Hitachi Assigned Eighteen Patents

Storage system and data processing method using data compression
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11829600) developed by Mizushima, Nagamasa, and Shimada, Kentaro, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and data processing method using data compression.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system includes an interface and a data compression system configured to compress reception data from the interface before the data is stored in a storage device. The data compression system is configured to compress the reception data using a first compression algorithm to generate first compressed data, use the number of appearances of each of predetermined code categories included in the first compressed data to estimate a decompression time when a second compression algorithm is used, select a second compression method including compression using the second compression algorithm when the decompression time is equal to or less than a threshold value, and select a first compression method that does not include the compression using the second compression algorithm when the decompression time is greater than the threshold value.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-03-08 (17/689078).

Virtual storage system
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11829617) developed by Yamamoto, Akira, Akutsu, Hiroaki, and Kawaguchi, Tomohiro, Tokyo, Japan, for a “virtual storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A virtual storage system according to an aspect of the present invention includes multiple storage systems each including: a storage controller that accepts a read/write request for reading or writing from and to a logical volume, and multiple storage devices. The storage system defines a pool that manages the storage device capable of allocating any of storage areas to the logical volume, and manages the capacity (pool capacity) of the storage areas belonging to the pool, and the capacity (pool available capacity) of unused storage areas in the pool. Furthermore, the storage system calculates the total value of the pool available capacities of the storage systems included in the virtual storage system, and provides the server with the total value as the pool available capacity of the virtual storage system.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-04 (17/191812).

Storage system and QoS management method in storage system
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11822787) developed by Sato, Kenta, Hironaka, Kazuei, Suzuki, Takanobu, and Deguchi, Akira, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and QoS management method in storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The present invention is directed to realize a QoS function in the unit of a virtual volume group existing over a plurality of storage apparatuses. A management system of a storage system forms a virtual volume group by using a plurality of volumes provided by a plurality of storage apparatuses. In the virtual volume group, a QoS setting value including a data input/output amount is set. IO processing ability provided from each of the volumes to the virtual volume group is set so as to satisfy the QoS setting value. The management system sets the IC processing ability provided from each of the volumes to the virtual volume group on the basis of operation information of each of the volumes.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-03-11 (17/692796).

Storage system and storage program update method
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11816331) developed by Tajima, Sachie, Ito, Shintaro, Yamamoto, Takahiro, and Ohira, Yoshinori, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and storage program update method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The invention is to efficiently exchange storage programs. A storage program in an active state and a storage program in a standby state in a storage program group each change metadata thereof when the storage program in the active state writes data. When update of the storage programs including arranging post-update storage programs in storage nodes and generating new-version metadata based on old-version metadata by the post-update storage programs is to be performed, the post-update storage program in the standby state generates the new-version metadata based on the old-version metadata is performed for the storage programs in the plurality of storage nodes while replacing the active state and the standby state of the storage programs with each other in the plurality of storage programs in the storage program group.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-03-11 (17/693109).

Storage system, data copy control method, and recording medium
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11803443) developed by Fujita, Shota, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system, data copy control method, and recording medium.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage apparatus includes a plurality of drives and has a parity group constituted by a plurality of drives. The storage apparatus stores a hash management table to manage hash values of a prescribed data unit of data of the drives constituting the parity group and a hash value of a prescribed data unit of data stored in another drive other than the drives constituting the parity group. A processor is configured to determine whether a same data unit as a data unit included in data stored in a replacement target drive exists in the other drive on a basis of the hash values, and copy the same data unit of the other drive to a replacement destination drive when the same data unit exists.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-03-10 (17/691164).

Storage system and control method
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11797402) developed by Sugihara, Keita, Matsumoto, Keisuke, and Matsuda, Genki, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and control method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system with high availability is provided. The storage system is designed to be provided with: a generation unit that generates information of an association volume which is associated with each volume, on the basis of information of each volume created at each of a plurality of storage devices designated from two or more sites, and an instruction unit that issues an instruction to each storage device, at which each volume is created, to connect each volume associated with the association volume and a compute node which operates a container, on the basis of a request for activation of the container for which the information of the association volume generated by the generation unit is designated.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-02-16 (18/110418).

