Pure Storage Assigned Thirteen Patents

Visually guided hardware installation
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,824,608) developed by Lin, Howard, Mountain View, CA, for a “systems and methods for visually guided hardware installation.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for visually guided storage array installation is disclosed. The method includes receiving an installation plan for a storage array and determining a component of the storage array that is specified in the installation plan. One or more visual indicators that are associated with the component of the storage array are displayed to indicate a status corresponding to executing a portion of the installation plan.”

The patent application was filed on October 16, 2015 (14/885,200).

Profile-dependent write placement of data into non-volatile solid-state storage
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,817,750) developed by Hayes, John, Gupta, Shantanu, Davis, John, Gold, Brian, and Tan, Zhangxi, Mountain View, CA, for a “profile-dependent write placement of data into a non-volatile solid-state storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for storing user data is provided. The method includes distributing the 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 performing analytics on user data and grouping portions of the user data according to results of the analytics. The method includes writing the user data to blocks of flash memory in the non-volatile solid-state memory, wherein each block receives portions of the user data grouped according to at least one of the results of the analytics.”

The patent application was filed on July 3, 2014 (14/323,876).

Replication and intermediate read-write state for mediums
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,817,608) developed by Golden, Christopher, Mountain View, CA, Cao, Jianting, Sunnyvale, CA, Grunwald, David, San Francisco, CA, Sharpe, Malcolm, and Hodgson, Steve, Mountain View, CA, for a “replication and intermediate read-write state for mediums.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system and method for exposing volumes with underlying read-write mediums to user operations. When a medium is in the process of being replicated to a storage array, a volume which relies on the medium can be exposed to user operations, (e.g., snapshots, read and write operations) once the portions of the medium which underlie the volume have been replicated. The volume can be exposed to user operations while one or more other portions of the medium are unfilled and while the medium is in an intermediate read-write state.”

The patent application was filed on November 11, 2015 (14/938,243).

Data migration in storage array
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,817,603) developed by Colgrove, John, Los Altos, CA, Do, Lydia, San Jose, CA, and Miller, Ethan, Santa Cruz, CA, for a “data migration in a storage array that includes a plurality of storage devices.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Migrating data in a storage array that includes a plurality of storage devices and a plurality of write buffer devices, including: detecting, by the storage array, an occurrence of a write buffer device evacuation event associated with one or more source write buffer devices, responsive to detecting the occurrence of the write buffer device evacuation event, determining, by the storage array, whether the storage array includes at least a predetermined amount of write buffer resources in addition to the one or more source write buffer devices, and responsive to determining that the storage array includes at least a predetermined amount of write buffer resources in addition to the one or more source write buffer devices, reducing, by the storage array, write access to the one or more source write buffer devices.”

The patent application was filed on November 16, 2016 (15/353,400).

Parallel update to NVRAM
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,817,576) developed by Hayes, John, Gold, Brian, and Lee, Robert, Mountain View, CA, for a “parallel update to NVRAM.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for updates in a storage system is provided. The method includes writing identifiers, associated with data to be stored, to storage units of the storage system and writing trim records indicative of identifiers that are allowed to not exist in the storage system to the storage units. The method includes determining whether stored data corresponding to records of identifiers is valid based on the records of the identifiers and the trim records.”

The patent application was filed on May 27, 2015 (14/723,367).

Secure data replication in storage grid
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,811,677) developed by Hayes, John, Botes, Par, and Miller, Ethan, Mountain View, CA, for a “secure data replication in a storage grid.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for securing data in a storage grid is provided. The method includes generating a storage key from key shares of at least two storage clusters of a storage grid having at least three storage clusters and generating a grid key from the storage key and an external secret. The method includes encrypting data with the grid key to yield once encrypted data and encrypting the once encrypted data with the storage key to yield twice encrypted data. The method includes storing the twice encrypted data in a first storage cluster of the storage grid and storing the twice encrypted data in a second storage cluster of the storage grid, wherein at least one method operation is performed by a processor.”

The patent application was filed on July 3, 2014 (14/323,772).

Multiple fingerprint tables in deduplicating storage system
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,811,551) developed by Colgrove, John, Los Altos, CA, Hayes, John, Mountain View, CA, Miller, Ethan, Santa Cruz, CA, Hasbani, Joseph S., and Sandvig, Cary, Palo Alto, CA, for a “utilizing multiple fingerprint tables in a deduplicating storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system and method for managing fingerprint tables in deduplicating storage systems. A computer system includes a storage device and a data storage controller coupled to the storage device. The controller is configured to for each of a plurality of data objects stored in a storage device, determine, based on one or more attributes corresponding to usage of the data object, a probability of the data object being deduplicated, store within a first fingerprint table, fingerprints of data objects with the highest probability of being deduplicated, store within a second fingerprint table, fingerprints of data objects with a lower probability of being deduplicated than the data objects having fingerprints stored in the first fingerprint table, and search fingerprints of the first fingerprint table to determine whether a fingerprint for a data object associated with a write request matches a fingerprint for any of the data objects in the first fingerprint table.”

