Storage media abstraction for uniform data storage

• US 10,303,649 B2
• Filed: 03/17/2015
• Issued: 05/28/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Fortier, Dominique, Maillet, Steven, Aasheim, Jered
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Thu Nguyet T
• Application Number:
  US14/660,857
• Publication Number:
  US 20150193434A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,533 Days
• Field of Search: 707661, 707665, 707694, 707882
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/11 File system administration, e.g. details of archiving or snapshots file system backup G06F11/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06

Abstract

A storage abstraction system is described herein that exposes storage from an operating system as a uniform storage device and abstracts from applications the selection of a particular storage location and different properties of storage devices. The application provides the data to store and some information about the application'"'"'s goals for storing the data, and lets the operating system route the data to the right place based on the data'"'"'s characteristics. The operating system may choose to store data anywhere from L2 cache to a cloud-based storage service and anything in between, based on information about the data'"'"'s persistence requirements, expected usage, access frequency, security needs, and so forth. The system lets applications and users focus on expressing their goals and needs for the data, and lets the operating system manage the hardware.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method to store application data, the method comprising:

receiving metadata describing one or more characteristics of application data generated by an application, at least one of the characteristics provided in the metadata comprising an expected frequency of access of the application data;

automatically determining one or more additional characteristics associated with the application data, at least one of the automatically determined additional characteristics comprising information from a knowledge base describing typical behavior of the application;

receiving information specifying one or more storage location properties for each of one or more potential storage locations;

automatically selecting a storage location for the application data from the one or more potential storage locations based on the metadata describing the one or more characteristics of the application data, the one or more automatically determined additional characteristics, and the one or more storage location properties for each of the one or more potential storage locations; and

providing, to the application, a reference for requesting the application data, wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the metadata comprises receiving an application data size, and one or more characteristics of the application data.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the metadata comprises receiving information identifying how long the application data will be needed by the application.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the metadata comprises receiving information identifying whether the application data is private, security sensitive, or has legal compliance restrictions associated with the application data.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a storage request from the application contemporaneously with receiving metadata.

6. The method of claim 5 herein receiving metadata comprises receiving metadata separately from the storage request to allow backwards compatibility with existing applications that call traditional file system APIs to store data.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying potential storage locations comprises invoking one or more operating system functions for enumerating storage devices attached to a computing system.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying potential storage locations comprises receiving information describing one or more external storage locations, including at least one cloud-based data storage service.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting a storage location comprises matching application data characteristics with storage location properties to determine a storage location for storing the requested application data.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting a storage location comprises considering other properties not known to the application related to each storage location.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein providing the reference to the application comprises creating a reference that the system can use to determine which data item the application is looking for and to determine where the system is currently storing the requested data item.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein providing the reference to the application comprises providing a reference related to an index of data items.

13. A computer system for storage media abstraction to provide uniform data storage, the system comprising:

a processor and memory configured to execute software instructions embodied within the following components;

one or more data stores that store data received from one or more applications and managed by the system;

a storage metadata component that receives application data generated by an application and metadata from the application, and determines from the metadata one or more characteristics of the application data that the application requests to be stored, wherein at least one of the characteristics comprises an expected frequency of access of the application data;

a storage policy component that that determines at least one policy associated with the application data, the at least one policy based on typical behavior of the application determined from information in a knowledge base;

a location selection component that automatically selects a storage medium from a plurality of different storage media on which to store the application data and a location therein at which to store the application data based on the determined one or more characteristics, and the at least one policy based on the typical behavior of the application and

a data access component that provides access to applications to one or more application data items regardless of a storage location of the application data items that was previously selected by the system.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the one or more data stores include at least one internal data store attached to the computer system and at least one external data store with which the computer system remotely communicates using a network.

15. The system of claim 13, further comprising an application interface component that exposes an application-programming interface (API) through which the system receives from an application requests to store and access application data, wherein the requests do not identify a location at which the application data is stored.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the location selection component enumerates and manages a list of available storage devices, and applies one or more policies or heuristics to select an appropriate storage medium for a particular application data item.

17. A computer-readable storage device comprising instructions for storing application data, wherein the instructions, upon execution, cause a processor to perform actions comprising:

receiving metadata describing one or more characteristics of application data generated by an application, at least one of the characteristics provided in the metadata comprising an expected frequency of access of the application data;

automatically determining one or more additional characteristics associated with the application data, at least one of the automatically determined additional characteristics comprising information from a knowledge base describing typical behavior of the application;

receiving information specifying one or more storage location properties for each of one or more potential storage locations;

automatically selecting a storage location for the application data from the one or more potential storage locations based on the metadata describing the one or more characteristics of the application data, the one or more automatically determined additional characteristics, and the one or more storage location properties for each of the one or more potential storage locations; and

providing, to the application, a reference for requesting the application data.

18. The device of claim 17 wherein automatically selecting the storage location further comprises accessing an index of application data items and storage locations to determine a location for the application data.

19. The device of claim 17, wherein automatically selecting a storage location for the application data from the one or more potential storage locations is further based on a location of where the application data was created.

20. The device of claim 17, wherein automatically selecting a storage location for the application data from the one or more potential storage locations is further based on an identity of a user that created the application data.