File system
AssigneeSimpliVity Corporation
InventorsArthur J. Beaverson, Paul Bowden
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A digitally signed file system in which data, metadata and files are objects, each object having a globally unique and content-derived fingerprint and wherein object references are mapped by the fingerprints; the file system has a root object comprising a mapping of all object fingerprints in the file system, such that a change to the file system results in a change in the root object, and tracking changes in the root object provides a history of file system activity.
Claims41
A file system comprising:
- a digitally signed file system in which data, metadata and files are objects, each object having a globally unique and content-derived fingerprint and wherein object references are mapped by the fingerprints;
- the file system having a root object comprising a mapping of all object fingerprints in the file system;
- wherein a change to the file system results in a change in the root object, and tracking changes in the root object provides a history of file system activity.
A computer-readable medium containing executable program instructions for a method of indexing stored objects, the method comprising:
- providing data, metadata and files as objects;
- providing a fingerprint for each object which is globally unique and derived from the content of the object;
- and
- wherein a file system root object is provided comprising a mapping of all object fingerprints in the file system, such that a change to the file system results in a change in the root object, and tracking changes in the root object provides a history of file system activity.
A computer file system for naming and storing of files on one or more computer storage devices, the system comprising:
- a namespace file system wherein files, data and metadata are objects, each object having a globally unique fingerprint derived from the content of the object, each file object comprising a mapping of object fingerprints for the data objects and/or metadata objects of the file and the file object having its own object fingerprint derived from the fingerprints of the objects in the file, and wherein the system includes a mapping of inode numbers to the file object fingerprints.
A method comprising:
- generating object fingerprints for data objects in a file system, the data objects comprising data or metadata, and the object fingerprints comprising a globally unique fingerprint derived from the data object content;
- generating object fingerprints for file objects, wherein each file object comprises the fingerprints of a plurality of the data objects in the file and the file object fingerprint comprises a globally unique fingerprint derived from the file object content;
- and
- generating a root object comprising a mapping of all the object fingerprints in the file system.
A method comprising:
- providing a plurality of data objects, each data object comprising data or metadata, and each data object having a fingerprint which is globally unique and derived from its content;
- and
- generating a file object comprising a plurality of data object fingerprints for a plurality of associated data objects, and generating a file object fingerprint which is globally unique and derived from the content of the file object;
- and
- maintaining an index of inode numbers to file object fingerprints.
A computer-readable medium containing executable program instructions for a method of indexing stored objects, the method comprising:
- generating fingerprints which are globally unique and derived from the content of data and metadata objects;
- generating file objects comprising a plurality of fingerprints of data and/or metadata objects and generating fingerprints of the file objects which are globally unique and derived for the content of the file object;
- and
- generating a root object comprising a mapping of all the fingerprints of the data, metadata and file objects.
A system comprising:
- physical processor and storage devices providing access to data, metadata and files;
- and
- wherein the data, metadata and files are objects, each object having a globally unique and content-derived fingerprint and wherein object references are indexed by the fingerprints;
- and
- the indexing includes mapping of inode numbers to the file object fingerprints.
A file system comprising:
- a processing and storage apparatus for naming and storing data objects and collections of data objects comprising file objects, each data object comprising data or metadata and each object having a content-based globally unique fingerprint as its object name, the file object being a collection of data object names and having its own content-based globally unique fingerprint as its file object name;
- a file system having two layers including:
- an object store layer including a mapping index of object names and physical object locations;
- and
- a namespace layer including a mapping index of data object names for each file object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.