NetApp Assigned Fourteen Patents

Efficient parity determination in zoned SSDs of storage system
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12242337) developed by Gole; Abhijeet Prakash, Cupertino, CA, for an “efficient parity determination in zoned solid-state drives of a storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Methods and systems for a storage environment are provided. One method includes copying a data unit from a first temporary storage location corresponding to each zoned solid-state drive (ZNS SSD) of a first ZNS SSD set of a storage system to a first XOR module, while determining a first partial horizontal parity using the data unit stored in the first temporary storage location; and determining a vertical parity for each ZNS SSD of the first ZNS SSD set using the data unit provided to the first XOR module in a current cycle and vertical parity determined from a previous cycle.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-10-06 (18/377441).

Timestamp consistency for synchronous replication
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12242513) developed by Narasingarayanapeta; Krishna Murthy Chandraiah setty, and Bhargava M. R.; Rakesh, Bangalore, India, for a “timestamp consistency for synchronous replication.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for selectively allowing or blocking services from utilizing snapshots. A splitter intercepts and assigns timestamps to operations for execution upon files of a file system. If a snapshot is created while there are no pending operation, then the snapshot is tagged to indicate that the snapshot was created while there were no pending operations, and the snapshot is considered a tagged snapshot. Otherwise, the snapshot is not tagged, and is considered an untagged snapshot. Storage services (e.g., backup applications, lifecycle management applications, applications that consider timestamps of files, etc.) are allowed to utilize tagged snapshots and are blocked from utilizes untagged snapshots in order to maintain consistency.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-04-28 (18/308737).

Improve I/O resumption time during non-disruptive automatic unplanned failover from primary copy of data at primary storage system to mirror copy of data at cross-site secondary storage system
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12235741) developed by Vijayan; Anoop, Kaushik; Akhil, and Shah; Dhruvil, Karnataka, India, for “methods and systems to improve input/output (I/O) resumption time during a non-disruptive automatic unplanned failover from a primary copy of data at a primary storage system to a mirror copy of the data at a cross-site secondary storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Multi-site distributed storage systems and computer-implemented methods are described for improving a resumption time of input/output (I/O) operations during an automatic unplanned failover (AUFO). A computer-implemented method includes monitoring, with a second cluster, heartbeat information received at ultra-short time intervals from a first connection of one or more storage objects of the first cluster, determining, with the second cluster, whether the heartbeat information from the first connection is received during an ultra-short time interval, and intelligently routing heartbeat information from the one or more storage objects of the first cluster from the first connection to a second connection when the heartbeat information from the first connection is not received during the ultra-short time interval.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-07-28 (17/875814).

Volume group restore from remote object store
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12229010) developed by Bhargava M. R.; Rakesh, Subramanian; Murali, Karnataka, India, George; Tijin, Sunnyvale, CA, and Ngan; Ching-Yuk Paul, Redwood City, CA, for a “volume group restore from remote object store.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for volume group backup, volume group restore, and volume group garbage collection for volume groups backed up to an object store. A volume group workflow is implemented to orchestrate individual consistent volume workflows that are separately and individually implemented by nodes hosting constituent volumes of a volume group. The volume group workflow and the individual consistent volume workflows are performed to back up the volume group to the object store, restore a volume group backup from the object store to a restore destination, and/or perform garbage collection on slots of objects storing data unique to a volume group backup to delete.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-04-27 (17/730899).

Rebalancing engine for use in rebalancing files in distributed storage systems
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12229084) developed by Rajasekaran; Umeshkumar Vasantha, Cranberry Township, PA, Cook; Glenn, Pittsburgh, PA, Mallepally; Rajavardhan, Aubrey, TX, Sander; Brett, Pittsburgh, PA, and Zhou; Wenxin, Vancouver, Canada, for a “rebalancing engine for use in rebalancing files in a distributed storage systems.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Redistribution of files in a containerized distributed file system is disclosed. Containers each have an engine and a scanner and each of the containers stores files and parameters for characteristics of files stored on the container. A first engine in a first container monitors characteristics of files stored on the first container and, responsive to determining that the parameters for files on the first container exceed one or more predetermined thresholds, communicates with a second engine in a second container to determine a destination container for one or more files from the first container. The second engine in the second container indicates to the first engine in the first container whether the second container is available to receive one or more files from the first container. The first engine triggers file system scanning by the scanner of the first container to identify files to be moved to the second container.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-04-03 (18/194860).

