Hitachi Assigned Four Patents

Managing thin provisioning volume
by using file storage system
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (8,504,797) developed by Yasuyuki Mimatsu, Cupertino, CA, for a "method and apparatus for managing thin provisioning volume by using file storage system."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "In one embodiment, a method of operating block-based thin provisioning disk volumes in a system including a first storage system which is connected via a network to a second storage system comprises, in response to a volume creation request to create a thin provisioning disk volume in the first storage system, recording in the first storage system attribute information of the block-based thin provisioning disk volume; specifying a directory path for the block-based thin provisioning disk volume in a file system in the second storage system; and creating a directory for the block-based thin provisioning disk volume under the specified directory path."

The patent application was filed on June 2, 2009 (12/476,420).

Managing file access in distributed file storage system
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, has been assigned a patent (8,489,709) developed by Keiichi Matsuzawa, Arlington, MA, for a "method of managing a file access in a distributed file storage system."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Embodiments of the invention provide methods and systems of managing a file access, in a distributed file system environment. In the provided methods and systems, each of the host computers is connected with one of the file servers as a target file server and issues the file access request to the target file server, for access to a target file stored in at least one of the file servers. The management computer collects load information from the file servers, analyzes it, by specifying location of the target file and the target file server, and based on the analysis, redistributes the target file among the file servers and reallocates connections between the host computers and the target file servers."

The patent application was filed on Sept. 16, 2010 (12/883,844).

Controlling data volume creation in storage system
with dynamic chunk allocation capability
Hitachi Ltd., Tokyo, has been assigned a patent (8,533,417) developed by Yasunori Kaneda, San Jose, CA, for a "method and apparatus for controlling data volume creation in storage system with dynamic chunk allocation capability."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Embodiments of the invention provide methods and apparatus for controlling data volume creation at the storage system. In one embodiment, a storage system comprises a processor; a memory; and a plurality of chunks that are to be allocated to data volumes, each chunk having one or more data blocks. The plurality of chunks include zero or more used chunks which are allocated to one or more data volumes, and zero or more remaining chunks which are not used chunks. A new data volume creation operation to create a new data volume is prohibited or warned against before the new data volume is created, in accordance with a total number of the remaining chunks in the storage system. The remaining chunks may further include reserved chunks which are reserved for use in one or more data volumes but have not been allocated."

The patent application was filed on June 3, 2009 (12/477,268).

Enhancing availability of distributed object storage system
during partial database outage
Hitachi Data Systems Corp., Santa Clara, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,515,915http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/8515915.html) developed by four co-inventors for a "system and method for enhancing availability of a distributed object storage system during a partial database outage."

The co-inventors are Alan G. Bryant, aWalpole, MA, Kevin S. Grimaldi, Roslindale, MA, Trek Palmer, Cambridge, MA, and David B. Pinkney, Andover, MA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "An ‘operate with missing region’ feature of this disclosure allows the cluster to continue servicing reads for available regions even when some regions are missing. In particular, upon a given node failure condition, the cluster is placed in an effective read-only mode for all regions. The node failure condition typically is one where there has been a failure of an authoritative region copy and no backup copy is then available. As used herein, ‘read-only’ means that no client write or update requests will succeed while the cluster is in this state. In particular, those requests should fail with an error message (or the like) that indicates failure because of the read-only status. Preferably, such requests are then re-tried. In this mode, all regions are only allowed to perform read operations. During the read-only state, the cluster continues to operate with missing regions, and missing regions are entered on the region map. The cluster then automatically recovers returning missing region(s), after which is leaves the read-only state."

The patent application was filed on Sept. 24, 2010 (12/889,762).