Amazon Assigned Ten Patents

Server-side, variable drive health determination
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,754,337) developed by Brooker, Marc J., Seattle, WA, Parthasarathy, Madhuvanesh, Renton, WA, Wei, Danny, Holgers, Tobias L., and Li, Yu, Seattle, WA, for a “server-side, variable drive health determination.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “The relative health of data storage drives may be determined based, at least in some aspects, on data access information and/or other drive operation information. In some examples, upon receiving the operation information from a computing device, a health level of a drive may be determined. The health level determination may be based at least in part on operating information received from a client entity. Additionally, a storage space allocation instruction or operation may be determined for execution. The allocation instruction or operation determined to be performed may be based at least in part on the determined health level.“

The patent application was filed on April 2, 2014 (14/243,752).

Implementing scalable data storage service
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Reno, NV, has been assigned a patent (9,754,009) developed by Sivasubramanian, Swaminathan, Sammamish, WA, Stefani, Stefano, Buragohain, Chiranjeeb, Issaquah, WA, Blackman, Rande A., Seattle, WA, Rath, Timothy Andrew, Des Moines, WA, Bradford, Raymond S., MacDonald McAlister, Grant Alexander, Seattle, WA, Kulesza, Jakub, Bellevue, WA, Hamilton, James R., Seattle, WA, and Cabrera, Luis Felipe, Bellevue, WA, for a “system and method for implementing a scalable data storage service.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system that implements a scalable data storage service may maintain tables in a non-relational data store on behalf of clients. The system may provide a Web services interface through which service requests are received, and an API usable to request that a table be created, deleted, or described, that an item be stored, retrieved, deleted, or its attributes modified, or that a table be queried, (or scanned) with filtered items and/or their attributes returned. An asynchronous workflow may be invoked to create or delete a table. Items stored in tables may be partitioned and indexed using a simple or composite primary key. The system may not impose pre-defined limits on table size, and may employ a flexible schema. The service may provide a best-effort or committed throughput model. The system may automatically scale and/or re-partition tables in response to detecting workload changes, node failures, or other conditions or anomalies.“

The patent application was filed on August 29, 2016 (15/250,435).

Providing distributed transaction information storage service
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Incline Village, NV, has been assigned a patent (9,753,966) developed by Gupta, Vikas, Bangalore, India, Vermeulen, Allan H., Seattle, WA, Singh, Rahul, Seattle, WA, Krause, Duane J., and Malhotra, Nipoon, Seattle, WA, for a “providing a distributed transaction information storage service.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are described for providing a storage service that stores information about large numbers of transactions in a persistent manner, such as with a high degree of reliability, availability and scalability based at least in part on use of a distributed computing and storage system. In some situations, the transaction information storage service stores various information about transactions that each include at least one monetary payment, e.g., a micro-payment) between financial accounts of two or more of numerous users having accounts with one or more entities. The transaction information storage service may be provided by or otherwise affiliated with a merchant, and customers of the merchant may purchase usage of the storage service for programs executed by or otherwise affiliated with the customers, with the storage service available to remote executing programs via a defined API of the storage service, such as a Web services-based API.“

The patent application was filed on May 25, 2012 (13/480,630).

Metering data in distributed storage environments
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,753,936) developed by Nuss, Michael Anthony, Boston, MA, and Oikarinen, Matti Juhani, Wilmington, MA, for a “metering data in distributed storage environments.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques described and suggested include systems, methods, and processes for determining data-related attributes, such as size, for data and/or data containers, (such as volumes and file systems) resident on distributed storage systems. For example, a shared records storage device may be utilized to gather information related to file systems stored on a distributed storage system having a plurality of storage servers. A data processor may be used to generate information records and meter data storage size for file systems resident on the distributed storage system, and such records may be provided to requestors, such as customers associated with the file systems.“

The patent application was filed on December 1, 2014 (14/557,114).

Data replication snapshots for persistent storage using operation numbers
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,753,813) developed by Fan, Jianhua, Issaquah, WA, Hawks, Benjamin Arthur, Seattle, WA, Kusters, Norbert Paul, Redmond, WA, Arumugam, Nachiappan, Wei, Danny, Seattle, WA, and Guthrie, II, John Luther, Bellevue, CA, for a “data replication snapshots for persistent storage using operation numbers.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Persistent storage for a master copy is provided using operation numbers. A master copy can include a persistent key-value store such as a B-tree with references to corresponding data. When provisioning a slave copy, the master copy sends a point-in-time copy of the B-tree to the slave copy, which stores a copy of the B-tree, allocates the necessary space, and updates the references of the B-tree to point to a local storage before the data is transferred. When writing the data to persistent storage, a snapshot created on the master copy is an operation that is replicated to the slave copy. The snapshot is generated using a volume view that includes changes to chunks of data of the master copy since a previous snapshot, as determined using the operation number for the previous snapshot. Data, and metadata) for the snapshot is written to persistent storage while new EO operations are processed.“

The patent application was filed on September 25, 2015 (14/866,655).

