Data relocation in global storage cloud environments

• US 10,579,436 B2
• Filed: 12/08/2017
• Issued: 03/03/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Jain, Bhushan P., Patil, Sandeep R., Ramanathan, Sri, Trevathan, Matthew B., Tulshigiri, Ujwala P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Thu Ha T
• Application Number:
  US15/836,210
• Publication Number:
  US 20180101412A1
• Time in Patent Office: 816 Days
• Field of Search: 709219, 709217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/502 Proximity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Methods and systems for data relocation in global storage cloud environments are provided. A method includes locating a data server near a travel location of a user based on one or more travel plans of the user. The method further includes transferring data of the user from a home data server near a home location of the user to the data server near the travel location.

Claims

1. A method of relocating data utilizing a computer implemented data relocation system, the method comprising:

locating, by one or more computing devices, a data server near a travel location of a user;

receiving, by the one or more computing devices, one or more user-defined policies of (i) an owner of a digital data file including a user identifier (ID), (ii) a class of a digital data file based on file contents comprising confidentiality, semantic content and metadata, and (iii) one or more travel locations where a digital data file may be relevant or used during travel;

sorting, by the one or more computing devices, the one or more user-defined policies based on an owner and class of each policy of the one or more policies;

filtering, by the one or more computing devices, a plurality of user digital data files to be transferred based on the user-defined policies to determine which of the plurality of user digital data files to transfer;

transferring, by the one or more computing devices, at least one of the digital data files automatically from a home data server to the data server near the travel location in advance of the user traveling to the travel location based on the filtering;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, that the user is waiting at an intermediate location prior to the travel location;

in response to the user waiting at the intermediate location, finding, by the one or more computing devices, an intermediate data server near the intermediate location; and

transferring, by the one or more computing devices, the at least one of the digital data files automatically from the home data server to the intermediate data server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data server is a nearest data server to the travel location.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the travel location is one of a final travel location of the user during travel.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the one or more travel plans from at least one of a user calendar and one or more travel planner tools.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising mapping, by the one or more computing devices, a user device to the home data server for storing digital data files of the user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the transferring of the at least one digital data file further comprises at least one of migrating and replicating the at least one digital data file from the home data server to the data server near the travel location.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the transferring of the at least one digital data file is performed one of before and after the user travels to the travel location.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the user-defined policies additionally comprise at least one of:

one or more travel locations where the file may be relevant for use;

one or more blacklist locations where the digital data file cannot be transferred;

costs for data transfer;

a transfer time of the digital data file; and

an indication of whether the digital data file is to be at least one of migrated and replicated from the home data server to the data server near the travel location.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising fetching a digital data file from the home data server when the digital data file is required by the user for use at the travel location but is unavailable from the transferred at least one digital data file.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising transferring the transferred at least one digital data file from the data server near the travel location back to the home data server after the user accesses the transferred at least one digital data file.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more user-defined policies are received from a policy database.

12. A system implemented in hardware, comprising:

a computer system operable to;

map a device of a user to a home data server to store user digital data files;

determine one or more user-defined policies for the user digital data files, each of the one or more user-defined policies indicating a relevance of each of the user digital data files for use at a travel location of the user;

receive access to desired user-defined policies of the one or more user-defined policies by receiving a key which includes an owner and a class of each desired policy;

filter the user digital data files based on the one or more user-defined policies;

determine that the user is waiting at an intermediate location prior to the travel location based on one or more travel plans of the user;

in response to the user waiting at the intermediate location, determine an intermediate data server near the intermediate location;

transfer the filtered digital data files automatically from the home data server to the intermediate data server; and

transfer automatically the user digital data files from the home data server to a data server near the travel location in advance of the user traveling to the travel location based on the filtering.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the determining of the one or more user-defined policies comprises receiving the one or more user-defined policies from a policy database.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein:

categories for the policy database which store each of the user-defined policies comprise;

an owner of a file of the user data;

a class of the file;

one or more travel locations where the file may be relevant for use;

one or more blacklist locations where the file cannot be transferred;

a transfer time of the file;

an indication of whether the file is to be migrated and replicated from the home data server to the data server near the travel location; and

the user-defined policies are indexed and sorted in the policy database based on the owner and the class for each of the user-defined policies.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the transferring of the user digital data files further comprises at least one of migrating and replicating the user digital data files from the home data server to the data server near the travel location.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the computer infrastructure is further operable to:

receive one or more travel plans of the user from at least one of a user calendar and one or more travel planner tools; and

locate the data.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein:

the data server is a nearest data server to the travel location; and

the travel location is one of a final travel location of the user during travel.

18. A computer program product comprising a tangible computer usable hardware storage device having readable program code embodied in the tangible computer usable hardware storage device, the computer program product includes at least one component operable to:

determine one or more user-defined policies of user digital data files stored in a policy database comprising information fields and types of information which include an owner of the user digital files, a class of the digital files based on file contents, locations for which the user digital data files are relevant and required, blacklist locations for which the user digital data files are not to be accessed, a transfer time which the user digital data files are to be transferred to the locations and migration and replication information for the user digital data files which are to be migrated and replicated at the locations;

receive access to desired policies of the one or more user-defined policies by receiving a key which includes an owner and a class of the desired policy to the policy database;

locate a data server near a travel location of a user based on the one or more travel plans of the user;

filter the user digital data files based on the access of the desired policies of the one or more user-defined policies;

transfer the filtered digital data files automatically from a home data server to the data server near the travel location in advance of the user traveling to the travel location;

determine that the user is waiting at an intermediate location prior to the travel location based on the one or more travel plans of the user;

in response to the user waiting at the intermediate location, determine an intermediate data server near the intermediate location;

transfer the filtered digital data files automatically from the home data server to the intermediate data server;

determine whether a user digital data file required by the user at the travel location is present in the transferred digital data files;

fetch the required user digital data file from the home data server if not present in the transferred digital data files;

migrate the required user digital data file to the travel location; and

reset the user digital data files stored on the home data server to an initial state.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the at least one component is further operable to receive the one or more travel plans from at least one of a user calendar and one or more travel planner tools.

20. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the at least one component is further operable to map a user device of the user to the home data server to store the user digital data files.