NetApp Assigned Patent

NetApp, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,185,633) developed by seven co-inventors for a "method and apparatus for offloading network processes in a computer storage system."

The co-inventors are Tom Hicks, Cranberry Township, PA, Michael L. Kazar, Pittsburgh, Daniel S. Nydick, Wexford, PA, Andrew G. Reynolds, Cranberry Township, PA, Richard N. Sanzi Jr., Gibsonia, PA, Fred Gohh, Sunnyvale, CA, and David Graham, Cranberry Township, PA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A system and method for offloading network processes from main processors of a storage system and performing them on parallel processing modules. Embodiments of the present invention improve performance of a clustered storage system by performing certain network processes in an accelerator module of a storage system node. The accelerator module receives multi-protocol protocol data units (PDUs) from a network interface, performs protocol operations on the PDUs to form file system requests and passes the file system requests to a local D-module. If a file system request is directed to a non-local D-module in the cluster, the accelerator module repackages the request for transmission to the appropriate D-module and passes it back to the network without using local D-module processing resources or passing data over the system bus."

The patent application was filed on Feb. 28, 2011 (13/036,530).