Veritas Assigned Fourteen Patents

Preventing unintended data loss during data restoration
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,501,486) developed by Thiam, Alioune, Hugo, MN, and Westenberg, Guido, Columbia Heights, MN, for a “systems and methods for preventing unintended data loss during data restoration.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A computer-implemented method for preventing unintended data loss during data restoration. The method may include, (1) detecting an attempt by a user to restore data to a storage system, (2) analyzing an effect of restoring the data to the storage system on collateral data that was created subsequent to a point in time to which the user is attempting to restore the data, (3) determining, based on the analysis, that restoring the data to the storage system will destroy the collateral data, and, (4) enabling, in response to the determination, the user to perform a remedial action on the collateral data before the data is restored in order to prevent unintentional data loss. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.“

The patent application was filed on July 6, 2012 (13/543,744).

Workflow process with temporary storage resource reservation
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,501,473) developed by Kong, Chio Fai Aglaia, San Jose, CA, Dalal, Chirag Deepak, Maharashtra, India, and Karr, Ronald S., Palo Alto, CA, for a “workflow process with temporary storage resource reservation.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method involves: detecting a storage resource indication within a workflow request and, in response to the storage resource indication, generating an availability indication. The storage resource indication indicates a storage resource, (e.g., by directly or indirectly identifying or selecting the storage resource). The availability indication indicates that the indicated storage resource is not available for subsequent workflow requests. The availability indication is generated prior to allowing the consumer that generated the workflow request to use the storage resource. The workflow request can include a request to allocate a logical storage structure, (e.g., a volume or logical disk). The logical storage structure is allocated in response to the workflow request. If the workflow request is denied or expires, the logical storage structure is deleted.“

The patent application was filed on December 21, 2004 (11/018,957).

Providing local cache coherency in shared storage environment
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,501,410) developed by Kalekar, Santosh, Pendharkar, Niranjan, and Marathe, Shailesh, Pune, India, for a “providing local cache coherency in a shared storage environment.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Multiple nodes of a cluster have associated non-shared, local caches, used to cache shared storage content. Each local cache is accessible only to the node with which it is associated, whereas the cluster-level shared storage is accessible by any of the nodes. Attempts to access the shared storage by the nodes of the cluster are monitored. Information is tracked concerning the current statuses of the local caches of the nodes of the cluster. Current tracked local cache status information is maintained, and stored such that it is accessible by the multiple nodes of the cluster. The current tracked local cache status information is used in conjunction with the caching functionality to determine whether specific nodes of the cluster are to access their local caches or the shared storage to obtain data corresponding to specific regions of the shared storage.“

The patent application was filed on March 15, 2013 (13/838,125).

Backing up and restoring selected versioned objects
from monolithic database backup
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,501,368) developed by Beatty, Louis, Ormond Beach, FL, DeVos, Steven R., Kirkland, WA, and Saraf, Deepak, Windermere, FL, for a “backing up and restoring selected versioned objects from a monolithic database backup.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method, system and computer-readable storage medium that selectively restore a version of an application object stored in a monolithic backup of a database, while maintaining hierarchical and other metadata relationships of the restored portion of the database are disclosed. Such a mechanism receives a request to restore a version of a selected object from among a plurality of backed up objects in a database backup, locates information associated with the selected object in the backup, and restores the version of the selected object to a target storage area using information associated with the selected object. Database table metadata, gathered from the backed up database at the time the backup was created, can be used to locate the information associated with the selected object.“

The patent application was filed on September 30, 2008 (12/242,079).

Locality aware, two-level fingerprint caching
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,495,379) developed by Zhang, Xianbo, Plymouth, MN, She, Haibin, Lei, Chao, Song, Xiaobing, and Cheng, Shuai, Beijing, China, for a “locality aware, two-level fingerprint caching.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The present disclosure provides for implementing a two-level fingerprint caching scheme for a client cache and a server cache. The client cache hit ratio can be improved by pre-populating the client cache with fingerprints that are relevant to the client. Relevant fingerprints include fingerprints used during a recent time period, (e.g., fingerprints of segments that are included in the last full backup image and any following incremental backup images created for the client after the last full backup image), and thus are referred to as fingerprints with good temporal locality. Relevant fingerprints also include fingerprints associated with a storage container that has good spatial locality, and thus are referred to as fingerprints with good spatial locality. A pre-set threshold established for the client cache, (e.g., threshold Tc) is used to determine whether a storage container, (and thus fingerprints associated with the storage container) has good spatial locality.“

The patent application was filed on October 8, 2012 (13/646,852).

User interface for restoring databases
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,489,271) developed by Tsaur, Ynn-Pyng ‘Anker’, Oviedo, FL, Abraham, Lijo J., Lake Mary, FL, Payne, Michael A., Archer, FL, Dowers, II, Gregory R., Lake Mary, FL, Surroca, Francisco, Longwood, FL, Wang, Ping, Sanford, FL, and Doucette, Lee M., Deltona, FL, for a “user interface for restoring databases.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Various systems and methods for restoring data in distributed storage systems. For example, one method involves receiving a first selection, where the first selection identifies data abstraction. The data abstraction represents a data source that can be restored. The method also involves receiving a second selection, where the second selection identifies a restore operation, and where the restore operation is associated with the data abstraction. The method also involves determining data to be restored, where this determination is based on the data source(s), as can be determined from the data abstraction) and on the second selection. Data can then be restored based on the determined data.“

The patent application was filed on March 29, 2012 (13/433,709).