Storage management system and method
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11797384) developed by Nakamura, Takaki, Agetsuma, Masakuni, and Yamamoto, Takahiro, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage management system and management method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “According to one embodiment, provided is a storage management system having a processor and managing a plurality of storages, in which the storage has a plurality of types of components, and performs redundantization of a data to be stored by combining the plurality of components, the storage management system has component management information indicating redundancy set for the component itself, and the processor sets a method of data protection of the storage based on the component management information and a request for the data protection for the data stored in the storage.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-07-20 (17/868984).

Storage pool determination system
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11797209) developed by Osaki, Hiroyuki, Los Gatos, CA, for a “storage pool determination system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Example implementations described herein are directed to a method and a system for storage allocation from a storage pool, the method involving, for receipt of a request for storage through an orchestrator communicatively coupled to a management system managing the storage pool, the request comprising user information and request characteristics information, the request characteristics information indicative of a use type for the request, determining a storage tier from the storage pool for the request based on the user information and the request characteristics information, and allocating a pool name and the storage tier in response to the request.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-30 (17/217757).

Storage system and data processing
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11789613) developed by Ito, Shintaro, Tajima, Sachie, Yamamoto, Takahiro, and Agetsuma, Masakuni, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and data processing method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In a storage system in which a plurality of pieces of control software constituting a redundancy group are distributedly arranged in a plurality of storage nodes, control software in an active state out of the plurality of pieces of control software constituting the redundancy group receives a write request from a higher-level device. The control software in the active state writes data related to the write request by mirroring into a cache memory of a storage node in which the control software in the active state is arranged and a cache memory of a storage node in which control software in an inactive state belonging to the same redundancy group is arranged. The control software in the active state sends a write completion response to the higher-level device, and redundantly stores the data written in the cache memories in a storage device.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-03-09 (17/690191).

Optimized communicaton in storage system
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11782603) developed by Shimada, Kentaro, Nagao, Takashi, and Okada, Naoya, Tokyo, Japan, for “optimized communicaton in storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A bandwidth between a second processor and a second memory is higher than a bandwidth between a first processor and a first memory. The first memory stores a read command from a host computer. The first processor analyzes a content of the read command, and in accordance with a result of the analysis, requests read data from the second processor. In response to the request from the first processor, the second processor reads the read data from one or more storage drives and stores the read data in the second memory. The second processor notifies the first processor that the read data is stored in the second memory. The first processor transfers the read data read from the second memory, to the host computer without storing the read data in the first memory.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-03-09 (17/690965).

Storage system, management method, and program
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11775175) developed by Sugihara, Kahori, Yamamoto, Takahiro, and Seki, Toshiya, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system, storage management method, and storage management program.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An amount of writing data to storage devices can be kept low in additional processing for solving the write hole problem. A storage system includes a computer(s), a nonvolatile storage device(s), and a high-speed storage device(s) which can be accessed at a higher speed than the above-mentioned storage device(s), and a drive log including write log information is recorded in the high-speed storage device. When the computer receives a write request for write data, the computer firstly performs drive log check processing and then performs data write processing. In the drive log check processing, if a redundant write log record is recorded in a drive log, the computer changes the write log status of the redundant write log record to “completed” by targeting at the drive log and the write log information and then proceeds to the data write processing, and if the redundant write log record is not recorded in the drive log, the computer proceeds to the data write processing without changing the drive log or the write log information.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-03-07 (17/688347).

Storage system, storage node virtual machine restore method, and recording medium
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11762741) developed by Takubo, Koki, Ide, Kyohei, and Iwase, Hiromichi, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system, storage node virtual machine restore method, and recording medium.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A storage system in which a cluster is configured by a plurality of storage nodes is configured to include: a management server configured to store a template including an OS of a storage node, a process program that configures a process, and an installer, a maintenance node VM configured to collect configuration information required for configuring a restore-target storage node from within the storage system, a maintenance node, a management server, and a hypervisor configured to create a VM for a new storage node on the basis of the template and the configuration information, and a cluster controller configured to create a process in the new storage node using the installer and restore the process to a state corresponding to the process of the restore-target storage node.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-09-01 (17/464536).

