Nutanix Assigned Six Patents

Accessing data between different virtual disk formats in virtualization environment
Nutanix, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,952,782) developed by Chandrasekaran, Karthik, Bangalore, India, and Gill, Binny Sher, San Jose, CA, for a “method and system for accessing data between different virtual disk formats in a virtualization environment.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An architecture for accessing data between different virtual disk formats. A virtual machine may be migrated or cloned from a first server that uses a first virtual disk format to a second server using a second virtual disk format. In response to an I/O request from the virtual machine, a real-time mapper compares the virtual disk format used by the virtual machine with the virtual disk format of the virtual disk that the request is directed to. If the formats are different, a set of mapping metadata is used to map between data of the different virtual disk formats. Due to the mapping being performed in real time, the virtual machine is able to operate upon the virtual disk without the need to perform a potentially costly format conversion of the virtual disk or the underlying data.”

The patent application was filed on December 30, 2014 (14/586,700).

Spilling small cache entries to solid state device
Nutanix, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,946,657) developed by Muthukkaruppan, Kannan, Union City, CA, and Le, Neil, San Diego, CA, for a “spilling small cache entries to a solid state device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems for managing a multi-level cache in high-performance computing. A method is practiced over a multi-tier caching subsystem that comprises a first cache tier of random access memory, and a second cache tier that comprises a block-oriented device. The solid-state drive device is a block-oriented device comprising a plurality of blocks having a minimum block size. Cache entries are initially stored in the first cache, including cache entries that are smaller than the minimum block size of the block-oriented device. During cache operations such as first tier eviction, a plurality smaller entries are packed into blocks of the minimum block size before being spilled into the second tier. If an entry in the packed block is accessed again, the entire packed block is brought into the first tier. A key structure is maintained to track individual invalidated entries in a packed block without invalidating other entries in the packed block.”

The patent application was filed on March 1, 2016 (15/057,317).

Virtual machine bring-up with on-demand processing of storage requests
Nutanix, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,946,569) developed by Beedu, Bharat Kumar, Santa Clara, CA, Ramachandran, Parthasarathy, Palo Alto, CA, and Jain, Kshitiz, Raipur Chattisgarh, India, for a “virtual machine bring-up with on-demand processing of storage requests.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method commences upon receiving a request to migrate a subject virtual machine from a first computing machine to a second computing machine. An agent determines which storage assets are used by the subject virtual machine. The agent collects volume metadata pertaining to the storage assets and clones volume metadata from the first computing machine to the second computing machine. The data blocks comprising the volumes are not moved to the second computing machine until after migrating the subject virtual machine from the first computing machine to the second computing machine. After starting the migrated instance of the subject virtual machine, the migrated instance mounts volumes using the cloned metadata. The first computing machine and the second computing machine cooperate by processing storage asset block requests issued by the migrated virtual machine. Data blocks comprising the volume are moved on demand. The migrated virtual machine can be migrated yet again.”

The patent application was filed on February 8, 2016 (15/018,395).

Implementing high yield de-duplication for computing applications
Nutanix, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,933,971) developed by Kenkre, Baban K., Santa Clara, CA, and Muthukkaruppan, Kannan, Union City, CA, for a “method and system for implementing high yield de-duplication for computing applications.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Disclosed is an improved approach for implementing de-duplication, by selecting data such that the de-duplication efficacy of the storage will be increased without arbitrarily increasing metadata size.”

The patent application was filed on December 30, 2015 (14/984,394).

Reconfiguration of data structures using balloon memory allocation
Nutanix, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,910,774) developed by Gupta, Karan, San Jose, CA, Singh, Kamalneet, Bangalore, India, Bhattacharrya, Manosiz, San Jose, CA, and Mirani, Rajiv, Los Gatos, CA, for a “spontaneous reconfiguration of data structures using balloon memory allocation.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems for memory management in virtual machines. A method embodiment forms a reconfigurable multi-level data structure by requesting reserved memory as well as loaned-out memory. The method configures the multi-level data structure to have a first area comprising reserved memory and having a second area comprising reconfigurable memory. The reserved memory portion of the data structure is populated with pointers that address one or more portions of the second area. During operation, the method receives a request to release some or all of the reconfigurable memory. Memory address pointers in the first portion of the multi-level data structure are modified to reflect the release of the reconfigurable memory. In a hypervisor-based virtual machine environment, the first area comprising reserved memory can be allocated via a hypervisor call. The second area comprising reconfigurable memory is allocated via a balloon memory driver call.”

The patent application was filed on December 30, 2015 (14/985,268).

Providing block storage and object storage functionality
from external storage environment to networked virtualization
environment for storage management
Nutanix, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,886,215) developed by Ramachandran, Parthasarathy, Palo Alto, CA, and Gill, Binny Sher, San Jose, CA, for a “mechanism for providing block storage and object storage functionality from an external storage environment to a networked virtualization environment for storage management.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method for providing backup to a networked virtualization environment for storage management by a remote storage environment having a block storage device and an object storage device, includes deploying a controller virtual machine at the remote storage environment, wherein the controller virtual machine provides a block storage device interface, receiving, at the controller virtual machine, a write request for data in a block-based format, translating the data from the block-based format to an object-based format, writing the data in the object-based format to the object storage device, and updating metadata corresponding to the write request in the block storage device.”

The patent application was filed on May 15, 2014 (14/279,139).