data, a controller which executes data input/output processing to the storage devices, and a processor which transmits/receives information with the controller, wherein the controller manages a plurality of different tag numbers by separating the tag numbers into a plurality of groups, and upon receiving a first command from the processor, assigns a tag number belonging to one group among the plurality of groups to the first command, and transfers the first command to a designated storage device, and, upon subsequently receiving an instruction for a chip reset from the processor, executes a chip reset, and, upon subsequently receiving a second command from the processor, assigns a tag number belonging to a group which is different from the group used before the chip reset to the second command, and transfers the second command to a designated storage device.”

The patent application was filed on December 10, 2015 (15/745,854).

Storage system and storage control
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (10,579,275) developed by

Araki, Akihiko, Nonaka, Yusuke, and Morishita, Noboru, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and storage control method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”This storage system comprises a block interface, a block control unit, a file control unit, and shared memory. The file control unit and block control unit are coupled via a first memory-through path structured to pass through a first area of the shared memory, and via a second memory-through path structured to pass through a second area of the shared memory. The block control unit has a protocol control unit and a virtual driver, exchanges control information for the file control unit with the file control unit via the first memory-through path, uses the virtual driver to convert an I/O request passed from the file control unit via the second memory-through path and processes the result with a protocol processing unit, and bypasses the virtual driver and uses the protocol processing unit to process a block I/O request transferred from the block interface via a physical path.”

The patent application was filed on July 27, 2015 (15/579,893).