VMware Assigned Fourteen Patents

Reclaiming storage resources
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,740,227) developed by Krishnamurthy, Pradeep, Aithal, Prasanna, Bangalore, India, Desai, Asit, Branstetter, Bryan, Palo Alto, CA, Hiregoudar, Mahesh S, Bangalore, India, Jangam, Prasad Rao, Pasalkar, Rohan, Palo Alto, CA, Shantharam, Srinivasa, and Pichai, Raghavan, Bangalore, India, for “reclaiming storage resources.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for reclaiming one or more portions of storage resources in a computer system serving one or more virtual computing instances, where the storage resources in the computer system are organized in clusters of storage blocks. In one aspect, a method includes maintaining a respective block tracking value for each storage block that indicates whether a call to reclaim the storage block is outstanding, determining, from the block tracking values, a respective cluster priority value for each of the clusters based on a count of storage blocks in the respective cluster for which a call to reclaim is outstanding, and reclaiming a first portion of storage resources in the computer system in accordance with the cluster priority values.”

The patent application was filed on July 10, 2017 (15/644,854).

Migration of virtual machines and virtual applications between cloud-computing facilities
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,740,145) developed by Raghu, Jagannath N., Palo Alto, CA, Bandi, Manjunath, and, Agarwal, Anirudh, Bangalore, India, for “method and system for migration of virtual machines and virtual applications between cloud-computing facilities.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The current document discloses methods and systems for extending an internal network within a first cloud-computing facility to a second cloud-computing facility and deploying a virtual machine or virtual application previously running on a first cloud-computing facility within the context of the extended internal network in the second cloud-computing facility. The currently disclosed methods and systems which provide internal-network extension and redeployment of virtual machines and virtual applications, referred to as ‘stretch deploy,’ allow a virtual machine or virtual application formerly executing on a first cloud-computing facility to resume execution on a second cloud-computing facility, using the computational and storage facilities of the second cloud-computing facility but depending on network support from the first cloud-computing facility, without changing IP and local network addresses and the network connectivity, based on those addresses, between the virtual machines and virtual applications and other local and remote computational entities with which the virtual machines and virtual applications communicate.”

The patent application was filed on April 8, 2016 (15/094,219).

Gap management in block storage
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,732,844) developed by Zaydman, Oleg, and Zhirin, Roman, San Jose, CA, for a “gap management in block storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The disclosure enables management of block storage more efficiently than with traditional free space bitmap approaches. An exemplary method includes segregating disk gap indices by differentiated gap sizes, maintaining a set of lists for segregated sizes, such that each list identifies gaps of a common size, comparing a length of a list with trigger criteria, and based at least on the length of the list meeting the criteria, writing at least a portion of the list into a disk gap. Writing gap locations into gaps in disk storage reduces memory burdens, and the gap data can later be extracted when the list becomes short. These processes can be performed iteratively. The prior need for traversing a free space bitmap to find a gap of a particular size is eliminated, the new method permits more rapid location of a particular size gap by selecting an element of the proper list.”

The patent application was filed on February 20, 2019 (16/280,475).

Externally triggered maintenance of state information of virtual machines for high availablity operations
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,725,883) developed by Ganesan, Hariharan Jeyaraman, Antony, Jinto, Gangadharan, Madhusudhanan, and Murugan, Muthukumar, Bangalore, India, for “externally triggered maintenance of state information of virtual machines for high availablity operations.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”An example method is provided to maintain state information of a virtual machine in a virtualized computing environment through an externally-triggered approach. The method may comprise detecting, by an external entity, that a first host in a cluster is disconnected from a first network connecting the first host to a distributed storage system accessible by the cluster. The method may also comprise instructing the first host to suspend a virtual machine supported by the first host and to store state information associated with the virtual machine. The method may further comprise selecting a second host from the cluster and instructing the first host to migrate the suspended virtual machine to the second host such that the suspended virtual machine is able to resume from suspension on the second host based on the stored state information.”

The patent application was filed on November 19, 2015 (14/945,448).

Self triggered maintenance of state information of virtual machines for high availability operations
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,725,804) developed by Ganesan, Hariharan Jeyaraman, Antony, Jinto, Gangadharan, Madhusudhanan, and Murugan, Muthukumar, Bangalore, India, for “self triggered maintenance of state information of virtual machines for high availability operations.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”An example method is provided to maintain state information of a virtual machine in a virtualized computing environment through a self-triggered approach. The method may comprise detecting, by a first host from a cluster in the virtualized computing environment, that the first host is disconnected from a network connecting the first host to a distributed storage system accessible by the cluster. The method may also comprise suspending, by the first host, a virtual machine supported by the first host and storing state information associated with the virtual machine. The method may further comprise selecting a second host from the cluster and migrating the suspended virtual machine to the second host such that the suspended virtual machine is able to resume from suspension on the second host based on the stored state information.”

