NetApp Assigned Fifteen Patents

Bin syncing technique for multiple data protection schemes
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11514181) developed by Longo, Austino, Boulder, CO, McCarthy, Daniel David, Erie, CO, Corey, Christopher Clark, Boulder, CO, and Mishra, Sneheet Kumar, Lafayette, CO, for a “bin syncing technique for multiple data protection schemes.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A bin syncing technique ensures continuous data protection, such as replication and erasure coding, for content driven distribution of data served by storage nodes of a cluster in the event of failure to one or more block services configured to process the data. The cluster maintains information about the block services assigned to host a bin with a copy of the data in a bin assignment table associated with a . The copies of the data are d, e.g., replica 0 (R0), replica 1 (R1) or replica 2 (R2). In response to failure of one or more block services assigned to host a bin with a replica of the data, an alternate or replacement block service may access the assignments maintained in the bin assignment table, which specify s of the replicas associated with the state.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-02-12 (16/788979).

Techniques for coordinating parallel performance and cancellation of commands in storage cluster
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11509718) developed by Sundararajan, Manoj, Mu, Paul Yuedong, and Ngan, Paul, Sunnyvale, CA, for “techniques for coordinating parallel performance and cancellation of commands in a storage cluster system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Various embodiments are directed to techniques for coordinating at least partially parallel performance and cancellation of data access commands between nodes of a storage cluster system. An apparatus may include a processor component of a first node coupled to a first storage device storing client device data, an access component to perform replica data access commands of replica command sets on the client device data, each replica command set assigned a set ID, a communications component to analyze a set ID included in a network packet to determine whether a portion of a replica command set in the network packet is redundant, and to reassemble the replica command set from the portion based if the portion is not redundant, and an ordering component to provide the communications component with set IDs of replica command sets of which the access component has fully performed the set of replica data access commands.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-01-28 (16/774108).

Enabling and disabling remote storage location cache usage in networked storage
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11500591) developed by Makam, Sumith, Thapliyal, Rahul, R, Kartik, Bangalore, India, Chuggani, Roopesh, Jaipur, India, Lnu, Abhisar, Gautam Buddha Nagar, India, and S, Maria Josephine Priyanka, Chennai, India, for “methods and systems for enabling and disabling remote storage location cache usage in a networked storage system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods and systems for a networked storage system are provided. One method includes transmitting, by a first node, an invalidation request to a second node to invalidate an entry of a storage location cache of the second node, the entry indicating a storage location to write data in response to a write request received by the first node, updating, by the first node, a memory structure at the first node for sending a heartbeat message to disable use of the storage location cache by the second node, and responding, by the first node, to the write request, after a response to disable the use of the storage location cache is received from the second node or a certain duration, T1, has elapsed since the heartbeat message was sent to the second node and no response was received from the second node.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-07-28 (17/387815).

Managing networked storage resources
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11500750) developed by Sprague, John Jason, Westford, MA, Joshi, Aashay Yogesh, Nashua, NH, Rosa, Francisco Jose Assis, Sudbury, MA, Dagan, Keren, Lexington, MA, and Stapp, Michael Edward, Westford, MA, for “methods and systems for managing networked storage system resources.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods and systems for a networked storage environment are provided. One method includes maintaining by a processor of a management console, a plurality of structured objects representing a plurality of resources in a networked storage system for storing and retrieving client data from a plurality of storage devices, receiving by the processor unstructured data from an application programming interface (API) associated with a resource of the networked storage system, parsing by the processor, the unstructured data and generating an identifier hash value based on uniquely identifying fields of the unstructured data for an unstructured object, and generating by the processor a logical index with a configuration index and a performance index for the unstructured object identified by the identifier hash value for responding to user requests for performance information regarding the unstructured object.”

The patent application was filed on 2019-09-06 (16/562713).

Allocating data compression activities in storage
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11500592) developed by Delaney, William P., Moyer, Keith, Wichita, KS, Sterns, Randolph, Boulder, CO, Moore, Joseph, Blount, Joseph, and Binford, Charles, Wichita, KS, for “systems and methods for allocating data compression activities in a storage system.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method, a computing device, and a non-transitory machine-readable medium for allocating data compression activities in a storage system are provided. A method includes tracking, by a storage controller, computing resources corresponding to a storage server. The storage controller processes one or more host read requests to access data requested by one or more hosts, the processing of the one or more host read requests including decompressing the data requested by the one or more hosts from the storage server and providing the decompressed data to the one or more hosts. The storage controller determines an amount of available computing resources after processing the one or more host read requests. Based on the amount of available computing resources, the storage controller performs inline compression of a first portion of host write requests and background compression of a second portion of the host write requests.”

