NetApp Assigned Twenty-One Patents

Automated tuning of QoS setting for distributed storage system based on internal monitoring
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11693563) developed by Longo, Austino, Lafayette, CO, and Cady, Tyler W., Denver, CO, for an “automated tuning of a quality of service setting for a distributed storage system based on internal monitoring.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods for automated tuning of Quality of Service (QoS) settings of volumes in a distributed storage system are provided. According to one embodiment, responsive to a predetermined event, information regarding a multiple QoS settings assigned to a volume of a distributed storage system that is being utilized by a client are obtained. A difference between a first QoS setting of the multiple QoS settings and a second QoS setting of the multiple QoS settings is determined. Responsive to determining the difference is less than a threshold a new value of the first QoS setting or a third QoS setting of the multiple QoS settings that is greater than a respective current value of the first QoS setting or the third QoS setting is determined and assigned to the volume for the client.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-04-22 (17/237488).

Infrastructure appliance malfunction detection
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11671311) developed by Randall, Charles, Longmont, CO, and Nunez, Michael Keith, Lyons, CO, for an “infrastructure appliance malfunction detection.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A management system is described. The management system includes an interface coupled to a plurality of infrastructure appliances and one or more processors to monitor each of the plurality of infrastructure appliances, detect a malfunction at a first of the infrastructure appliances, and transmit a display message to the first infrastructure appliance including a message to be displayed at one or more activity light indicators at the first infrastructure appliance.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-10-23 (17/078726).

Automated detection of personal information using neural networks
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11663406) developed by Bali, Adam, Tel-Aviv, Israel, for “methods and systems for automated detection of personal information using neural networks.“

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 detecting personal information. Terms that are of interest are extracted from a corpus of raw text that has been extracted from a collection of documents. For each of the terms, a surrounding sentence is extracted to form a target sentence to thereby form a plurality of target sentences. The surrounding sentence includes at least one reference to a data subject. A matrix of feature information is generated for each of the target sentences to form a plurality of matrices. A neural network model is trained, using the matrices as input, to compute an output that indicates a likelihood of a given sentence containing personal information.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-07-31 (16/945525).

Persistent memory file system reconciliation
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11630733) developed by Curtis-Maury, Matthew Fontaine, Apex, NC, Kesavan, Ram, Los Altos, CA, Subramanian, Ananthan, San Ramon, CA, Basit, Abdul, Morrisville, NC, Devadas, Vinay, Apex, NC, and Trivedi, Yash Hetal, Cary, NC, for a “persistent memory file system reconciliation.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for persistent memory file system reconciliation. As part of the persistent memory file system reconciliation, high level file system metadata associated with a persistent memory file system of persistent memory is reconciled. Client access to the persistent memory file system is inaccessible until reconciliation of the high level file system metadata has completed. A first scanner is executed to traverse pages of the persistent memory in order to fix local inconsistencies associated with the pages. A local inconsistency of a first set of metadata or data of a page is fixed using a second set of metadata or data of the page. The first scanner is executed asynchronously in parallel with processing client I/O directed to the persistent memory file system.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-09-11 (17/018176).

Automatic incremental repair of granular filesystem objects
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11625303) developed by Bhowmik, Sushrut, Bangalore, India, B C, Vinay Kumar, Mysore, India, Korrakuti, Sreenath, Pandey, Arun Kumar, and Pola, Sateesh Kumar, Bangalore, India, for an “automatic incremental repair of granular filesystem objects.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Presented herein are methods, non-transitory computer readable media, and devices triggering a metadata recovery process within a network storage system, which include: dividing metadata into metadata segments, wherein each of the metadata segments is tasked to perform a specific file system operation function, validating each of the metadata segments during the specific file system operation function, upon failure to validate at least one of the metadata segments, triggering an automatic repair process while maintaining the operation function tasked to the metadata segment, and upon finalizing the automatic repair process, resuming the specific file system operation function tasked to the metadata segment.”

The patent application was filed on 2017-06-23 (15/631477).

