Pure Storage Assigned Ten Patents

Utilizing non-repeating identifier to encrypt data
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,779,268) developed by Colgrove, John, Los Altos, CA, McAuliffe, Mark L., Palo Alto, CA, Miller, Ethan L., Santa Cruz, CA, Neelakantam, Naveen, Mountain View, CA, Sanvido, Marco, Belmont, CA, Vachharajani, Neil A., San Francisco, CA, and Vohra, Taher, Sunnyvale, CA, for a “utilizing a non-repeating identifier to encrypt data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Utilizing a non-repeating identifier to encrypt data, including: receiving a request to write data to a storage device, selecting a segment-offset pair where the data will be stored, where the selected segment-offset pair is unique to every other segment-offset pair utilized during the lifetime of the storage device, and encrypting the data in dependence upon an identifier of the segment-offset pair.“

The patent application was filed on June 3, 2015 (14/730,202).

Performance improvements in storage system
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,773,007) developed by Golden, Christopher, Mountain View, CA, Vachharajani, Neil, Grunwald, David, San Francisco, CA, Smith, Scott, San Mateo, CA, Cao, Jianting, Paulsen, Luke, Mountain View, CA, and Gonzalez, Ricardo, Palo Alto, CA, for a “performance improvements in a storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems, methods, and computer readable storage mediums for optimizing performance in a storage system. A volume may be mapped to an anchor medium through an indirection layer. When a snapshot is taken of the volume, the allocation of a new anchor medium is delayed until a write operation targeting the volume is received. When a write operation targeting the volume is received, a new anchor medium may be allocated for only a portion of the volume corresponding to the portion of the volume which is targeted by the write operation. Also, when a snapshot is taken of the volume, read optimization operations are performed only the portions of the volume which have changed since the previous snapshot.“

The patent application was filed on December 1, 2014 (14/556,611).

Resharing of split secret
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,768,953) developed by Bernat, Andrew R., and Miller, Ethan L., Mountain View, CA, for a “resharing of a split secret.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A processor-based method for secret sharing in a computing system is provided. The method includes encrypting shares of a new secret, using a previous secret and distributing unencrypted shares of the new secret and the encrypted shares of the new secret, to members of the computing system. The method includes decrypting at least a subset of the encrypted shares of the new secret, using the previous secret and regenerating the new secret from at least a subset of a combination of the unencrypted shares of the new secret and the decrypted shares of the new secret.“

The patent application was filed on September 30, 2015 (14/871,662).

Masking defective bits in storage array
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,766,972) developed by Davis, John D., Hayes, John, Tan, Zhangxi, Kannan, Hari, and Miladinovic, Nenad, Mountain View, CA, for a “masking defective bits in a storage array.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method of failure mapping is provided. The method includes distributing user data throughout a plurality of storage nodes through erasure coding, wherein the plurality of storage nodes are housed within a chassis that couples the storage nodes as a storage cluster. Each of the plurality of storage nodes has a non-volatile solid-state storage with flash memory or other types of non-volatile memory and the user data is accessible via the erasure coding from a remainder of the plurality of storage nodes in event of two of the plurality of storage nodes being unreachable. The method includes determining that a non-volatile memory block in the memory has a defect and generating a mask that indicates the non-volatile memory block and the defect. The method includes reading from the non-volatile memory block with application of the mask, wherein the reading and the application of the mask are performed by the non-volatile solid-state storage.“

The patent application was filed on August 7, 2014 (14/454,531).

Writing data in storage system
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,760,479) developed by Colgrove, John, Los Altos, CA, Kirkpatrick, Peter, Mountain View, CA, and Vachharajani, Neil, San Francisco, CA, for a “writing data in a storage system that includes a first type of storage device and a second type of storage device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Writing data in a storage system that includes a first type of storage device and a second type of storage device, including: selecting, for one or more unprocessed write requests, a target storage device type from the first type of storage device and the second type of storage device, issuing a first group of write requests to the first type of storage device, the first group of write requests addressed to one or more locations selected in dependence upon an expected address translation to be performed by the first type of storage device, and issuing a second group of write requests to the second type of storage device, the second group of write requests addressed to one or more locations selected in dependence upon a layout of memory in the second type of storage device.“

The patent application was filed on December 2, 2015 (14/956,841).