The patent application was filed on 2019-12-09 (16/707651).

Object and sequence number management
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11487723) developed by Subramanian, Ananthan, San Ramon, CA, Jantli, Sridevi, San Jose, CA, Thoppil, Anil Paul, Thompson, Cheryl Marie, Sunnyvale, CA, and Zheng, Qinghua, San Jose, CA, for “object and sequence number management.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for orphan object detection, invalid sequence number detection, and asynchronous object cleanup. A storage system may store data within one or more tiers of storage, such as a storage tier (e.g., solid storage and disks maintained by the storage system), a remote object store (e.g., storage provided by a third party storage provider), and/or other storage tiers. Orphan objects, within the remote object store, that are no longer used by the storage system may be detected and/or deleted. When an aggregate of volumes is deleted, corresponding objects, within the remote object store, may be identified and/or deleted. Invalid sequence numbers (e.g., lost or corrupt sequence numbers locally maintained in a metafile) assigned to objects within the remote object store may be identified, deleted, and/or fixed.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-01-24 (16/751766).

Networked storage with remote storage location cache and associated methods
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11481326) developed by Makam, Sumith, Thapliyal, Rahul, R, Kartik, Bangalore, India, Chuggani, Roopesh, Jaipur, India, Lnu, Abhisar, Gautam Buddha Nagar, India, and S, Maria Josephine Priyanka, Chennai, India, for “networked storage system with a remote storage location cache and associated methods thereof.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods and systems for a networked storage system are provided. One method includes: utilizing, by a first node, a storage location cache to determine if an entry associated with a first read request for data stored using a logical object owned by a second node configured as a failover partner node of the first node exists, transmitting, by the first node, the first read request to the second node, receiving, by the first node, a response to the first read request from the second node with requested data, inserting, by the first node, an entry in the storage location cache indicating the storage location information for the data, and utilizing, by the first node, the inserted entry in the storage location cache to determine storage location of data requested by a second read request received by the first node.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-07-28 (17/387776).

Interface between multi-site distributed storage and external mediator to efficiently process events related to continuity
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11481139) developed by Vijayan, Anoop, Kaushik, Akhil, Karnataka, India, Shetty, Sohan, and Shah, Dhruvil, Bangalore, India, for “methods and systems to interface between a multi-site distributed storage system and an external mediator to efficiently process events related to continuity.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods are described for efficiently processing events related to a relationship between a primary copy of data at a primary storage system and a mirror copy of the data at a cross-site secondary storage system of a multi-site distributed storage system. According to an example, a mediator agent that is configured on both primary and secondary storage systems provides coordination and serialization for various events generated in the relationship. The multi-site distributed storage system performs actions based on the event processing such as performing a failover operation from the primary storage system to the secondary storage system or resynchronizing the relationship to ensure application protection and availability.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-31 (17/219816).

Using extended physical region page lists to improve performance for solid-drives and devices
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11481335) developed by Ahmed, Reyaz, Fremont, CA, and Coatney, Douglas, San Jose, CA, for “methods for using extended physical region page lists to improve performance for solid-drives and devices thereof.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods, non-transitory machine readable media, and computing devices that use extended physical region page (PRP) lists to improve storage device performance are disclosed. With this technology, a PRP list is generated that includes pointers retrieved from a scatter/gather list (SGL) for memory buffers representing data segments associated with a storage operation. The PRP list is extended to include a pointer to an allocated memory page configured to store metadata segments represented by other memory buffers referenced by other pointers in the SGL. A command request that includes the extended PRP list is submitted to a storage device for execution of the storage operation. With this technology, storage operations are advantageously enabled for non-volatile memory express (NVMe) solid- drive (SSDs), for example, that do not support SGL transfers.”

The patent application was filed on 2019-07-26 (16/523980).

Resynchronization to filesystem synchronous replication relationship endpoint
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11468014) developed by Kaushik, Akhil, and Narasingarayanapeta, Krishna Murthy Chandraiah setty, Bangalore, India, for a “resynchronization to a filesystem synchronous replication relationship endpoint.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for resynchronizing a synchronous replication relationship. Asynchronous incremental transfers are performed to replicate data of a storage object to a replicated storage object. Incoming write requests, targeting the storage object, are logged into a dirty region log during a last asynchronous incremental transfer. Metadata operations, executed on the storage object, are logged into a metadata log during the last asynchronous incremental transfer. Sequence numbers are assigned to the metadata operations based upon an order of execution. The metadata operations are replicated to the replicated storage object for execution according to the sequence numbers, and the dirty regions are replicated to the replicated storage object in response to the metadata operations having been replicated to the replicated storage object. The storage object and replicated storage object are transitioned to a synchronous replication where incoming operations are synchronously replicated to the replicated storage object.”

