US 7,237,027 B1Granted

Scalable storage system

AssigneeAgami Systems, Inc.

InventorsDavid Raccah, George Feinberg, Olaf W. Manczak, Kacper Nowicki, Waheed Qureshi, Luis Ramos

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Abstract

According to one embodiment, a storage system (400) may include a gateway service (402), metadata service (404) and storage service (406) that each provide different storage system functions. Each service (402, 404 and 406) may include a plurality of servers that are functionally de-coupled from one another. De-coupled servers may service requests without regard to the operation of other servers of the same service. Such a de-coupled arrangement can allow a storage system (400) to be scaled to meet increasing demands, as servers may be added to a system, on a service by service basis, without necessarily re-indexing stored information or reconfiguring multiple instances of a server application. Further, backup servers may be easily added to the system to enable fault tolerance. Servers of a particular service (402, 404 and 406) may be accessed according to a quality of service policy.

Claims6

Dependent claims

A file storage system, comprising:

a plurality of system servers connected to one another by a communication network having at least one node, wherein each system server includes at least one process that provides a file storage system function independent of the states of other system servers in response to a request to the file storage system that is capable of affecting multiple system servers, and wherein the file storage system functions include:
at least one file storage gateway service that includes a plurality of file storage gateway servers, each file storage gateway server hosting at least one client process that can process client requests and pass the resulting set of requests to the file storage system and including a process that is capable of accessing at least one server directory to determine the location of a system server that can service a generated client request;
at least one file data storage server service that includes a plurality of file data storage servers, each file data storage server including a process that accesses file data storage objects stored in the storage system independent of the file data storage objects accessed by other file data storage servers;
and
at least one file metadata service that includes a plurality of file metadata servers, each file metadata server including a process that accesses a set of file metadata independent of the file metadata sets accessed by other file metadata servers;
wherein the at least one instance of a file data storage server service and at least one instance of a file metadata service are separate from each other such that the services are scalable independently of each other;
and
wherein the at least one file storage gateway service is capable of locating a file metadata server corresponding to a file in response to a request, receiving metadata for the file from the located file metadata server, and locating one or more corresponding file data storage servers for the file using the received metadata, wherein the file metadata server and file data storage server are separate and independent from each other.

5 more elements

A file storage system, comprising:

a plurality of servers arranged into at least two services, each service providing different file storage system functions independent of the status of any other service, and the servers of each service being functionally de-coupled from one another, servicing requests, which may affect multiple servers, independent of the operation of other servers of the service, the services including:
a file data storage server service comprising a plurality of file data storage servers that provide access to files stored in the file storage system, each file data storage server including an initialize function that may provide file data storage server location and file data storage server capability information, and
a file metadata service comprising a plurality of file metadata servers that provide access to metadata for files stored in the file storage system, each file metadata server including an initialize function that is capable of providing file metadata server location and file metadata server capability information;
a server directory process that receives information for a file storage system request and server location and capability information from the file data storage and file metadata servers, and that provides information to locate a server capable of servicing the request;
wherein at least one instance of a file data storage server service and at least one instance of a file metadata service are separate from each other such that the services operate independently of each other;
and
a plurality of file storage gateway servers, each file storage gateway server including a process that can access the server directory process to determine a location of a server capable of servicing a request and then access the server at the location to service the request, wherein the file storage gateway servers are capable of locating a file metadata server corresponding to a file in response to a request, receiving metadata for the file from the located file metadata server, and locating one or more corresponding file data storage servers for the file using the received metadata.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.