A disk drive system and method capable of dynamically allocating data is provided. The disk drive system may include a RAID subsystem having a pool of storage, for example a page pool of storage that maintains a free list of RAIDs, or a matrix of disk storage blocks that maintain a null list of RAIDs, and a disk manager having at least one disk storage system controller. The RAID subsystem and disk manager dynamically allocate data across the pool of storage and a plurality of disk drives based on RAID-to-disk mapping. The RAID subsystem and disk manager determine whether additional disk drives are required, and a notification is sent if the additional disk drives are required. Dynamic data allocation and data progression allow a user to acquire a disk drive later in time when it is needed. Dynamic data allocation also allows efficient data storage of snapshots/point-in-time copies of virtual volume pool of storage, instant data replay and data instant fusion for data backup, recovery etc., remote data storage, and data progression, etc.

Virtual disk drive system and method

Systems and methods for managing data, such as metadata. In one exemplary method, metadata from files created by several different software applications are captured, and the captured metadata is searched. The type of information in metadata for one type of file differs from the type of information in metadata for another type of file. Other methods are described and data processing systems and machine readable media are also described.

Methods And Systems For Managing Data

Systems and methods are disclosed for performing data storage operations, including content-indexing, containerized deduplication, and policy-driven storage, within a cloud environment The systems support a variety of clients and cloud storage sites that may connect to the system in a cloud environment that requires data transfer over wide area networks, such as the Internet, which may have appreciable latency and/or packet loss, using various network protocols, including HTTP and FTP Methods are disclosed for content indexing data stored within a cloud environment to facilitate later searching, including collaborative searching Methods are also disclosed for performing containerized deduplication to reduce the strain on a system namespace, effectuate cost savings, etc Methods are disclosed for identifying suitable storage locations, including suitable cloud storage sites, for data files subject to a storage policy Further, systems and methods for providing a cloud gateway and a scalable data object store within a cloud environment are disclosed, along with other features

Performing data storage operations with a cloud storage environment, including automatically selecting among multiple cloud storage sites

A plurality of computer nodes communicate using seemingly random Internet Protocol source and destination addresses. Data packets matching criteria defined by a moving window of valid addresses are accepted for further processing, while those that do not meet the criteria are quickly rejected. Improvements to the basic design include (1) a load balancer that distributes packets across different transmission paths according to transmission path quality; (2) a DNS proxy server that transparently creates a virtual private network in response to a domain name inquiry; (3) a large-to-small link bandwidth management feature that prevents denial-of-service attacks at system chokepoints; (4) a traffic limiter that regulates incoming packets by limiting the rate at which a transmitter can be synchronized with a receiver; and (5) a signaling synchronizer that allows a large number of nodes to communicate with a central node by partitioning the communication function between two separate entities.

Agile network protocol for secure communications with assured system availability

Location sharing and tracking using mobile phones or other wireless devices

A storage controller has at least one physical data port for a data network including host processors. The storage controller is programmed to provide a plurality of virtual ports for access to storage, and a virtual switch for routing storage access requests from the physical port to the virtual ports. The virtual ports and the virtual switch are defined by software. The virtual ports appear to the hosts as physical ports in the data network. For example, in a Fiber-Channel network, the virtual ports have World Wide Names (WWNs) and are assigned temporary addresses (S_Ds), and the virtual switch provides a name server identifying the WWNs and S_IDs of the virtual ports. For convenient partitioning of storage among host processors, one or more virtual ports are assigned to each host, and a set of storage volumes are made accessible from each virtual port. A host can access storage at a virtual port only if the virtual port has been assigned to the host. Preferably, storage can be accessed through each virtual port by no more than one assigned host, although a shared volume may be accessible from more than one virtual port. The storage controller may provide a service for reporting to a host the virtual ports through which the host can access storage, and the storage volumes that are accessible to the host through each of the virtual ports.

Virtual ports for data transferring of a data storage system

A computer having backup capabilities for backing up data on a host storage disk of the computer to a remote archive repository, the computer including a backup application that determines when data to be backed up should be copied to the remote archive repository and makes read requests to make a copy of data on the host storage disk and makes write requests to store the copy at the remote archive repository, the computer also including a backup system that receives the write requests and the copy of data and has a remote procedure call interface for transmitting the data to the remote archive repository.

Computer backup using a file system, network, disk, tape and remote archiving repository media system

A storage controller for controling access to data storage has a memory and at least one data port for a data network including host processors. The memory is programmed to define a respective specification for each host processor of a respective subset of the data storage to which access by the host processor is restricted, and each specification is associated with a host identifier stored in the memory. When the storage controller receives a data access request from a host processor, it decodes a host identifier from the data access request, and searches the memory for a host identifier matching the host identifier decoded from the request. Upon finding a match, the respective specification of the respective subset for the host processor is accessed to determine whether or not storage specified by the storage access request is contained in the respective subset. If so, then storage access can continue, and otherwise, storage access is denied. Preferably the host identifier decoded from the request is a temporary address assigned by the network, and also stored in the memory in association with each respective specification is a relatively permanent identifier for the host processor.

Storage mapping and partitioning among multiple host processors in the presence of login state changes and host controller replacement

In a data storage subsystem providing data storage to host processors, a process of configuration defines a subset of the data storage that each host may access. A vector specification is a convenient mechanism for specifying a set of storage volumes that a host may access. For example, for each host processor, there is stored in memory of the data storage subsystem a list of contiguous ranges or vectors of the storage volumes that the host may access. To determine whether or not a specified logical volume number is included in the vector, a mudulus of the stride of the vector is computed from the difference between the address of the specified logical volume and the beginning address of the vector, and the modulus is compared to zero. To provide a mapping between logical unit numbers specified by the host and the logical volumes, a contiguous range of logical unit numbers may also be specified for each contiguous range or vector of storage volumes. The logical volume number is computed from a specified logical unit number by computing a difference between the specified logical unit number and the beginning logical unit number, multiplying the difference by the stride of the vector to produce a product, and adding the product to the beginning address of the vector.

Configuring vectors of logical storage units for data storage partitioning and sharing

An apparatus has host ports for coupling hosts to data storage devices. The data storage devices are configured into logical storage units, and the apparatus is programmed with a mapping of the hosts to respective logical storage units. The apparatus decodes a host identifier and a logical storage unit specification from each data access request received at each host port, and determines whether or not the decoded host identifier and logical storage unit specification are in conformance with the mapping in order to permit or deny data access of the logical storage unit through the host port. For example, the apparatus includes a switch for routing the data storage access requests from the host ports to ports that provide access to the data storage, and a set of logical volumes of storage are accessible from each of the ports that provide access to the data storage.

Steven M. Blumenau

Papers

Virtual ports for data transferring of a data storage system

Computer backup using a file system, network, disk, tape and remote archiving repository media system

Storage mapping and partitioning among multiple host processors in the presence of login state changes and host controller replacement

Configuring vectors of logical storage units for data storage partitioning and sharing

Mapping of hosts to logical storage units and data storage ports in a data processing system