Cost-effective, failure-aware resource allocation and reservation in cloud
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12222827) developed by Kangarlou; Ardalan, Cary, NC, for “cost-effective, failure-aware resource allocation and reservation in the cloud.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods for an improved High-Availability (HA) resource reservation approach are provided. According to one embodiment, for a given cluster of greater than two nodes in which a number (f) of concurrent node failures are to be tolerated, more efficient utilization of resources for an HA system may be achieved by distributing HA reserved capacity across more than f nodes of the cluster rather than naively concentrating the HA reserved capacity in f nodes. As node failures are not a common occurrence, those of the nodes of the cluster having HA reserved capacity may allow for some bursting of one or more units of compute executing thereon unless or until f concurrent node failures occur, thereby promoting more efficient utilization of node resources.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-08-30 (17/898824).

Prefetching keys for garbage collection
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12204800) developed by Thoppil; Anil Paul, Pleasanton, CA, Sun; Wei, Boulder, CO, Odugoudar; Meera, Milpitas, CA, Kuo; Szu-Wen, Taipei, Taiwan, and Selvaraj; Santhosh, San Jose, CA, for “prefetching keys for garbage collection.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for implementing a garbage collection process and a prediction read ahead mechanism to prefetch keys into memory to improve the efficiency and speed of the garbage collection process. A log structured merge tree is used to store keys of key-value pairs within a key-value store. If a key is no longer referenced by any worker nodes of a distributed storage architecture, then the key can be freed to store other data. Accordingly, garbage collection is performed to identify and free unused keys. The speed and efficiency of garbage collection is improved by dynamically adjusting the amount and rate at which keys are prefetched from disk and cached into faster memory for processing by the garbage collection process.”

The patent application was filed on 2022-04-28 (17/732065).

Lock reservations for shared storage
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12204797) developed by Busick; Christopher, Shrewsbury, MA, and Schmitt; Stephen Winslow, Cambridge, MA, for “lock reservations for shared storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for lock reservations for shared storage. A reserve command to reserve a storage structure is received by a driver from a node. The reserve command is formatted according to a storage protocol. The driver translates the reserve command into a lease acquire command formatted according to an object store protocol and targeting an object stored within an object store and corresponding to the storage structure. A lease identifier derived from a node identifier of the node is inserted into the lease acquire command. The lease acquire command is routed to the object store for obtaining a lease on the object for granting the node exclusive write access to the object.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-06-30 (18/344948).

Zero-copy volume move within distributed storage system
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12204784) developed by Thoppil; Anil Paul, Pleasanton, CA, Subramanian; Ananthan, San Ramon, CA, Varghese; Kevin Daniel, Milpitas, CA, Choudhary; Garima, and Zheng; Qinghua, San Jose, CA, for a “zero-copy volume move within a distributed storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods for performing a zero-copy volume move between nodes of a distributed storage system are provided. In one example, an approach for performing a zero-copy volume move is proposed in which volume data may be maintained in place within a storage pod and need not be copied to move a given volume between the source node and the destination node. In one embodiment, metadata (e.g., a top-most physical volume block number (PVBN) of a node tree representing the volume at issue) of a write-anywhere file system is copied from the source node to the destination node. Since the storage pod is associated with a global PVBN space that is visible and accessible to all nodes of the distributed storage system, as a result of copying the top-mode PVBN of the volume to the destination node, anything below the top-most PVBN will automatically be visible to the destination node.”

The patent application was filed on 2024-04-29 (18/649906).

Methods and multi-site systems to provide recovery point objective protection, snapshot retention between secondary storage site and tertiary storage site
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12197291) developed by Shetty; Sohan, Bangalore, India, and Kaushik; Akhil, San Jose, CA, for “methods and multi-site systems to provide recovery point objective (RPO) protection, snapshot retention between secondary storage site and tertiary storage site, and automatically initiating realignment and reconfiguration of a protection configuration from the secondary storage site to the tertiary storage site upon primary storage site failure.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Multi-site distributed storage systems and computer-implemented methods are described for providing common snapshot retention and automatic fanout reconfiguration for an asynchronous leg after a failure event that causes a failover from a primary storage site to a secondary storage site. A computer-implemented method comprises providing an asynchronous replication relationship with an asynchronous update schedule from one or more storage objects of the first storage node to one or more replicated storage objects of the third storage node, creating a snapshot copy of the one or more storage objects of the first storage node, transferring the snapshot copy to the third storage node based on an asynchronous mirror policy, and intercepting the snapshot create operation on the primary storage site and transferring the snapshot copy to the second storage node to provide a common snapshot between the second storage node and the third storage node.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-01-27 (18/160557).

