VMware Assigned Nine Patents

Computer storage deduplication
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,496,670) developed by Clements, Austin, Arlington, MA, Ahmad, Irfan, Li, Jinyuan, Mountain View, CA, and Vilayannur, Murali, San Jose, CA, for a “computer storage deduplication.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Decentralized deduplication operations in a computer system employ a hash index that is a variant of a B+ tree to support both efficient sequential updates as well as efficient random updates. Sequential update is selected when deduplication is infrequently performed, such as on the order of days, and random update is selected when deduplication is performed more frequently, such as on the order of seconds. More frequent deduplication may be beneficial during periods when large amounts of temporary duplicate data are created, and the system may not have enough storage space to accommodate the temporary spike in demand.”

The patent application was filed on May 19, 2010 (12/783,392).

Storage policy-based automation of protection for disaster recovery
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,481,987) developed by Gallagher, Ryan David, Sunnyvale, CA, Langouev, Ilia, Santa Cruz, CA, McElhoe, Glenn Bruce, Arlington, MA, Pershin, Aleksey, Fremont, CA, and Piduri, Sudarsan, Campbell, CA, for a “storage policy-based automation of protection for disaster recovery.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems include a recovery manager receiving selection of a storage profile to be protected. The storage profile is an abstraction of a set of one or more logical storage devices that are treated as a single entity based upon common storage capabilities. In response to the selection of the storage profile to be protected, a set of virtual datacenter entities associated with the storage profile is added to a disaster recovery plan to automate a failover of the set of virtual datacenter entities from a protection site to a recovery site. The set of one or more virtual datacenter entities includes one or more virtual machines, one or more logical storage devices, or a combination of virtual machines and logical storage devices. The set of virtual datacenter entities is expandable and interchangeable with other virtual datacenter entities.”

The patent application was filed on November 13, 2017 (15/811,649).

Detect and correct outliers in a dataset stored in data-storage device
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,474,667) developed by Jha, Chandrashekhar, George, Jobin, Sahu, Prateek, Gaurav, Kumar, and Singh, Jusvinder, Bangalore, India, for “methods and systems to detect and correct outliers in a dataset stored in a data-storage device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Methods and systems are directed to detection and correction of outliers in a dataset stored in a data-storage device. The dataset comprises parameter data that may be stored and organized in the form of a data table with rows and columns of parameter values. Each column of the parameter data is searched for outlier parameter values based on the parameters values in the same column. The parameter data as a whole may be searched for outlier rows of parameter values based on first and second largest variations in the parameter data. Substitute parameter values are determined for the outlier parameter values based on non-outlier parameter values of the parameter data. The substitute parameter values and corresponding outlier parameter values may be displayed in a database management user interface that enables a user to selectively accept or reject each of the substitute parameter values for the corresponding outlier parameter values.”

The patent application was filed on November 14, 2017 (15/811,710).

Immutable file storage
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,474,554) developed by Frank, Alex, Palo Alto, CA, for an “immutable file storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”The present disclosure is related to devices and systems for immutable file storage. An example device can include instructions to hash a log file received from a log source to produce a hash value, store the hash value and information describing the log file, communicate the hash value and the information to a third party service, wherein the third party service maintains the communicated hash value and the communicated information such that the communicated hash value and the communicated information are immutable, access the communicated hash value and the communicated information, and compare the stored hash value and the stored information with the communicated hash value and the communicated information to determine whether the log file is unmodified.”

The patent application was filed on November 18, 2016 (15/356,102).

High availability for persistent memory
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,474,550) developed by Subrahmanyam, Pratap, Saratoga, CA, Venkatasubramanian, Rajesh, San Jose, CA, Tati, Kiran, and Ali, Qasim, Santa Clara, CA, for “high availability for persistent memory.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques for implementing high availability for persistent memory are provided. In one embodiment, a first computer system can detect an alternating current, (AC) power loss/cycle event and, in response to the event, can save data in a persistent memory of the first computer system to a memory or storage device that is remote from the first computer system and is accessible by a second computer system. The first computer system can then generate a signal for the second computer system subsequently to initiating or completing the save process, thereby allowing the second computer system to restore the saved data from the memory or storage device into its own persistent memory.”

The patent application was filed on May 3, 2017 (15/586,020).

Replication management for hyper-converged infrastructures
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,474,508) developed by Selvaraj, Karthick, Bangalore, India, for a “replication management for hyper-converged infrastructures.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Disclosed are various examples of replication management for hyper-converged infrastructures. Virtual machine groups are generated using k-means grouping based on a process list of a respective virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machines within a hyper-converged infrastructure. Virtual machines in a respective group are analyzed to determine a first set of resources. A property graph that includes configuration data including a storage resource configuration and a network resource configuration is generated for the first set of resources of the respective virtual machine group. A second set of resources is configured within a second workload domain using the storage resource configuration and the network resource configuration.”

The patent application was filed on August 18, 2017 (15/680,236).

Persistent reservation emulation in shared virtual storage environments
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,474,394) developed by Dev, Rahul, Swamy, Gautham, and Aithal, Prasanna, Bangalore, India, for a “persistent reservation emulation in shared virtual storage environments.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Example methods are provided to perform persistent reservation emulation in a shared virtual storage environment that includes a first host supporting a first node and a second host supporting a second node. One example method may comprise detecting a command issued by a first node to command issued by a first node to update information relating to a reservation or registration associated with a virtual disk, and updating persistent reservation information associated with the virtual disk to indicate that the command has been issued by the first node. The method may also comprise determining that the second node either has acknowledged the updated persistent reservation information, or has not acknowledged the updated persistent reservation information within a time interval. The method may further comprise updating the persistent reservation information based on the command.”

The patent application was filed on April 18, 2018 (15/955,760).

Distributed storage resource management in hyper converged infrastructure
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,462,221) developed by Siddappa, Gireesha Udagani, and Nayak, Samdeep, Bangalore, India, for a “distributed storage resource management in a hyper converged infrastructure.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A distributed storage resource management in a hyper converged infrastructure is created. The system accesses a virtualized infrastructure comprising a plurality of host machines, each of said plurality of host machines having resources, the resources comprising: a central processing unit, (CPU), a memory, and a storage, each of the plurality of host machines communicatively coupled with one or more virtual machines. The resources in each of the host machines are disaggregated. The resources are aggregated based on a nature of the resource into a common pool of shared resources. A request is received for a workload application having a resource requirement. The resource requirement of the workload application is matched with resources in the common pool of shared resources. The matched resources in the common pool of shared resources are assigned to the workload application.”

The patent application was filed on May 5, 2017 (15/587,439).

Managing storage transaction requests
VMware, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, has been assigned a patent (10,452,496) developed by Gupta, Abhishek, Sunnyvale, CA, Spillane, Richard P., Mountain View, CA, Chowksey, Kapil, Johnson, Rob, Palo Alto, CA, and Wang, Wenguang, Santa Clara, CA, for “system and method for managing storage transaction requests.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Data storage system and method for managing transaction requests to the data storage system utilizes a write ahead log to write transaction requests received at the data storage system during a current checkpoint generation. After the transaction requests in the write ahead log are applied to a copy-on-write, (COW) storage data structure stored in a storage system, one of first and second allocation bitmaps is updated to reflect changes in the COW storage data structure with respect to allocation of storage space in the storage system, and one of first and second super blocks is updated with references to central nodes of the COW storage data structure. After the allocation bitmap and the super block have been updated, an end indicator for the current checkpoint generation is written in the write ahead log to indicate that processing of the transaction requests for the current checkpoint generation has been completed.”

The patent application was filed on October 6, 2017 (15/727,211).