# US 2023/0409433 A1 · Versioned file system using structured data representations > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 2023/0409433 A1 - Document ID: US20230409433A1 - Status: Published application - Kind: A1 - Application number: 18/242,427 - Filed: 2023-09-05 - Published: 2023-12-21 - Earliest claimed: 2009-01-23 - Assignees: Nasuni Corporation - Applicants: Nasuni Corporation - Inventors: Robert S. Mason, JR.; Andres Rodriguez - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20230409433A1 ## CPC - G06F 11/1446: Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data - G06F 11/1448: {Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore} - G06F 11/1464: {for networked environments} - G06F 16/128: {Details of file system snapshots on the file-level, e.g. snapshot creation, administration, deletion (error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operations or in hardware G06F11/14, G06F11/16)} - G06F 16/172: Caching, prefetching or hoarding of files - G06F 16/183: {Provision of network file services by network file servers, e.g. by using NFS, CIFS (network file access protocols H04L67/1097)} - G06F 16/1873: {Versioning file systems, temporal file systems, e.g. file system supporting different historic versions of files} - G06F 16/9027: {Trees} - G06F 2201/805: Real-time - G06F 2201/84: Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data - G06F: ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING (computer systems based on specific computational models G06N) ## Abstract A versioned file system comprises a set of structured data representations. At a first time, an interface creates and exports to a cloud data store a first structured data representation corresponding to a first version of the local file system. The first structured data representation is an XML tree having a root element, one or more directory elements associated with the root element, and one or more file elements associated with a given directory element. Upon a change within the file system, the interface creates and exports a second structured data representation corresponding to a second version of the file system. The second structured data representation differs from the first structured data representation up to and including the root element of the second structured data representation. The interface continues to generate and export the structured data representations to the data store. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A method to provide storage for an enterprise in association with one or more cloud-based storage service providers, comprising: providing the enterprise one or more file system interfaces, wherein at least one file system interface executes either as a virtual machine or on physical hardware and is configured to represent, to the enterprise, a local file system whose data is stored in the one or more cloud-based storage service providers as a write-once, object-based file system; wherein the one or more file system interfaces export their local file system data in an encrypted manner and as a structured data representation, wherein the structured data representation associated with the at least one file system interface comprises a set of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)-addressable cloud nodes that contain information passed by that file system interface about its associated local file system; and wherein the structured data representation associated with the at least one file system interface includes or points to all data structures and data needed to reconstruct the associated local file system at a point-in-time. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The method as described in claim 1, wherein the structured data representation associated with the at least one file system interface comprises one or more tree-based data structures, wherein at least one tree-based data structure starts with a root that represents a current version of the local file system, and that further includes one or more change events that have been generated as a result of modification to the local file system. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The method as described in claim 1, wherein, from a tree-walk perspective, a tree-based data structure is a complete version of the local file system at a given point-in-time. ### Claim 4 (depends on 1) The method as described in claim 1, wherein the local file system, a directory and its contents, a given file, or a piece of a file, are restorable from the scalable file system with respect to a given time period. ### Claim 5 (depends on 1) The method as described in claim 1 wherein at least one file system interface is located on the physical hardware on-premises in the enterprise. ### Claim 6 (depends on 1) The method described in claim 1, wherein the structured data representation associated with the at least one file system interface is a logical representation of a combination of a current version of the local file system and one or more prior versions of the local file system. ### Claim 7 (depends on 1) The method as described in claim 1 wherein the file system interface is a generic virtual file system interface that supports a set of access protocols. ### Claim 8 (depends on 7) The method as described in claim 7 wherein the set of access protocols are one of: NFS and CIFS. ### Claim 9 (depends on 1) The method as described in claim 1 wherein one or more of the file system interfaces are implemented as instances within a cloud computing layer.