Storage system and file arrangement method of storage
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11748000) developed by Omura, Koki, Nishihara, Yuta, and Hayashi, Arata, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and file arrangement method of storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “To selectively use cost, performance, reliability, and security characteristics of storage devices in an appropriate manner. A storage system has a plurality of volumes of which reliability and security levels differ from one another, and a controller of the storage system determines a reliability requirement and a security requirement of a file based on at least one of a type and a content of the file, determines a volume to store the file based on the determination result, and stores the file in the determined volume.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-03-08 (17/689059).

Storage system and control method
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11740823) developed by Deguchi, Akira, and Nakagawa, Hirotaka, Tokyo, Japan, for “storage system and storage control method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In a multi-node storage system, a node’s capacity has an upper limit, and capacities provided by nodes are smaller than a capacity of a global pool. A volume having a capacity larger than the capacity of one node is created by the node. A write error occurs when an amount of data larger than the capacity of the node is written. A storage system reduces the frequency of such a write error. A global pool is based on a plurality of local pools of a plurality of storage nodes that constitute a node group. In any of the storage nodes, a capacity relationship is maintained where a used capacity of a volume created by the storage node is equal to or less than an available capacity of a local pool of the storage node. A storage management unit manages the node group and selects the storage node.”

The patent application was filed on 2019-09-12 (16/569202).

Control system
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11734201) developed by Onishi, Kazutaka, Otsuka, Yusaku, and Maruyama, Tatsuya, Tokyo, Japan, for a “control system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In a control system including one or more control nodes and one or more I/O nodes connected to one or more devices and communicable with the control nodes, the control nodes execute at least one control program on a first OS, and the I/O nodes execute at least one I/O program on a second OS with higher punctuality. The control program generates a control command based on state control set in advance for the device and transmits the control command to the I/O node. The I/O program stores the control command received from the control node in a storage unit, and executes processing related to the device according to the control command stored in the storage unit.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-10-09 (17/794248).

Cluster system and fail-over control method of cluster
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11734133) developed by Sugihara, Keita, Matsumoto, Keisuke, and Kuroda, Yuki, Tokyo, Japan, for “cluster system and fail-over control method of cluster system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A cluster system has nodes connected by a first network, including a master node, a first node performing an IO request with respect to a first volume of a storage device capable of including a plurality of volumes through a second network, and a second node taking over processing of the first node at the time of a failure of the first node. When a failure of the first network occurs in the first node, the master node transmits a connection release instruction through the second network. When the connection release instruction is received, the storage device releases the connection between the first node and the first volume, and updates connection state management information for managing such a connection state. The first node acquires the connection state to be managed through the second network, and executes post-processing relevant to the first volume that is associated with the connection release instruction.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-08-17 (17/404469).

Computer system and communication management
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11726691) developed by Tajima, Sachie, Yamamoto, Takahiro, Ito, Shintaro, and Agetsuma, Masakuni, Tokyo, Japan, for “computer system and communication management method.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “When a communication protocol is changed, the I/O function can be appropriately provided. In a computer system, a storage node includes a CPU and a storage control program that performs communication relating to data I/O. The storage control program has a first storage control program that is capable of using a first communication protocol, and a second storage control program that is capable of using the first communication protocol and a second communication protocol. The control node the control node causes, when any storage node of the plurality of storage nodes is capable of executing the first storage control program alone, all storage nodes to perform communication using the first communication protocol. The control node causes, after all storage nodes of the plurality of storage nodes are enabled to execute the second storage control program, the all storage nodes to perform communication using the second communication protocol.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-09-08 (17/468850).

File storage and computer system that creates new chunks after update
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (11709628) developed by Shimizu, Tomoki, Tokyo, Japan, for “file storage and computer system that creates new chunks after an update.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “In file storage, a CPU is configured to: divide a file into a plurality of chunks, execute encoding processing on at least one of the chunks to obtain an encoded chunk, and store in cloud storage a plurality of chunks of the file including the encoded chunk, acquire, when receiving a read command of which target is data of a part of a file stored in the cloud storage, a read target chunk including data, which is a target of the read command, from the cloud storage, and execute, when an encoded chunk is included in the read target chunk, decoding processing on the encoded chunk, identify data that is a read target from the read target chunk including the chunk having been subjected to decoding processing, and hand over the identified data to a command source of the read command.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-22 (17/208068).