Symantec Assigned Three Patents

Virtual storage device
Symantec Corp., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,510,505) developed by Hans Van Reitschote, Sunnyvale, CA, Tommi Salli, and C. W. Hobbs, Mountain View, CA, for a “method and apparatus for a virtual storage device.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method and apparatus for a virtual storage device is provided. In one example, data to be stored at a removable storage device is received. A virtual storage agent is executed on the removable storage device. An interlace is established with at least one remote storage location. The data is stored at the at least one remote storage location. In another example, a request to access data associated with a removable storage device is received. A virtual storage agent on the removable storage device is executed. An interface is established with at least one remote storage location. The data is fetched from the at least one remote storage location.”

The patent application was filed on March 2, 2007 (11/713,317).

SSD caching using memory structures
to determine a storage space replacement candidate
Symantec, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,510,499) developed by Anindya Banerjee, Pune, India, for “solid state drive caching using memory structures to determine a storage space replacement candidate.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A mechanism to identify data that can be removed from a SSD cache by determining a least recently accessed memory region of the SSD is provided. This functionality is provided by using a tree data structure to store a table mapping storage volume data locations to SSD data locations and associating a time stamp with each entry. The time stamp is updated with each access to the associated SSD location. Advantages of the tree data structure are utilized to efficiently determine an SSD memory location associated with an oldest time stamp in order to make that SSD memory location available for storage of recently accessed data from the storage volume.”

The patent application was filed on Aug. 30, 2010 (12/870,971).

Enabling and managing application input/output activity
while restoring a data store
Symantec, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,555,009) developed by four co-inventors for a “method and apparatus for enabling and managing application input/output activity while restoring a data store.”

The co-inventors are Sameer Majahan, Pune, India, Robert W. Perry, Leominster, MA, Srikant Sharma, Santa Clara, CA, and Taher Vohra, Sunnyvale, CA.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method and apparatus for enabling and managing application input/output activity in memory to restore a data store using one or more processors is disclosed. In one embodiments, the method includes processing a restoration request for a data store, wherein the data store is mirrored by another data store, controlling communication of application input/output activity associated with at least one host computer and directed to at least one of the data store or the other data store, restoring various portions of the data store, in accordance with the restoration request, using at least one of at least one prior point in time image or the other data store and servicing the application input/output activity using the data store.”

The patent application was filed on July 31, 2009 (12/533,764).