US 2017/0013046 A1 · DATA-CENTRIC DATA STORAGE

Abstract

A data-centric storage system is described herein that changes the focus to what data an organization needs to store, and relieves IT personnel of thinking about how storage is configured to serve that data. For any given organization, a set of application data needs and a set of storage capabilities can be. From these two, a figure of merit can be applied to automatically determine an association between each application's data needs and the available storage devices, to map the data to one or more storage devices. In addition, recommendations can be automatically generated to inform IT personnel where the greatest impact from additional storage nodes can be achieved. Thus, the system allows IT personnel to focus on data and the needs of their organization, and to rely on the system to take on the burden of meeting those needs with particular storage devices and configuration of those storage devices.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method to handle a client application request to access data in a data-centric storage system, the method comprising:

receiving a request at the client from an application running on the client to access data expected to be stored on a remote server;
extracting information from the request that identifies which data item the application is requesting;
sending a request from the client to the metadata server to determine the location of the identified data item;
receiving from the metadata server data location information at the client describing at least one data server where the requested data item can be accessed;
sending a request from the client to a data server storing the requested data item;
receiving the requested data at the client from the data server;
and
providing the received data to the application,
wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor.

6 more elements

A computer system for data-centric data storage, the system comprising:

a processor and memory configured to execute software instructions embodied within the following components;
a data hypervisor component that operates from a data access client to request a present location at which identified data can be accessed;
a metadata interface component that operates at a metadata server to receive client requests to determine the present location at which identified data can be accessed;
a metadata directory component that stores a mapping between data items and data stores on which instances of those data items are stored;
a capability assessment component that inventories available storage devices, their configuration, and their capabilities;
a requirements gathering component that gathers application needs for data storage at a data feature level;
a data placement component that uses a figure of merit to match the inventoried available storage devices and the gathered application needs to determine a mapping of data within an organization to the available storage devices;
a data movement component that moves data from a present location to a new location based on a determination by the data placement component that data can be more optimally assigned to the available data storage devices;
a reporting component that generates one or more reports based on a present state of the system;
and
a data access component that operates at a data server to provide requested data to an application.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Data-centric data storage

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Data-centric data storage

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Abstract

Claims20