MANAGING COMPUTER FILE SYSTEM USING FILE SYSTEM TREES

• US 20090182778A1
• Filed: 01/10/2008
• Published: 07/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Swsoft Holdings, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Swsoft Holdings, Ltd.
• Inventors: TORMASOV, ALEXANDER G.
• Granted Patent: US 8,577,940 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/176 Support for shared access to files; File sharing support

Abstract

A system, method and computer program product for managing computer file system using file system trees. A plurality of Virtual Execution Environments (VEEs) running on a computer system is provided. The computer system has a common file system tree, which can be concurrently accessed by the VEEs. The shareable files are stored in the common file system tree located in a local storage of the computer system. The common file system tree includes a first set of files that can be accessed by VEEs directly using first redirection. The common file system tree also includes a second set of files that can be accessed by VEEs using first and second redirection. The files system accesses the files from the local storage using first redirection and from the network storage using first and second redirection. The local storage can also receive files from the network storage and store them in the common file system tree.

Claims

1. A method for managing a computer file system, the method comprising:

on a remote computing system, creating a Virtual Execution Environment (VEE) file template for a plurality of VEEs, each VEE having a VEE file system located on a local computing system;

establishing, on the local computing system, a common template file system tree that is concurrently accessible by the VEEs;

on a local computing system, instantiating a VEE that uses the VEE file template;

transmitting the VEE file template from the remote computing system to the common template file system tree; and

providing access from the VEE to the file template in the common template file system tree.

2. A method for managing a computer file system, the method comprising:

establishing a common template file system tree that is concurrently accessible by a plurality of Virtual Execution Environments (VEEs);

instantiating a VEE on a computer system;

launching the VEEs together with the VEE file system tree;

where

after any of the VEEs requests access to a file from the VEE file system tree, if the requested file is stored on network storage, copying the file into the common template file system tree from the network storage, wherein the common template file system tree is located on local storage; and

redirecting file access requests from the VEE file system tree to the common template file system on the local storage.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the requested file is stored on the network storage along with files forming a file template set, and further comprising loading the file template set after an attempt to load the file template.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein, if the requested file is stored on the network storage, the method further comprises recognizing a portion of file requested by the VEE, copying the portion to the local storage and providing access to the portion as if it were the entire file.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the common template file system tree comprises stub files that reference files on the network storage.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the stub files include metadata.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein the VEE file systems are stored on the local storage.

8. The system of claim 2, wherein the common template file system tree is associated with a downloading utility that is activated by the request and downloads the requested files and/or templates to a local machine.

9. The system of claim 2, wherein the common template file system tree provides the requested file, by the VEE, to the file system.

10. A method for managing a computer file system, the method comprising:

launching a plurality of Virtual Execution Environments (VEEs) on a computer system;

creating a VEE file system for each VEE;

establishing a common template file system tree that is concurrently accessed by the VEEs;

requesting, by a VEE, a file from the common template file system tree and copying the requested file from the common template file system tree into the VEE file system, if the requested file is available in the common template file system tree, and

copying the file into the common template file system tree from the network storage and subsequently providing the requested file from the common template file system tree into the VEE file system, if the requested file is not available in the common template file system tree; and

providing the file from the VEE file system to the VEE,

wherein the VEE file systems and the common template file system tree are stored on a local storage of the computer system.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the VEE file system includes stub files referencing files in the common template file system tree.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the common template file system tree includes stub files referencing files on the network storage.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein copying the file into the common template file system tree from the network storage is performed via a downloading utility.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the downloading utility downloads and caches files according to predefined rules.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the common template file system tree communicates with the downloading utility by I/O redirections.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the file is provided to the VEE by I/O processing.

17. A computer useable recording medium having computer executable program logic stored thereon for executing on a processor for performing the method of claim 10.