The patent application was filed on November 19, 2015 (14/945,460).

Consistent replication of virtual computing instance data
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,719,274) developed by Piduri, Sudarsan R., Campbell, CA, and Langouev, Ilia, Santa Cruz, CA, for a “consistent replication of virtual computing instance data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Virtual computing instance data that are stored across multiple storage volumes are replicated in a manner such that the write order is maintained. The frequency of the replication is set so that the recovery point objective defined for the VM data can be satisfied. The replication includes the steps of determining a set of logical storage volumes across which the virtual computing instance issues dependent write IOs, issuing a first command to the virtual computing instance to block new IOs and to block receipt of IO acknowledgements, issuing a command to create replicas of all the logical storage volumes in the set, and then issuing a second command to the virtual computing instance to unblock new IOs and unblock receipt of IO acknowledgements.”

The patent application was filed on May 9, 2018 (15/975,412).

Handling fragmentation of archived data in cloud/object storage
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,705,922) developed by Kashi Visvanathan, Satish Kumar, San Jose, CA, Sarda, Pooja, Cupertino, CA, Langouev, Ilya, Santa Cruz, CA, and Kandambakkam, Arun, Santa Clara, CA, for “handling fragmentation of archived data in cloud/object storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques for handling fragmentation of archived data in cloud/object storage are provided. In one set of embodiments, a computer system can upload a new snapshot of a data set to the cloud/object storage, where the new snapshot comprises a plurality of data blocks, and where the new snapshot is uploaded as one or more data objects and one or more metadata objects. For each data block in the plurality of data blocks, the computer system can identify an existing data object in the cloud/object storage where the data block is currently stored. The computer system can further select, from among the identified existing data objects, a subset of the existing data objects that are part of a snapshot created in the cloud/object storage at least a predefined number of snapshots before the new snapshot, and select one or more data blocks of one or more data objects in the subset that have not be overwritten by another snapshot. The computer system can then upload the one or more data blocks as part of the new snapshot.”

The patent application was filed on January 12, 2018 (15/870,740).

Purging non-active blocks in NVM regions using pointer elimination
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,691,591) developed by Tati, Kiran, Milpitas, CA, Deguillard, Xavier, Mountain View, CA, Banerjee, Ishan, Santa Clara, CA, Freche, Julien, Mountain View, CA, Agarwal, Preeti, and Venkatasubramanian, Rajesh, San Jose, CA, for “efficiently purging non-active blocks in NVM regions using pointer elimination.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques for efficiently purging non-active blocks in an NVM region of an NVM device using pointer elimination are provided. In one set of embodiments, a host system can, for each level 1 (L1) page table entry of each snapshot of the NVM region, determine whether a data block of the NVM region that is pointed to by the L1 page table entry is a non-active block, and if the data block is a non-active block, remove a pointer to the data block in the L1 page table entry and reduce a reference count parameter associated with the data block by 1. If the reference count parameter has reached zero at this point, the host system purge the data block from the NVM device to the mass storage device.”

The patent application was filed on October 29, 2018 (16/174,264).

Multi-level access control for distributed storage
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,678,932) developed by Lu, Yunshan, San Jose, CA, and Wang, Wenguang, Santa Clara, CA, for a “multi-level access control for distributed storage systems.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”System and method for accessing a distributed storage system uses a storage-level access control process at a distributed file system that interfaces with the distributed storage system to determine whether a particular client has access to a particular first file system object using an identifier of the particular client and storage-level access control rules in response to a file system request from the particular client to access a second file system object in the particular first file system. The storage-level access control rules are defined for a plurality of clients and a plurality of first file system objects of the distributed storage system to allow the particular client access to the second file system object in the particular first file system object only if the particular client has been determined to have access to the particular first file system object according to the storage-level access control rules.”

The patent application was filed on October 5, 2018 (16/153,633).