Secure deletion of data
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Reno, NV, has been assigned a patent (9,749,132) developed by Hamilton, James R., Seattle, WA, for a “system and method for secure deletion of data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods for secure deletion of data items in a storage system may support the deletion of stored data item. In response to a storage request, a storage manager may generate a key corresponding to the data item to be stored and encrypt the data item before storing the data item in a data store. The key may be stored in an index comprising metadata corresponding to the data item. In response to a delete request, the storage system may determine the corresponding metadata entry in the index and remove the key corresponding to the data item without accessing the data item.“

The patent application was filed on November 28, 2011 (13/305,340).

Data protection using active data
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,747,455) developed by McClintock, Jon Arron, and Stathakopoulos, George Nikolaos, Seattle, WA, for a “data protection using active data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Data of an organization or other entity may be protected using active data objects. The data may be storage in a storage system maintained by the organization or a separate organization. The data storage system may receive request for data, if the request violates one or more constraint conditions, the storage system may provide in response to the received request active data. The active data may include executable code that, when executed by a computer system, causes depletion of one or more resources used by a computer system executing the code.“

The patent application was filed on December 4, 2014 (14/561,044).

Local networked storage linked to remote networked storage system
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Reno, NV, has been assigned a patent (9,747,300) developed by Velummylum, Piragash, Seattle, WA, Olson, Johanna S., Bellevue, WA, Smith, Korwin J., Wood, James H., Emery, Christopher G., and Ma, Wenlin, Seattle, WA, for a “local networked storage linked to remote networked storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Disclosed are various embodiments for local networked storage that is linked to a remote networked storage system. In a client application, it is determined whether a local networked storage system is accessible to the client through a local network. A file is sent to the local networked storage system over the local network for storage by the local networked storage system when the local networked storage system is determined to be accessible to the client through the local network. A file is sent to a remote networked storage system over a remote network for storage by the remote networked storage system in association with a user account when the local networked storage system is determined not to be accessible through the local network.“

The patent application was filed on June 15, 2011 (13/161,099).

Storage auto delete
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,747,057) developed by Ramani, Ishwar VenkataManikanda, San Jose, CA, Wendling, Michael, Woodside, CA, and Karumuru, Mridula, Milpitas, CA, for a “storage auto delete.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A processing device receives a first notice after a first time period, the first notice indicating that an amount of available free space on a storage component is below a first free space buffer threshold. The processing device determines a first amount of data to delete from an unsolicited content storage area of the storage component. The processing device receives a second notice after a second time period, the second notice indicating that the amount of available free space on the storage component is below the first free space buffer threshold. The processing device then determines a second amount of data to delete from the unsolicited content storage area, where the second amount is larger than the first amount.“

The patent application was filed on September 28, 2015 (14/868,165).

Data retrieval from datastores with different data storage formats
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Seattle, WA, has been assigned a patent (9,740,738) developed by Kalki, Santosh, Sammamish, WA, for a “data retrieval from datastores with different data storage formats.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A request that includes a syntax tree is received. A query plan that comprising one or more queries using storage metadata and one or more data attributes obtained from the syntax tree is generated. Individual ones of the one or more queries are used to retrieve at least one of the one or more data attributes from the at least two datastores. The generating of the query plan is generated by modifying individual ones of the one or more queries to access a datastore of the at least two datastores having a lower data retrieval latency. The one or more queries of the query plan are executed to generate the report, the report including data resulting from the executing of the one or more queries.“

The patent application was filed on December 8, 2015 (14/963,095).

Layered keys for storage volumes
Amazon Technologies, Inc., Reno, NV, has been assigned a patent (9,740,583) developed by Brandwine, Eric Jason, Haymarket, VA, for a “layered keys for storage volumes.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are described for managing data storage. Users may create data storage volumes that may each be stored by a data storage service. In an embodiment, chunks that differ between related volumes may be encrypted with different encryption keys. One or more of the encryption keys may be deleted in response to a request to delete a volume or a data chunk, rendering the volume and/or the data chunk unusable. Other techniques are described in the drawings, claims, and text of the disclosure.“

The patent application was filed on September 24, 2012 (13/625,647).