Performing copies in storage system
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,760,313) developed by Colgrove, John, Los Altos, CA, Miller, Ethan, Santa Cruz, CA, Hayes, John, Mountain View, CA, Sandvig, Cary, Palo Alto, CA, Golden, Christopher, Mountain View, CA, Cao, Jianting, Sunnyvale, CA, and Inozemtsev, Grigori, San Jose, CA, for a “performing copies in a storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system and method for performing copy offload operations. When a copy offload operation from a first volume, (pointing to a first medium) to a second volume, pointing to a second medium) is requested, the copy offload operation is performed without accessing the data being copied. A third medium is created, and the first medium is recorded as the underlying medium of the third medium. The first volume is re-pointed to the third medium. Also, a fourth medium is created, the second volume is re-pointed to the fourth medium, and the second medium is recorded as the underlying medium of the targeted range of the fourth medium. All other ranges of the fourth medium have the second medium as their underlying medium.“

The patent application was filed on April 27, 2016 (15/139,408).

Managing input/output queues in data storage system
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,760,297) developed by Karr, Ronald, Palo Alto, CA, and Mansperger, John, San Jose, CA, for a “managing input/output (I/O) queues in a data storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Managing input/output (I/O) queues in a data storage system, including: receiving, by a host that is coupled to a plurality of storage devices via a storage network, a plurality of I/O operations to be serviced by a target storage device, determining, for each of a plurality of paths between the host and the target storage device, a data transfer maximum associated with the path, determining, for one or more of the plurality of paths, a cumulative amount of data to be transferred by I/O operations pending on the path, and selecting a target path for transmitting one or more of the plurality of I/O operations to the target storage device in dependence upon the cumulative amount of data to be transferred by I/O operations pending on the path and the data transfer maximum associated with the path.“

The patent application was filed on February 12, 2016 (15/042,718).

Self-describing data format for DMA in non-volatile solid-state storage
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,747,229) developed by Hayes, John, Gupta, Shantanu, Davis, John, Gold, Brian, abd Tan, Zhangxi, Mountain View, CA, for a “self-describing data format for DMA in a non-volatile solid-state storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method of applying a data format in a direct memory access transfer is provided. The method includes distributing user data throughout a plurality of storage nodes through erasure coding, wherein the plurality of storage nodes are housed within a single chassis that couples the storage nodes as a cluster, each of the plurality of storage nodes having nonvolatile solid-state memory for user data storage. The method includes reading a self-describing data portion from a first memory of the nonvolatile solid-state memory and extracting a destination from the self-describing data portion. The method includes writing data, from the self-describing data portion, to a second memory of the nonvolatile solid-state memory according to the destination.“

The patent application was filed on July 3, 2014 (14/323,894).

Intelligent refresh of 3D NAND
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,747,158) developed by Kannan, Hari, Sunnyvale, CA, Lee, Robert, San Carlos, CA, and Mao, Yuhong, Fremont, CA, for a “intelligent refresh of 3D NAND.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for processing blocks of flash memory to decrease raw bit errors from the flash memory is provided. The method includes identifying one or more blocks of the flash memory for a refresh operation and writing information regarding the identified blocks, to a data structure. The method includes issuing background reads to the identified blocks, according to the data structure, as the refresh operation. The method may be embodied on a computer readable medium. In some embodiments the background reads may be based on a time based refresh responsive to an increase in raw bit error count in the flash memory over time.”

The patent application was filed on January 13, 2017 (15/406,484).

Reservations over multiple paths on NVMe over fabrics
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,747,039) developed by Coleman, Gordon James, Los Altos, CA, Dreier, Roland, and Kirkpatrick, Peter E., Mountain View, CA, for a “reservations over multiple paths on NVMe over fabrics.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method includes receiving, by a storage drive and from a storage controller, a modified first reservation command including a first logical unit identifier. The first reservation command includes a first host identifier to identify a first host controller was previously received by the storage controller from the first host controller. The first reservation command was modified by the storage controller to replace the first host identifier with the first logical unit identifier. The method also includes responsive to receiving the modified first reservation command, identifying, by the storage drive, a first logical unit of storage based on the first logical unit identifier of the modified reservation command. The method includes granting, by the storage drive, a reservation for access to the storage drive on behalf of the first host controller by associating the reservation for the first logical unit with a second logical unit of storage.”

The patent application was filed on January 30, 2017 (15/419,886).