Data connector component for implementing data requests
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11625306) developed by Yelheri, Sharankumar, Santa Clara, CA, Pandit, Atul Ramesh, Los Gatos, CA, and George, Tijin, Sunnyvale, CA, for a “data connector component for implementing data requests.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for implementing data requests associated with objects of an object store. A data connector component may be instantiated as a container for processing data requests associated with backup data stored within objects of an object store. The data connector component may evaluate the object store to identify snapshots stored as the backup data within the objects of the object store according to an object format. The data connector component may provide a client device with access to backup data of the snapshots.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-12-22 (17/130243).

Centralized QoS management
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11627097) developed by Longo, Austino, Lafayette, CO, Cason, Christopher, Boulder, CO, and McCarthy, Daniel, Erie, CO, for a “centralized quality of service management.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods for quality of service management are provided. According to one embodiment, a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprises instructions that when executed by the processing resource cause the processing resource to receive, in a normalizing agent, one or more compute load parameters from one or more background compute processes executing on the one or more computer systems and one or more Quality of Service (QoS) parameters for one or more client compute processes executing on the one or more computer systems, convert the one or more compute load parameters to one or more normalized utilization metrics, and execute instructions that cause a processor to adjust a compute resource allocation dedicated to the one or more background compute processes based at least in part on the one or more normalized utilization metrics and the one or more QoS parameter.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-02-26 (17/187336).

Incremental restore of VM
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11615001) developed by Naidu, Abhishek, San Jose, CA, Mathew, Jose, Santa Clara, CA, Zheng, Ling, Saratoga, CA, and Kuramkote, Ravindra, San Jose, CA, for an “incremental restore of a virtual machine.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for incrementally restoring a virtual machine hosted by a computing environment. In response to receiving an indication that the virtual machine is to be incrementally restored, a snapshot of the virtual machine may be created while the virtual machine is shut down into an off state. The snapshot is transmitted to a storage environment as a common snapshot. The snapshot and the common snapshot are common snapshots comprising a same representation of the virtual machine. The common snapshot and a prior snapshot of the virtual machine are evaluated to identify a data difference of the virtual machine between the common snapshot and the prior snapshot. An incremental restore is performed of the virtual machine by transmitting the data difference from the storage environment to the computing environment to restore the virtual machine to a state represented by the prior snapshot.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-04-23 (16/856322).

Managing verification and validation of 3rd-party code and devices
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11615181) developed by Slik, David, British Columbia, Canada, for “methods for managing verification and validation of third-party code and devices thereof.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The disclosed technology relates to verifying and validating a received executable function to be executed on a function as a service platform (FaaS), by applying one or more verification and validation techniques prior to runtime. The verified and validated executable function is temporarily stored. The temporarily stored verified and validated executable function is executed on the FaaS platform at the runtime.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-30 (17/217345)

Management services API gateway
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11611436) developed by Ziegler, Eric, Broomfield, CO, Haid, Adam, Erie, CO, and Macdonald, Brian, Louisville, CO, for “management services API gateway.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A technique provides cohesive and secure access to management services of a distributed storage architecture deployed on compute and storage nodes of a cluster. The management services are organized as a platform that encompasses a plurality of underlying individual services each having an applications programming interface (API) that are together securely accessible via an API gateway. The gateway is configured to support a “browsable” directory of the APIs that enables a client to identify various underlying services available within the cluster. In an embodiment, the underlying services “self-register” at the gateway to provide a single, unified location for the client to access the services. The API gateway includes a reverse-proxy server that is configured to provide a single point of entry for clients interacting with the individual services underlying the management services platform. User authorization and authentication security are implemented at the API gateway rather than on the underlying service.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-04-24 (16/857569).

Immutable snapshot copies stored in WORM storage
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11599296) developed by Pandit, Atul Ramesh, Los Gatos, CA, and George, Tijin, Sunnyvale, CA, for an “immutable snapshot copies stored in write once read many (WORM) storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for storing immutable snapshot copes in write once read many (WORM) storage. A snapshot of a volume may be stored into one or more objects formatted according to an object format. An expiry time may be assigned to the snapshot and the one or more objects based upon a creation time of the snapshot and a retention time. The one or more objects may be stored within a remote object store. The one or more objects are retained in an immutable state and cannot be deleted until expiration of the expiry time. In response to identifying an existing object within the remote object store comprising shared snapshot data referenced by the snapshot, an assigned expiry time of the existing object may be modified based upon the expiry time of the snapshot to create a modified expiry time for the existing object.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-07-30 (17/389398).

