US 6,714,968 B1Granted

Method and system for seamless access to a remote storage server utilizing multiple access interfaces executing on the remote server

AssigneeMitch Prust

InventorMitch Prust

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Abstract

A data storage system is described that provides seamless access to remote data storage areas via a global computer network. The data storage system includes one or more storage servers coupled to one or more storage devices. The storage devices provide a plurality of virtual storage areas, where each virtual storage area is assigned to a user. Access to the virtual storage areas is fully integrated with an operating system executing on a client computer such that the user, or software applications executing on the client computer, can seamlessly access the corresponding virtual storage area using standard file management routines provided by the operating system. In addition, the invention provides a wide range of other remote access methods to the virtual data storage areas.

Claims25

Dependent claims

A data storage system comprising:

a client computer;
a storage server communicatively coupled to the client computer via a global computer network, wherein the storage server allocates a user-assignable remote storage area in response to a request received from the client computer over the global computer network;
a plurality of software applications executing on the storage server to provide a plurality of different access interfaces for accessing the remote storage area;
an operating system executing on the client computer and including application programming interface (API) routines that communicate with a first one of the access interfaces of the storage server to manage data files within the remote storage area as if the data files were local on the client computer;
and
a communication software application executing on the client computer to directly communicate with a second one of the access interfaces of the storage server to manage the data files within the remote storage area without invoking the API routines of the operating system executing on the client computer.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.