The patent application was filed on 2018-11-15 (16/191700).

Handling metadata operations and timestamp changes during resynchronization
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11461280) developed by Kaushik, Akhil, and Narasingarayanapeta, Krishna Murthy Chandraiah setty, Bangalore, India, for “handling metadata operations and timestamp changes during resynchronization.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for resynchronizing a synchronous replication relationship. Asynchronous incremental transfers are performed to replicate data of a storage object to a replicated storage object. Incoming write requests, targeting the storage object, are logged into a dirty region log during a last asynchronous incremental transfer. Metadata operations, executed on the storage object, are logged into a metadata log during the last asynchronous incremental transfer. Sequence numbers are assigned to the metadata operations based upon an order of execution. The metadata operations are replicated to the replicated storage object for execution according to the sequence numbers, and the dirty regions are replicated to the replicated storage object in response to the metadata operations having been replicated to the replicated storage object. The storage object and replicated storage object are transitioned to a synchronous replication where incoming operations are synchronously replicated to the replicated storage object.”

The patent application was filed on 2019-05-02 (16/401257).

Available storage space in system with varying data redundancy schemes
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11461015) developed by Corey, Christopher Clark, Boulder, CO, McCarthy, Daniel David, Erie, CO, Mishra, Sneheet Kumar, and Longo, Austino Nicholas, Lafayette, CO, for an “available storage space in a system with varying data redundancy schemes.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A technique is configured to provide various data protection schemes, such as replication and erasure coding, for data blocks of volumes served by storage nodes of a cluster configured to perform deduplication of the data blocks. Additionally, the technique is configured to ensure that each deduplicated data block complies with data redundancy guarantees of the data protection schemes, while improving storage space of the storage nodes. In order to satisfy the data integrity guarantees while improving available storage space, the storage nodes perform periodic garbage collection for data blocks to optimize storage in accordance with currently applicable data protection schemes.”

The patent application was filed on 2019-10-15 (16/601978).

Accelerating storage operations using computational network and storage components and devices
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11449278) developed by Slik, David, British Columbia, Canada, for “methods for accelerating storage operations using computational network and storage components and devices thereof.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods, non-transitory machine readable media, and computing devices that accelerate storage operations are disclosed. With this technology, computational storage devices are assigned by a NIC processor of a computational network interface controller (NIC) to storage locations corresponding to respective partitions of an n-dimensional space. One of the storage locations to which a data location in the n-dimensional space maps is then identified by the NIC processor. The data location is determined based on a hash for data associated with a received storage operation. The NIC processor subsequently communicates via a system bus with a storage processor of one of the computational storage device to service the storage operation. The storage processor is coupled directly to flash media of the one of the computational storage device that is assigned to the one of the storage locations and maintains a key/value store comprising the data.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-09-04 (17/012652).

Moving consistency group having replication relationship
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11449401) developed by Patnaik, Pranab, Cary, NC, Somavarapu, Nagender, Sunnyvale, CA, Mu, Yuedong, San Jose, CA, Shetty, Rithin Kumar, Sunnyvale, CA, and Shah, Devang Kundanlal, San Jose, CA, for “moving a consistency group having a replication relationship.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “One or more techniques and/or computing devices are provided for moving a consistency group having a replication relation. For example, a first consistency group of storage objects (e.g., files, logical unit numbers (LUNs), etc.) within first storage may have a replication relationship with a second consistency group within second storage (e.g., the second consistency group is maintained as a synchronously replicated copy of the first consistency group). A volume copy operation, a single file move on demand command, a single file restore command, or other functionality is used to move the first consistency group from the first storage to third storage, such as for load balancing, to create a moved first consistency group within the third storage. A new replication relationship is established between the moved first consistency group and the second consistency group, and the moved first consistency group and the second consistency group are resynchronized.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-03-02 (16/806110).

Persistent hole reservation
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11449260) developed by Narasingarayanapeta, Krishna Murthy Chandraiah Setty, and Bhargava M. R., Rakesh, Bangalore, India, for a “persistent hole reservation.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for persistent hole reservation. For example, hole reservation flags of operations targeting a first storage object of a first node are replicated into replication operations targeting a second storage object of a second node during a transition operation to transition the first storage object and the second storage object from an asynchronous replication to a synchronous replication . In another example, the second storage object is grown to a size of a replication punch hole operation that failed due to targeting a file block number greater than an end of size of the second storage object.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-11-30 (17/106240).