Facilitating efficient analysis of time-based file system properties using histograms and devices
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11599501) developed by Zumach, Bill, Bare, Keith, Pittsburgh, PA, and Wang, Xin, Sewickley, PA, for “methods for facilitating efficient analysis of time-based file system properties using histograms 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 facilitate more efficient file system directory analytics are disclosed. With this technology, a bucket value is increased for one of a plurality of buckets in each of a plurality of histograms associated with a file system directory in a hierarchical directory tree after a storage operation creating a file in the file system directory. A time value is set for the file based on a time of the storage operation. The bucket value is adjusted responsive to subsequent storage operation(s) (e.g., read, write, or delete) associated with the file. The one of the buckets is identified after the subsequent storage operation(s) based on the time value. An interactive analytics interface is output that is configured to generate, using one or more of the histograms, historical activity associated with the file system directory responsive to a selection of the file system directory.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-30 (17/217485).

Data protection methods and systems for networked storage environment
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11593229) developed by Rao, Vikhyath, Sunnyvale, CA, Patel, Nikul Y., San Jose, CA, Subramanian, Ananthan, San Ramon, CA, Sirigineni, Vijayabhaskar Rao, and Kaliyaperumal, Vetrivelan, San Jose, CA, for “data protection methods and systems for a networked storage environment.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Data protection methods and systems for a storage environment are provided. A first-in-first out (FIFO) structure stores a logical representation of a first storage location that retains previous data for a data container, after new data for the data container is stored at a second storage location. The FIFO structure also stores a logical representation of a file system tree structure that is stored in persistent storage, after a consistent point operation. In response to an event, the file system tree structure is selected, based on the file system tree structure being closest to a transaction. A snapshot is generated using the file system tree structure. Thereafter, the data container is restored from the snapshot or from a copy of the snapshot.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-09-23 (17/030043).

Managing verification and validation of 3rd-party code and devices
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11586725) developed by Slik, David, British Columbia, Canada, for “methods for managing verification and validation of third-party code and devices thereof.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The disclosed technology relates to receiving an executable function from a client device, wherein the executable function is to be executed on a function as a service (FaaS) platform. Upon performing a verification and validation process on the received executable function prior to runtime, it is determined when to execute the received executable function based on based on one or more execution initiation techniques upon performing. The verified and validated executable function is executed at the runtime on the FaaS platform based on the determination.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-30 (17/217356).

Policy enforcement and performance monitoring at sub-LUN granularity
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11579910) developed by Kalman, Dean Alan, Cary, NC, for “policy enforcement and performance monitoring at sub-LUN granularity.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for enforcing policies at a sub-logical unit number (LUN) granularity, such as at a virtual disk or virtual machine granularity. A block range of a virtual disk of a virtual machine stored within a LUN is identified. A quality of service policy object is assigned to the block range to create a quality of service workload object. A target block range targeted by an operation is identified. A quality of service policy of the quality of service policy object is enforced upon the operation using the quality of service workload object based upon the target block range being within the block range of the virtual disk.”

The patent application was filed on 2019-09-20 (16/576860).

Ensuring correctness of file system analytics and devices
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11561935) developed by Jernigan, Richard, Wang, Xin, Natarajan, Subramanian, Sewickley, PA, Chow, Richard, Ciapponi, Adam, Vancouver, Canada, Lisson, Brad, Langley, CA, and Rose, Dave, Vancouver, Canada, for “methods for ensuring correctness of file system analytics 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 ensure correctness of file system analytics are disclosed. With this technology, a first generation number for a volume is incremented in response to a modification of a rule set that defines properties of objects of a file system associated with the volume. A determination is made when a second generation number in a first inode for a first one of the objects matches the first generation number. The first inode is identified based on a traversal of a directory tree associated with the file system. The modified rule set is applied to the properties for the first one of the objects to obtain values, when the second generation number fails to match the first generation number. Analytics data is output after the traversal has completed. The analytics data is generated in response to a query and is based on the value.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-07-23 (17/383645).

