VAST Data Assigned Eight Patents

Asynchronous to synchronous replication transition
VAST Data Ltd., Rehovot, Israel, has been assigned a patent (12265506) developed by Weissbrem; Uri, Goren; Avi, and Ben-Yehuda; Ohad, Tel Aviv, Israel, for an “asynchronous to synchronous replication transition.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for transitioning from asynchronous replication to a synchronous replication, the method includes (i) receiving, by a DSS and following the start of the transitioning, a synchronous update related to a first FSE part; (ii) implementing the synchronous update of the first FSE part; (iii) receiving, by the DSS and following the start of the transitioning, an asynchronous update related to a last version of a second FSE part before the start of the transitioning; (iv) ignoring the asynchronous update when the DSS currently stores a version of the second FSE part that is associated with a timestamp that is indicative of a point in time that exceeds the start of the transitioning; and (v) else—implementing the asynchronous update.”

The patent application was filed on 2024-02-21 (18/583805).

Scheduling storage tasks
VAST Data Ltd., Rehovot, Israel, has been assigned a patent (12265713) developed by Costeff; Hillel, and Levy; Asaf, Tel Aviv, Israel, for “scheduling storage tasks.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for managing tasks in a storage system, the method may include: (a) obtaining, by a scheduler, a shared budget for background storage tasks and foreground storage tasks; (b) obtaining, by the scheduler, a background budget for background storage tasks; wherein the background budget is a fraction of the shared budget; (c) allocating, by the scheduler, resources to pending storage tasks according to the shared budget and the background budget; wherein the allocating comprises (i) allocating the shared budget while prioritizing foreground storage tasks over background storage tasks; and (ii) allocating the background budget to background storage tasks; and (d) participating, by the scheduler, in executing of storage tasks according to the allocation.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-11-05 (17/453821).

Handling case sensitivity of filenames
VAST Data Ltd., Rehovot, Israel, has been assigned a patent (12248431) developed by Sonin; Oded, Dayan; Dror, and Goren; Avi, Tel Aviv, Israel, for “handling case sensitivity of filenames.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for updating file system entity (FSE) metadata. The method may include receiving, by a first computing entity, a request to perform a case-sensitive FSE operation that comprises one of (a) adding a case-sensitive version of a name of a FSE to a data structure, or (b) deleting the case-sensitive version of the name of the FSE from the data structure, the data structure comprises multiple name blocks; finding, by the first computing entity, a certain name block of the multiple name blocks that is associated with the case-sensitive version of the name of the FSE. The method may also include determining, by the first computing entity, whether (a) the certain name block is associated with a case-insensitive version of the name of the FSE, and whether (b) the first computing entity preceded a second computing entity in reaching the certain name block, the second computing entity was requested to perform a case-insensitive FSE operation that corresponds to the case-sensitive FSE operation; when it is found that (a) the certain name block is associated with the case-insensitive version of the name of the FSE, and (b) the first computing entity preceded the second computing entity in reaching the certain name block, then: a) informing the second computing entity that the first computing entity takes over a performing of the corresponding case-insensitive FSE operation; and b) performing the corresponding case-insensitive FSE operation by the first computing entity.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-11-21 (18/516885).

Database versioning based on transactions
VAST Data Ltd., Rehovot, Israel, has been assigned a patent (12229120) developed by Levy; Asaf, and Gordon; Eyal, Tel Aviv, Israel, for a “database versioning based on transactions.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for accessing a database that is stored in a storage system, the method includes: (a) receiving a request to obtain a database entity (DE) of a requested version line out of multiple version lines that differ from each other by one or more transactions; (b) obtaining, for each DE portion out of multiple DE portions of the DE, content of the DE portion as written during a transaction of the requested version line that was a last transaction of the requested version line that wrote the DE portion to the database; wherein the obtaining includes (i) using first metadata that is indicative of transactions of the requested version line, and (ii) using second metadata that is indicative of which transactions were involved in writing to a logical address range that is associated with the DE portion; and (d) sending a response to the request, wherein the response comprises, for each DE portion of the DE portions, the obtained content.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-08-28 (18/457316).

Protecting disaster recovery site
VAST Data Ltd., Rehovot, Israel, has been assigned a patent (12189789) developed by Levy; Asaf, Tel Aviv, Israel, for “protecting disaster recovery site.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for protecting a disaster recovery site, the method may include receiving by source compute nodes of a storage system, during source storage periods, write requests for storing content in the storage system; writing by source compute nodes, during the source storage periods, the content into the storage nodes of the storage system; maintaining replication compute nodes of the storage system deactivated during the source storage periods; reading the content by the replication compute nodes from the storage nodes during replication periods; participating, by the replication compute nodes, in outputting the content to one or more data recovery sites during the replication periods; and maintaining the source compute nodes deactivated during the source storage periods.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-10-26 (17/452400).

Metadata for quering file system pathnames
VAST Data Ltd., Rehovot, Israel, has been assigned a patent (12189578) developed by Levy; Asaf, Gordon; Eyal, and Zdornov; Vlad, Tel Aviv, Israel, for “metadata for quering file system pathnames.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for obtaining information related to a filesystem path in a file system that is stored in a storage system, the method may include (i) receiving a request to obtain hierarchy information related to file system entities stored under the filesystem path; and (ii) retrieving the hierarchy information; wherein the retrieving comprises accessing a filesystem hierarchy table that stores information regarding pathnames of file system entities of the file system; wherein the retrieving includes searching for path components of the filesystem path in subsets of cells of the filesystem hierarchy table, wherein each subset of cells is part of a set of cells that include path components of a certain pathname of a filesystem entity that belong to the file system.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-06-30 (17/810342).

Caching netgroups
VAST Data Ltd., Rehovot, Israel, has been assigned a patent (12192194) developed by Kredi; Amir, Elharrar; Yair, Zilber; Erez, Steinberg; Ilan, and Levy; Asaf, Tel Aviv, Israel, for “caching netgroups.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for network group based access control, the method may include (i) receiving a request to access content stored in a storage system, the request is associated with a user and a network group that is suggested to include the user; (ii) generating a user key based on an identifier of the user and the network group; (iii) determining, based in part on the user key, whether the user is a current user of the network group, and (iv) declining the request when the user is not the current user of the network group. The determining may include determining that the user is not a current user of the network group when a user finding timestamp of the user precedes a network group finding timestamp of the network group.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-12-30 (18/149028).

Protecting lock data structure
VAST Data Ltd., Rehovot, Israel, has been assigned a patent (12189482) developed by Levy; Asaf, Tel Aviv, Israel, for “protecting a lock data structure.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for protecting a lock data structure, the method includes obtaining, by a compute entity of a storage system, a lock recovery indication and a cycle counter; executing, by the compute entity, at least a part of the current lock recovery process, wherein the executing of the at least part of the current lock recovery process includes (i) determining, by the compute entity, using a compute entity data structure that is indicative of lock fields that represent locks acquired by the compute entity, whether the segment comprised a compute-entity-relevant lock field, wherein the compute-entity-relevant lock field (a) belonged to the segment upon the occurrence of the failure and (b) represents a lock was acquired by the compute entity; and (ii) re-acquiring, by the compute entity, a re-acquired lock that corresponds to the compute-entity-relevant lock field, when it is determined that the segment comprised the compute-entity-relevant lock field.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-11-02 (18/500989).