The patent application was filed on June 25, 2015 (14/751,099).

Data placement based on data retention in tiered storage
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,811,457) developed by Davis, John, Miller, Ethan, Gold, Brian, Colgrove, John, Vajgel, Peter, Hayes, John, and Ho, Alex, Mountain View, CA, for a “data placement based on data retention in a tiered storage device system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for managing flash memory is provided. The method includes determining at least one property of a data and determining to which type of a plurality of types of flash memory to write the data, based on the at least one property of the data. The plurality of types of flash memory includes at least two types of flash memory having differing numbers of bits per cell. The method includes writing the data to a flash memory of the determined type. A nonvolatile memory manager and a system are provided.”

The patent application was filed on January 16, 2014 (14/157,489).

Deploying client-specific applications in storage system
utilizing redundant system resources
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,811,264) developed by Colgrove, John, Los Altos, CA, Do, Lydia, San Jose, CA, Miller, Ethan, Santa Cruz, CA, and Noonan, Terence, Vadnais Heights, MN, for a “deploying client-specific applications in a storage system utilizing redundant system resources.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Deploying client-specific applications in a storage system utilizing redundant system resources, including: identifying a redundant controller in the storage system, wherein the storage system includes at least a first controller and the redundant controller, and executing one or more applications on the redundant controller, wherein the one or more applications are executed in a container.”

The patent application was filed on April 28, 2016 (15/141,478).

Frequency domain to prioritize storage of metadata in cache
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,804,973) developed by Shalev, Ori, Cupertino, CA, for an “using frequency domain to prioritize storage of metadata in a cache.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system and method for efficiently caching metadata in a storage system. Addresses from a plurality of I/O accesses to the storage system are captured and then a frequency domain representation of the addresses is generated. The frequency domain representation is used to measure the randomness of the various applications which are accessing the storage system. Scores are generated based on the measure of randomness, and scores are assigned to the various regions of the logical address space. Scores are then assigned to the metadata pages which are stored in the cache based on the region of the logical address space to which the metadata pages correspond. The scores are used when determining which metadata pages to evict from the cache. The cache will attempt to evict those metadata pages which correspond to regions of the logical address space that are servicing random I/O accesses.”

The patent application was filed on November 12, 2015 (14/939,693).

Determining storage capacity to be made available upon deletion of shared data
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,804,779) developed by Cao, Jianting, Sunnyvale, CA, Harriman, Martin, Aptos, CA, Hayes, John, Mountain View, CA, and Sandvig, Cary, Palo Alto, CA, for a “determining storage capacity to be made available upon deletion of a shared data.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Attributing consumed storage capacity among entities storing data in a storage array includes: identifying a data object stored in the storage array and shared by a plurality of entities, where the data object occupies an amount of storage capacity of the storage array, and attributing to each entity a fractional portion of the amount of storage capacity occupied by the data object.”

The patent application was filed on January 30, 2017 (15/419,471).

Scalable non-uniform storage sizes
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,798,477) developed by Botes, Par, Colgrove, John, Davis, John, Hayes, John, Lee, Robert, Robinson, Joshua, and Vajgel, Peter, Mountain View, CA, for a “scalable non-uniform storage sizes.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A plurality of storage nodes cooperating as a storage cluster is provided. Each of the plurality of storage nodes has storage memory. Each storage node of the plurality of storage nodes is configurable to direct erasure coded striping of data of one of an Mode or data segment across the plurality of storage nodes of the storage cluster, with at least one storage node of the plurality of storage nodes having a differing amount of storage capacity of the storage memory from an amount of storage capacity of another storage node in the plurality of storage nodes. A method of storing data in a storage cluster is also provided.”

The patent application was filed on June 13, 2016 (15/180,787).

Distributing data blocks across plurality of storage devices
Pure Storage, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,792,045) developed by Miller, Ethan, Santa Cruz, CA, Colgrove, John, Los Altos, CA, Hayes, John, Mountain View, CA, and Sandvig, Cary, Palo Alto, CA, for a “distributing data blocks across a plurality of storage devices.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A system, method, and computer-readable storage medium for mapping block numbers within a region to physical locations within a storage system. Block numbers are mapped within a region according to a fractal-based space-filling curve. If the region is not a 2.sup.k by 2.sup.k square, then the region is broken up into one or more 2.sup.k by 2.sup.k squares. Any remaining sub-region is centered within a 2.sup.k by 2.sup.k square, the 2.sup.k by 2.sup.k square is numbered using a fractal-based space-filling curve, and then the sub-region is renumbered by assigning numbers based on the order of the original block numbers of the sub-region.”

The patent application was filed on May 3, 2016 (15/144,885).