System and method for intelligent, globally distributed network storage
AssigneeEMC Corporation
InventorsGregory Hagan Moulton, Stephen B. Whitehill
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A data storage system comprising a plurality of storage nodes, each node existing at a physical location having one or more contexts. Interface mechanisms couple to each storage node to communicate storage access requests with the storage node. Data storage management processes select one or more of the storage nodes to serve a data storage request based at least in part upon the particular contexts of each of the storage nodes.
Claims31
A data storage system comprising:
- a plurality of storage nodes, each node existing at a physical location and having one or more associated contexts
- interface mechanisms coupled to each storage node for communicating storage access requests with the storage node;
- and
- data storage management processes that select one or more of the storage nodes to serve a data storage request based at least in part upon the particular contexts associated with each of the storage nodes.
A method of managing distributed data storage comprising the acts of:
- providing a plurality of distributed storage nodes;
- receiving a data storage task in one of the storage nodes;
- determining desired criteria associated with the received unit of data;
- selecting one or more of the plurality of storage nodes having an associated context satisfying the desired criteria;
- and
- executing the storage task in the one or more selected storage nodes.
A data storage service comprising:
- receiving data storage access requests from a file system;
- maintaining a state information data structure including state information describing the contexts of a number of network-accessible storage devices;
- and
- using the state information to allocate capacity within the network-accessible storage devices to handle the received data storage request.
A method of transporting data from a source to a destination comprising:
- determining a context in which each network device that must handle the data transport exists;
- and
- selecting a set of network devices such that the data is compliant with the context of each device that handles the data transport.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.