Non-disruptive planned failover from primary copy of data at primary storage system to mirror copy of the data at cross-site secondary storage system
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11550679) developed by Kaushik, Akhil, Vijayan, Anoop, Karnataka, India, and Khandelwal, Omprakash, Bangalore, India, for “methods and systems for a non-disruptive planned failover from a primary copy of data at a primary storage system to a mirror copy of the data at a cross-site secondary storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods are described for a non-disruptive planned failover from a primary copy of data at a primary storage system to a mirror copy of the data at a cross-site secondary storage system. According to an example, a planned failover feature of a multi-site distributed storage system provides an order of operations such that a primary copy of a first data center continues to serve I/O operations until a mirror copy of a second data center is ready. This planned failover feature improves functionality and efficiency of the distributed storage system by providing non-disruptiveness during planned failover—even if various failures occur. The planned failover feature also includes a persistent fence to avoid serving I/O operations during a timing window when both primary data storage and secondary data storage are attempting to have a master role to serve I/O operations and this avoids a split-brain situation.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-31 (17/219812).

Backup technique for backing up data to object storage service
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11544151) developed by Hetrick, William, Eastborough, KS, Hahn, Dennis James, Wichita, KS, and Winkler, Russell, Sunnyvale, CA, for a “data backup technique for backing up data to an object storage service.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system, method, and computer program product for a block-based backing up a storage device to an object storage service is provided. This includes the generation of a data object that encapsulates a data of a data extent. The data extent covers a block address range of the storage device. The data object is named with a base name that represents a logical block address (LBA) of the data extent. The base name is appended with an identifier that deterministically identifies a recovery point that the data object is associated with. The base name combined with the identifier represents a data object name for the data object. The named data object is then transmitted to the object storage service for backup of the data extent. At an initial backup, the full storage device is copied. In incremental backups afterwards, only those data extents that changed are backed up.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-08-20 (17/408018).

QoS settings of volumes in distributed storage
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11546420) developed by Cady, Tyler, Denver, CO, for “quality of service (QoS) settings of volumes in a distributed storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system, method, and machine-readable storage medium for providing a set of recommended quality of service (QoS) settings are provided. In some embodiments, providing the recommendation includes receiving a set of QoS settings of a volume for a client, a set of measured QoS metrics of the volume for the client, and a measure of load for a slice service corresponding to the volume. Providing the recommendation further includes determining a predicted QoS metric of the volume and a predicted load of the slice service. Providing the recommendation also includes determining, based on the predicted QoS metric, the predicted load, and the set of QoS settings, a set of recommended QoS settings to the client. The set of QoS settings of the volume for the client is then updated with the set of recommended QoS settings.”

The patent application was filed on 2020-02-24 (16/799602).

Forwarding operations to bypass persistent memory
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11544007) developed by Subramanian, Ananthan, San Ramon, CA, Curtis-Maury, Matthew Fontaine, Devadas, Vinay, Apex, NC, and Vipperla, Bulli Venkata Rajesh, Morrisville, NC, for “forwarding operations to bypass persistent memory.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for forwarding operations to bypass persistent memory. A modify operation, targeting an object, may be received at a persistent memory tier of a node. If a forwarding policy indicates that forwarding is not enabled for the modify operation and the target object, then the modify operation is executed through a persistent memory file system. If the forwarding policy indicates that forwarding is enabled for the modify operation and the target object, then the modify operation is forwarded to a file system tier as a forwarded operation for execution through a storage file system.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-03-30 (17/216869).

Resending missing network data packets
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (11546238) developed by Xu, Houze, Lexington, MA, and Qi, Yuepeng, Raleigh, NC, for “methods and systems for resending missing network data packets.“

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 splitting, by a first node, a payload into a plurality of data packets, each data packet having a portion of the payload indicated by an offset value indicating a position of each portion within the payload, transmitting, by the first node, the plurality of data packets to a second node using a network connection for a transaction, each data packet including a header generated by the first node having the offset value and a payload size, receiving, by the first node, a message from the second node indicating an offset value of a missing payload of a missing data packet from among the plurality of data packets, and resending, by the first node, the missing data packet and any other data packet whose offset value occurs after the offset value of the missing payload.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-11-24 (17/456471).