Data management using controllers
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12197298) developed by Arumugham; Kalaivani, Sarfare; Parag, and Deskmukh; Prachi, San Jose, CA, for “systems and methods for data management using controllers.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A data management system can include a set of storage media configured to implement a storage space and a set of controllers. The set of controllers can be configured to write to the storage space and to implement a set of nodes. The set of controllers can include a first controller that implements a first node and includes a first persistent memory, a second controller that implements a second node and includes a second persistent memory and a third controller that implements a third node and includes a third persistent memory. The third node can be configured to write third node journal data to the first persistent memory. The first node can be configured to generate first node journal data based on a first request received from a backend, write the first node journal data to the first persistent memory, and replicate the journal data to the second persistent memory.”

The patent application was filed on 2024-03-07 (18/598913).

Facilitating multiple device consumption of shared namespaces of ephmermal storage devices by consumer of virtual storage device
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12189972) developed by Brown, Jr.; Joseph, Raleigh, NC, Takimoto; Javier Tsuyoshi, Missouri City, TX, Pawar; Sangramsinh Pandurang, Bedford, MA, and Ryan; Michael Scott, Wake Forest, NC, for “facilitating multiple device consumption of shared namespaces of ephmermal storage devices by a consumer of a virtual storage device.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems and methods for multiple device consumption of shared namespaces of ephemeral storage devices by a consumer of a virtual storage system are provided. In an example, multiple namespaces of respective ephemeral storage devices are shared among multiple of consumers of a virtual storage system by creating multiple partitions within each of the namespaces for use by respective consumers of the multiple consumers. Corresponding partitions of respective shared namespace may then be treated as a stripe set to facilitate multiple device consumption for a subsystem (e.g., operation log journaling) of the virtual storage system by striping data associated with input/output (I/O) requests of a consumer (e.g., a journaling driver) across one or more stripe units of one or more stripes within the stripe set.”

The patent application was filed on 2023-04-28 (18/309162).

Containerization and serverless thread implementation for processing objects
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12182067) developed by Yelheri; Sharankumar, Santa Clara, CA, Pandit; Atul Ramesh, Los Gatos, CA, George; Tijin, Sunnyvale, CA, Srinivasan; Kiran Nenmeli, Los Gatos, CA, and Prem; Jeffrey David, Pittsburgh, PA, for “containerization and serverless thread implementation for processing objects.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for on-demand creation and/or utilization of containers and/or serverless threads for hosting data connector components. The data connector components can be used to perform integrity checking, anomaly detection, and file system metadata analysis associated with objects stored within an object store. The data connector components may be configured to execute machine learning functionality to perform operations and tasks. The data connector components can perform full scans or incremental scans. The data connector components may be stateless, and thus may be offlined, upgraded, onlined, and/or have tasks transferred between data connector components. Results of operations performed by the data connector components upon base objects may be stored within sibling objects.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-04-28 (17/242448).

Sibling object generation for storing results of operations performed upon base objects
NetApp, Inc., San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (12174789) developed by Yelheri; Sharankumar, Santa Clara, CA, Pandit; Atul Ramesh, Los Gatos, CA, and George; Tijin, Sunnyvale, CA, for a “sibling object generation for storing results of operations performed upon base objects.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Techniques are provided for on-demand creation and/or utilization of containers and/or serverless threads for hosting data connector components. The data connector components can be used to perform integrity checking, anomaly detection, and file system metadata analysis associated with objects stored within an object store. The data connector components may be configured to execute machine learning functionality to perform operations and tasks. The data connector components can perform full scans or incremental scans. The data connector components may be stateless, and thus may be offlined, upgraded, onlined, and/or have tasks transferred between data connector components. Results of operations performed by the data connector components upon base objects may be stored within sibling objects.”

The patent application was filed on 2021-04-28 (17/242363).