File system accessing an object store
AssigneeSimpliVity Corporation
InventorsArthur J. Beaverson, Paul Bowden
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A digitally signed file system in which data, metadata and files are objects, each object having a globally unique and content-derived fingerprint and wherein object references are mapped by the fingerprints; the file system has a root object comprising a mapping of all object fingerprints in the file system, such that a change to the file system results in a change in the root object, and tracking changes in the root object provides a history of file system activity.
Claims12
A method of accessing a file stored within a file system, said file system being stored as objects in an object store on one or more computer storage devices, the file having a file name and a corresponding inode number, and the object store comprising a plurality of objects including at least one of each of:
- a directory object,
- an inode map object,
- a file object, and
- a data object;
- each object having as its object name a globally unique object fingerprint derived from its content;
- the method comprising steps of:
- accessing a directory object using its fingerprint, the directory object comprising a mapping of file names and their corresponding inode numbers;
- searching the directory object using the file's name to obtain the corresponding inode number;
- accessing an inode map object using its fingerprint, the inode map object comprising a mapping of file object fingerprints and their corresponding inode numbers;
- using the inode map object to translate the corresponding inode number from the directory object into the file object fingerprint;
- accessing the file object using its fingerprint, the file object comprising a mapping table of object fingerprints for data objects of the file;
- wherein the data objects of the file are accessible in the object store via the mapping table of the file object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.