Data recovery in distributed storage environments
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,483,367) developed by Patil, Ram Chandra, Maharashtra, India, for a “data recovery in distributed storage environments.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Various systems and methods for determining whether a distributed storage cluster is operating with a last failure domain are disclosed. The last failure domain is the only node with access to a latest copy of configuration data and an up-to-date copy of application data. In response to a determination that the distributed storage cluster is operating with the last failure domain, the method causes the last failure domain to copy one or more changed blocks of the up-to-date copy of the application data from one or more mirrored volumes to a recovery server for storage.“

The patent application was filed on June 27, 2014 (14/317,645).

Storage device sharing among virtual machines
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,477,508) developed by Vemuri, Hari Krishna, Pune, India, for a “storage device sharing among virtual machines.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Disclosed herein are various systems and methods for sharing a storage device with multiple virtual machines are disclosed. One such method involves creating a pseudo-identity for a storage device and assigning a portion of an address space of the storage device to a virtual machine using the pseudo-identity. The storage device is coupled to a computing device and the pseudo-identity is created by a hypervisor associated with the computing device. The pseudo-identity facilitates access to the storage device by the virtual machine associated with the hypervisor and also facilitates presentation of one or more physical characteristics of the storage device to the virtual machine. The method also assigns a portion of an address space of the storage device to the virtual machine using the pseudo-identity.“

The patent application was filed on March 27, 2014 (14/227,081).

Providing backup storage interfaces
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,471,576) developed by Kaiser, IV, Theodore J., Kirkland, WA, Dowers, II, Gregory R., Willadsen, Bradley I., Lake Mary, FL, Talton, James R., Apopka, FL, and Rich, Jessica, Santee, CA, for a “systems and methods for providing backup storage interfaces.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A computer-implemented method for providing backup storage interfaces may include, (1) identifying a set of backup servers, a set of storage devices, and a set of storage media within a computing environment available to a backup system, (2) identifying a request to view storage information for the backup system, and, in response to the request, (3) displaying, within a graphical user interface, a unified list comprising the set of backup servers, the set of storage devices, and the set of storage media, and, (4) displaying, within the unified list, storage capacity information relating to at least one item within the unified list. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.“

The patent application was filed on December 8, 2011 (13/314,557).

Dynamic storage tiering in virtual environment
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,471,243) developed by Kumar, Sanjay, and M. G., Venkatesha, Pune, India, for a “dynamic storage tiering in a virtual environment.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Various systems and methods for performing dynamic storage tiering in a virtual environment. For example, one method can involve identifying a location of a storage object within a virtual machine file, where the virtual machine file includes multiple storage objects. The method then involves detecting whether the storage object meets a criterion of a tiering policy. If the storage object meets the criterion, the storage object is moved from one tier of a multi-tier storage system to another tier of the multi-tier storage system.“

The patent application was filed on December 15, 2011 (13/327,366).

Fast full style system check using multithreaded read ahead
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,465,810) developed by Patwardhan, Kedar Shrikrishna, Maharashtra, India, for a “method and system for a fast full style system check using multithreaded read ahead.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for file system checking in a storage device. The method includes executing a computer system having a plurality microprocessor cores, initiating a file system check operation by using a file system check agent that execute on the computer system and accesses a storage device, and validating a plurality of meta-data structures of the file system. The method further includes dividing and allocating the metadata structures among a plurality of worker threads. For each worker thread, data corresponding to the metadata structures is processed using a read ahead operation. file system check is processed to completion, wherein the read ahead operation feeds data corresponding to the metadata structures to each of the plurality of worker threads in parallel.“

The patent application was filed on July 20, 2011 (13/187,239).

Deduplication featuring variable-size duplicate data
detection and fixed-size data segment sharing
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,465,808) developed by Karr, Ronald, Palo Alto, CA, Bromley, Graham, Dublin, CA, and Patil, Deepak, Roseville, MN, for a “deduplication featuring variable-size duplicate data detection and fixed-size data segment sharing.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A hybrid deduplication system operates to detect variable-sized deduplication matches, while performing the storage deduplication on fixed-size segments of data. The hybrid deduplication system calculates unique identifiers for variable-sized sections of data within a data stream being written to a deduplicated data store. The hybrid deduplication system then compares those newly-calculated identifiers to identifiers of variable-sized sections of data that have already been stored within the deduplicated data store. If a match is found, the hybrid deduplication system identifies the location of each of the fixed-size data segment(s), already stored in the deduplicated data store, that include the identified variable-sized section of data. Instead of writing the sections that match already-existing sections to the deduplicated data store, the hybrid deduplication system simply causes the creation of a reference to the identified storage locations, indicating that the data stream being written includes the data in these pre-existing storage locations.“

The patent application was filed on December 15, 2012 (13/716,123).

Techniques for managing shortcut storage
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,465,804) developed by Gilbert, Andrew, High Wycombe, Great Britain, and Bilsborough, Michael, Berkshire, Great Britain, for a “techniques for managing shortcut storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques for managing shortcut storage are disclosed. In one particular exemplary embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a computer implemented method for managing shortcut storage comprising identifying a shortcut in data storage, determining whether at least one attribute associated with the shortcut meets a specified criteria, modifying the shortcut in the event that the at least one attribute meets the specified criteria.“

The patent application was filed on October 13, 2009 (12/578,050).

Managing performance within enterprise object store file system
Veritas Technologies LLC, Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,460,105) developed by Carmichael, John A., Singapore Post Centre, Singapore, for a “managing performance within an enterprise object store file system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A file system is disclosed that includes an application wide name space instantiated in a global index, Gindex) that is used for accessing objects related to an application. Summary workload statistics are monitored and calculated via a calibrated hierarchical service level agreement, (SLA) in a method of operation that includes: establishing a tenant wide name space used for accessing objects of an application stored in physical file systems across one or more appliances, each defining a storage cluster, in association with a tenant logically spanning across the appliances, and monitoring a performance statistic for the application across the tenant.“

The patent application was filed on June 10, 2014 (14/300,618).