Utilizing a dispersed storage network access token module to acquire digital content from a digital content provider

• US 10,402,268 B2
• Filed: 01/10/2012
• Issued: 09/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Inventors: Grube, Gary W., Markison, Timothy W., Dhuse, Greg, Resch, Jason K., Volvovski, Ilya, Leggette, Wesley
• Primary Examiner(s): Tiv, Backhean
• Assistant Examiner(s): Cousins, Joseph M
• Application Number:
  US13/347,334
• Publication Number:
  US 20120198066A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,793 Days
• Field of Search: 709225
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1008 in individual solid state devices G06F11/1004 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1076 Parity data used in redundant arrays of independent storages, e.g. in RAID systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1446 Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/17331 Distributed shared memory [DSM], e.g. remote direct memory access [RDMA]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/805 using a security table for the storage sub-system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/06 Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers , e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/085 Secret sharing or secret splitting, e.g. threshold schemes

Abstract

A method begins with a computing device receiving a request to acquire digital content from a digital content provider and forwarding the request to a dispersed storage network (DSN) pre-paid module. The method continues with the DSN pre-paid module validating the request, generating a plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of digital content read requests, and sending the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of digital content read requests to the digital content provider via the computing device when the request to acquire the digital content is validated. The method continues with at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device receiving a plurality of sets of at least a decoded threshold number of encoded data slices and decoding the plurality of sets of the at least a decoded threshold number of encoded data slices to produce the digital content.

Claims

1. A method comprises:

receiving, by a computing device that is paired with a distributed storage network (DSN) pre-paid module, a request to use the DSN pre-paid module to acquire digital content from a digital content provider, wherein the digital content is dispersed storage error encoded into a plurality of sets of encoded data slices that are stored in storage units of the digital content provider, wherein the storage units are separate devices from the computing device;

forwarding, by the computing device, the request to the DSN pre-paid module;

determining, by the DSN pre-paid module, whether payment for the digital content has been previously authorized by;

accessing a pre-paid file that includes one or more of;

available credit, expiration criteria, identity of digital content that can be acquired, and identity of the digital content provider; and

verifying that the request is compliant with the pre-paid file;

in response to determining the request is compliant with the pre-paid file, generating, by the DSN pre-paid module, a set of credential read requests to retrieve acquisition credentials;

sending, by the DSN pre-paid module, the set of credential read requests to the digital content provider via the computing device;

obtaining, by at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device, at least a threshold number of credential slices;

decoding, by the at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device, the at least a threshold number of credential slices to produce the acquisition credentials;

and verifying, by the at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device, that the request to acquire the digital content is in accordance with the acquisition credentials;

in response to a determination that the request to acquire the digital content is in accordance with the acquisition credentials, generating, by the DSN pre-paid module, a plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of digital content read requests regarding the plurality of sets of encoded data slices, wherein each encoded data slice of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices is associated with a slice name and each of the at least a threshold number of digital content read requests includes a slice name for an encoded data slice of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices;

sending;

by the DSN pre-paid module, the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of digital content read requests to the storage units of the digital content provider via the computing device;

receiving, by at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device, at least a decoded threshold number of encoded data shoes of at least some of the sets of the plurality of sets of encoded data shoes;

and decoding, by the at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device, the at least a decoded threshold number of encoded data shoes of the at least some of the sets of the plurality of sets of encoded data shoes to produce the digital content.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

sending, by the DSN pre-paid module;

a storage location request to the digital content provider via the computing device, wherein the storage location request is requesting information regarding at least one of where the digital content is stored and how the digital content is stored;

or accessing, by the DSN pre-paid module, local memory to determine the information regarding the at least one of where the digital content is stored and how the digital content is stored; and

generating, by the DSN pre-paid module, the plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of digital content read requests in accordance with the information regarding the at least one of where the digital content is stored and how the digital content is stored.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the validating the request to acquire the digital content further comprises:

validating the identity of the digital content provider by at least one of;

determining that locally stored digital content provider identification information includes the identity of the digital content provider; and

transceiving, via the computing device, a validation process to link the DSN pre-paid module with the digital content provider.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the at least a threshold number of credential slices comprises at least one of:

retrieving at least one of the at least a threshold number of credential slices from local memory of the DSN pre-paid module; and

receiving at least some of the at least a threshold number of credential shoes from the digital content provider.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

after the digital content is acquired, updating, by the DSN pre-paid module, the pre-paid file.

6. A dispersed storage network (DSN) pre-paid module that is paired with a computing device, the DSN pre-paid module comprises:

an interface module for interfacing with the computing device;

memory; and

a processing module operably coupled to the memory and operable to,

receive, from the computing device, a request to use the DSN pre-paid module to acquire digital content from a digital content provider, wherein the digital content is dispersed storage error encoded into a plurality of sets of encoded data slices that is stored in storage units of the digital content provider, wherein the storage units are separate devices from the computing device;

determine whether payment for the digital content has been previously authorized by;

accessing a pre-paid file that includes one or more of;

available credit, expiration criteria, identity of digital content that can be acquired, and identity of the digital content provider; and

verifying that the request is compliant with the pre-paid file;

in response to the determination the request is compliant with the pre-paid file, generate, by the DSN pre-paid module, a set of credential read requests to retrieve acquisition credentials;

send, by the DSN pre-paid module, the set of credential read requests to the digital content provider via the computing device;

obtain, by at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device, at least a threshold number of credential slices;

decode, by the at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device, the at least a threshold number of credential slices to produce the acquisition credentials;

and verify, by the at least one of the DSN pre-paid module and the computing device, that the request to acquire the digital content is in accordance with the acquisition credentials;

in response to a determination that the request to acquire the digital content is in accordance with the acquisition credentials, generate a plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of digital content read requests regarding the plurality of sets of encoded data slices, wherein each encoded data slice of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices is associated with a slice name and each of the digital content read requests includes a slice name for an encoded data slice of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices;

send the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of digital content read requests to the storage units of the digital content provider via the computing device;

receive, in conjunction with the computing device at least a decoded threshold number of encoded data slices of at least some of the sets of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices; and

decode, in conjunction with the computing device, at least a decoded threshold number of encoded data slices of the at least some of the sets of the plurality of sets of encoded data shoes to produce the digital content.

7. The DSN pre-paid module of claim 6, wherein the processing module is further operable to;

send a storage location request to the digital content provider via the computing device, wherein the storage location request is requesting information regarding at least one of where the digital content is stored and how the digital content is stored;

or

access local memory to determine the information regarding the at least one of where the digital content is stored and how the digital content is stored; and

generate the plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of digital content read requests in accordance with the information regarding the at least one of where the digital content is stored and how the digital content is stored.

8. The DSN pre-paid module of claim 6, wherein the processing module is further operable to validate the request to acquire the digital content by:

validating the identity of the digital content provider by at least one of;

determining that locally stored digital content provider identification information includes the identity of the digital content provider; and

transceiving, via the computing device, a validation process to link the DSN pre-paid module with the digital content provider.

9. The DSN pre-paid module of claim 6, wherein the processing module is further operable to obtain the at least a threshold number of credential slices by at least one of:

retrieving at least one of the at least a threshold number of credential slices from local memory of the DSN pre-paid module; and

receiving at least some of the at least a threshold number of credential slices from the digital content provider.