Method and apparatus for efficient storage and retrieval of objects in and from an object storage device

• US 20020169818A1
• Filed: 04/24/2002
• Published: 11/14/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Palo Alto Networks Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Compaq Computer Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Pronev, Svilen B., Starnes, Darrell J., Stewart, Christoher H.
• Granted Patent: US 6,675,214 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/202
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/00 Image coding bandwidth or redundancy reduction for static pictures H04N1/41; coding or decoding of static colour picture signals H04N1/64; methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/1423 the instrument generating sequences of position coordinates corresponding to handwriting preprocessing or recognising digital ink G06V30/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5682 Policies or rules for updating, deleting or replacing the stored data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

Techniques for storing objects (e.g., images) in and retrieving objects from a storage device (e.g., image store) in a rapid and efficient manner are disclosed. More particularly, the techniques include: storage of an object in and retrieval of an object from the storage device with reference to an object locator together with state and permission information, use of a directory structure of a file system to efficiently provide database structure for storage of the objects, storage and retrieval of object states as attributes of associated files in the file system, storage and retrieval of multiple versions of objects, and multi-threaded management of the storage device.

Claims

1. A proxy system for accelerated delivery of objects to a requestor, said proxy system comprising:

an object storage device for storing objects, said object storage device uses a file system that supports directories to store the objects in files at directory locations within said object storage device, for each of the objects the directory location where the object is to be stored is identified by an object locator associated with the network together with state and authorization information; and

a proxy server coupled between the requester'"'"'s computer and a network of computers, said proxy server intercepts a request for an object from the requester'"'"'s computer to the network of computers, and then satisfies the request by delivering the object requested from said object storage device to the requestor'"'"'s computer, the object requested from said object storage device is retrieved from said object storage device using a combination of an object locator obtained from the request together with state and authorization information associated with the request.

2. A proxy system as recited in claim 1, said proxy system comprising:

an acceleration unit coupled to said proxy server, said acceleration unit operates to produce an accelerated version of certain of the objects stored in said object storage device, and

wherein said proxy server satisfies the request by delivering, when available, the accelerated version of the object requested from said object storage device to the requestor'"'"'s computer.

3. A proxy system as recited in claim 2 wherein directory structure within said object storage device implements a database.

4. A system as recited in claim 1 wherein the combination of the object locator together with state and authorization information identify a unique slot in said object storage device.

5. A system as recited in claim 4 wherein said object storage device stores a plurality of files within each of the slots in said object storage device.

6. A system as recited in claim 5 wherein within each of the files stored in a given one of the slots in said object storage device pertain to a different version of the object associated with the given one of the slots.

7. A system as recited in claim 5 wherein the different versions include an original version of the object and at least one accelerated version of the object.

8. A system as recited in claim 5 wherein said object storage device also stores a state for each of the files.

9. A system as recited in claim 5 wherein the directories used by said object storage device are provided by a file system, and wherein the file system further provides attributes for the files, and

wherein the state stored for each of the files is stored as an attribute.

10. A system as recited in claim 5 wherein the states for the files include a ready state and a loading state.

11. A proxy system for accelerated delivery of objects to a requester, said proxy system comprising:

an object storage device for storing objects, said object storage device uses a file system that supports directories to store the objects in files at directory locations within said object storage device, for each of the objects the directory location where the object is to be stored is identified by at least an object locator; and

a proxy server coupled between the requester'"'"'s computer and a network of computers, said proxy server intercepts a request for an object from the requester'"'"'s computer to the network of computers, and then satisfies the request by delivering the object requested from said object storage device to the requestor'"'"'s computer, the object requested from said object storage device is retrieved from said object storage device using an object locator obtained from the request.

12. A system as recited in claim 11 wherein said object storage device also stores a current state for each of the files.

13. A system as recited in claim 12 wherein the directories used by said object storage device are provided by a file system, and wherein the file system further provides attributes for the files, and

wherein the current state stored for each of the files is stored as an attribute.

14. A system as recited in claim 13 wherein the states for the files include a ready state and a loading state.

15. A proxy system as recited in claim 11 wherein directory structure within said object storage device implements a database.

16. A proxy system as recited in claim 11, said proxy system comprising:

an acceleration unit coupled to said proxy server, said acceleration unit operates to produce an accelerated version of certain of the objects stored in said object storage device, and

wherein said proxy server satisfies the request by delivering, when available, the accelerated version of the object requested from said object storage device to the requestor'"'"'s computer.

17. A system as recited in claim 11 wherein the object locator together with state and authorization information identify a unique slot in said object storage device.

18. A system as recited in claim 17 wherein said object storage device stores a plurality of files within each of the slots in said object storage device.

19. A system as recited in claim 18 wherein within each of the files stored in a given one of the slots in said object storage device pertain to a different version of the object associated with the given one of the slots.

20. A system as recited in claim 19 wherein the different versions include an original version of the object and at least one accelerated version of the object.

21. A system as recited in claim 19 wherein said object storage device also stores a state for each of the files.

22. A system as recited in claim 21 wherein the directories used by said object storage device are provided by a file system, and wherein the file system further provides attributes for the files, and

wherein the state stored for each of the files is stored as an attribute.

24. A system as recited in claim 24 wherein said object storage device uses a file system that supports directories to store the objects in files at directory locations within said object storage device, for each of the objects the directory location where the object is to be stored is identified by at least an object locator.

23. A proxy system for temporarily storing objects previously requested by a requester, said proxy system comprising:

an object storage device for storing objects;

a proxy server coupled between the requester'"'"'s computer and a network of computers, said proxy server intercepts a request for an object from the requester'"'"'s computer to the network of computers, and then satisfies the request by delivering the object requested from said object storage device to the requestor'"'"'s computer, the object requested from said object storage device is retrieved from said object storage device using an object locator obtained from the request; and

an object storage device cleaner, said object storage device cleaner operates to clean out from said object storage device those objects that are aged using a plurality of concurrent processes or threads that operate on different criterion in cleaning out said object storage device.