US 2020/0050684 A1 · ACCELERATING AND ATOMICALLY MOVING FILES IN AN OVERLAY OPTIMIZER

Abstract

An overlay optimizer can be configured to accelerate the moving of files from an overlay and to atomically move files from the overlay. To accelerate the moving of files from the overlay, the overlay optimizer can continuously monitor the consumption of the overlay. If the consumption exceeds an optimized threshold, the overlay optimizer can cause the file system cache to be invalidated to thereby release handles to any closed files that are still cached. To move files atomically from the overlay, the overlay optimizer can be configured to handle attempts to open a file by determining whether the file is in the process of being moved from the overlay. If so, the overlay optimizer can detect which stage the move process has reached and can dynamically adapt the move process to enable the attempt to open the file to be completed successfully and in a consistent manner.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method, performed by an overlay optimizer, for accelerating moving files from an overlay of the write filter to an overlay cache, the method comprising:

monitoring consumption of an overlay that a write filter employs to prevent contents of a protected volume from being modified;
comparing a current consumption of the overlay to an optimizer threshold;
determining that the current consumption has reached the optimizer threshold;
upon determining that the current consumption has reached the optimizer threshold, invalidating a file system cache that an operating system employs to cache files that are stored in the overlay;
and
after invalidating the file system cache, moving one or more files from the overlay to an overlay cache, wherein all handles to the one or more files were closed as a result of invalidating the file system cache.

3 more elements

One or more computer storage media storing computer-executable instructions which when executed by one or more processors implement an overlay optimizer that is configured to perform the following:

monitor consumption of an overlay that a write filter employs to prevent contents of a protected volume from being modified;
compare a current consumption of the overlay to an optimizer threshold;
determine that the current consumption has reached the optimizer threshold;
upon determining that the current consumption has reached the optimizer threshold, invalidate a file system cache that an operating system employs to cache files that are stored in the overlay;
after invalidating the file system cache, move one or more files from the overlay to an overlay cache, wherein all handles to the one or more files were closed as a result of invalidating the file system cache;
receive a file operation that targets a file stored on the protected volume;
determine whether the targeted file is being moved from the overlay to the overlay cache;
when it is determined that the targeted file is being moved from the overlay to the overlay cache, stop the process of moving the targeted file to the overlay cache and then allow the file operation to be passed to the write filter;
and
when it is determined that the targeted file is not being moved from the overlay to the overlay cache and has not been copied to the overlay cache, allow the file operation to be passed to the write filter.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Accelerating and atomically moving files in an overlay optimizer

Life of this patent

Accelerating and atomically moving files in an overlay optimizer

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20