Detecting and managing collisions in storage
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,678,460) developed by Smith-Uchida, Dave, San Jose, CA, for “detecting and managing collisions in storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The subject matter described herein is generally directed to detecting and managing collisions in storage. A hash identifier (ID) for a first block of data is calculated and a determination is made whether the calculated hash ID matches hash IDs associated with a storage. If the calculated hash ID matches at least one of the hash IDs, the first block of data is compared with a second block of data, associated with the hash IDs, in the storage. If the first block of data is different from the second block of data based on the comparison, a hash number is associated with the calculated hash ID and the first block of data is stored in storage using the calculated hash ID and associated hash number as an index to the first block of data in the storage. In this manner, collision between data blocks is detected and prevented.”

The patent application was filed on March 12, 2018 (15/918,130).

Locating grains in storage using grain table to grain-range table compression
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,671,324) developed by Zaydman, Oleg, San Jose, CA, for “locating grains in storage using grain table to grain-range table compression.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A ‘grain’ is a unit of space allocation in a virtual disk. Grains are represented in physical storage only when used, that is, when they contain data. Grains may be located in storage using an in-memory grain-range table. The grain-range table is derived from a grain table in storage. A grain-range table includes entries for the starting grains of incrementing and or decrementing ranges, grain-table entries that do not start a range are omitted in the grain-range table. Accordingly, a grain-range table can serve as a compressed form of a grain table. This compression makes it feasible to store large numbers of grain-range tables in memory in cases where it would not be feasible to store the corresponding grain tables in memory. As a result, one rather than two storage accesses are require per storage access request, resulting in a substantial performance improvement.”

The patent application was filed on January 23, 2018 (15/877,584).

Multi-tenant encryption on distributed storage having deduplication and compression capability
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,666,435) developed by Wang, Wenguang, Santa Clara, CA, Zhang, Jin, Fremont, CA, Zheng, Haoran, San Jose, CA, Knauft, Eric, San Francisco, CA, Li, Xin, Fremont, CA, Renauld, Pascal, Palo Alto, CA, and Fink, Bryan, San Jose, CA, for “multi-tenant encryption on distributed storage having deduplication and compression capability.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A tenant’s clear text data in a multi-tenant storage system can be encrypted using the tenant’s cryptographic key to produce encrypted yet compressible data, (cryptographic data). The cryptographic data can be encrypted using a system cryptographic key that is managed by the multi-tenant storage system and then stored. Use of the system cryptographic key allows for subsequent maintenance activities such as deduplication and compression to be performed on data stored in the multi-tenant storage system without having to access any of the tenants’ cryptographic keys.”

The patent application was filed on January 9, 2018 (15/866,278).

Decoupling commit and replay of metadata updates in clustered file system
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,664,450) developed by Aithal, Prasanna, Bangalore, India, Desai, Asit, Branstetter, Bryan, Palo Alto, CA, Krishnamurthy, Pradeep, Bangalore, India, and Jangam, Prasad Rao, Palo Alto, CA, for “decoupling the commit and replay of metadata updates in a clustered file system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques for decoupling the commit and replay of file system metadata updates in a clustered file system (CFS) are provided. In one embodiment, a CFS layer of a computer system can receive a file I/O operation from a client application, where the file I/O operation involves an update to a file system metadata resource maintained on persistent storage. In response, a journaling component of the CFS layer can execute a commit phase for committing the update to a journal on the persistent storage. The CFS layer can then return an acknowledgment to the client application indicating that the file I/O operation is complete, where the acknowledgement is returned prior to completion of a replay phase configured to propagate the update from the journal to one or more locations on the persistent storage where the file system metadata resource is actually stored.”

The patent application was filed on June 5, 2017 (15/613,300).

Implementing hybrid flash/HDD-based virtual disk files
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA , has been assigned a patent (10,657,101) developed by Liu, Deng, Uttamchandani, Sandeep, Zhou, Li, and Rawat, Mayank, Palo Alto, CA, for “techniques for implementing hybrid flash/HDD-based virtual disk files.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques for utilizing flash storage as an extension of hard disk, HDD) storage are provided. In one embodiment, a computer system stores a subset of blocks of a logical file in a first physical file, associated with a first data structure that represents a filesystem object, on flash storage and a subset of blocks, associated with a second data structure that represents a filesystem object comprising tiering configuration information that includes an identifier of the first physical file, in a second physical file on HDD storage. The computer system processes an I/O request directed to the logical file by directing it to either the physical file on the flash storage or the HDD storage by verifying that the tiering configuration information exists in the data structure and determining whether the one or more blocks are part of the first subset of blocks or the second subset of blocks.”

The patent application was filed on May 25, 2018 (15/990,360).