SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING VARIABLE PROTECTION

• US 20090252066A1
• Filed: 06/15/2009
• Published: 10/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Isilon Systems Incorporated (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Passey, Aaron J., Fachan, Neal T.
• Granted Patent: US 8,054,765 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/258
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1662 the resynchronized component or unit being a persistent storage device re-synchronization of failed mirror storage G06F11/2082; rebuild or reconstruction of parity RAID storage G06F11/1008
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

The systems and methods maintain varying protection levels of related objects, such as when nodes of a data structure are protected at the same or greater protection level as their children nodes. In one embodiment, the nodes store data to track protection levels of their children nodes.

Claims

1. A method of protecting nodes within a hierarchical data structure at variable protection levels, the hierarchical data structure comprising leaf nodes and non-leaf nodes, the method comprising:

determining a protection level for each of one or more leaf nodes;

determining, by a computer processor, a protection level for each of one or more non-leaf nodes based on a maximum of the protection levels of children of the non-leaf node;

protecting, by the computer processor, each of the one or more leaf nodes at the protection level determined for the leaf node; and

protecting, by the computer processor, each of the one or more non-leaf nodes at the protection level determined for the non-leaf node;

wherein the protection levels determined for the one or more leaf nodes and the one or more non-leaf nodes are associated with one or more protection techniques for recovering data stored in the hierarchical data structure.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the protection level for each of the one or more leaf nodes; and

storing the protection level for each of the one or more non-leaf nodes.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the leaf nodes is associated with one or more sets of data, and determining a protection level for each of one or more leaf nodes is based on a maximum of the protection levels of the one or more sets of data associated with the leaf node.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising, for each of the one or more non-leaf nodes, storing protection level information, the protection level information comprising the number of children of the non-leaf node having the protection level of the non-leaf node.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the protection level information further comprises the number of children of the non-leaf node at each other protection level.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more protection techniques comprises one or more of error correction, redundancy, and mirroring.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more protection techniques comprises mirroring and the protection levels represent the number of mirrored copies of the nodes.

8. A protection system for protecting data of variable protection levels, the system comprising:

at least one computer processor;

at least one memory;

a hierarchical data structure stored on the at least one memory and accessible by the at least one computer processor, the hierarchical data structure comprising leaf nodes and non-leaf nodes; and

at least one executable software module, the computer processor configured to execute the at least one executable software module, the at least one executable software module configured to;

determine protection levels for each of one or more leaf nodes; and

determine protection levels for each of one or more non-leaf nodes based on a maximum of the protection levels of children of the non-leaf node; and

protect each of the one or more leaf nodes at the protection level determined for the leaf node; and

protect each of the one or more non-leaf nodes at the protection level determined for the non-leaf node;

wherein the protection levels for the one or more leaf nodes and the one or more non-leaf nodes are associated with one or more protection techniques for recovering data stored in the hierarchical data structure.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one executable software module is further configured to:

store a protection level indicator on the at least one memory for each of the leaf nodes; and

store a protection level indicator on the at least one memory for each of the non-leaf nodes.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein each of the leaf nodes is associated with one or more sets of data, and the at least one executable software module is further configured to determine the protection levels for each of the one or more leaf nodes based on a maximum of the protection levels of the one or more sets of data associated with the leaf node.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one executable software module is further configured to, for each of the one or more non-leaf nodes, store protection level information, the protection level information comprising the number of children of the non-leaf node having the protection level of the non-leaf node.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the protection level information further comprises the number of children of the non-leaf node at each other protection level.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more protection techniques comprises one or more of error correction, redundancy, and mirroring.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more protection techniques comprises mirroring and the protection levels represent the number of mirrored copies of the nodes.

15. A system for updating data stored using variable protection levels, the system comprising:

at least one computer processor;

at least one memory;

a hierarchical data structure stored on the at least one memory and accessible by the at least one computer processor, the hierarchical data structure comprising leaf nodes and non-leaf nodes, the leaf nodes comprising one or more references to one or more data sets;

at least one executable software module, the computer processor configured to execute the at least one executable software module, the at least one executable software module configured to;

determine a maximum protection level of an updated leaf node based on a maximum of the protection levels of the data sets referenced by the non-leaf node;

protect the updated leaf node at the maximum protection level; and

for each ancestor node of the updated leaf node,

determine a protection level based on a maximum of the protection levels of children of the ancestor node; and

protect the ancestor node at a protection level greater than or equal to the determined protection level for the ancestor node;

wherein the protection levels for the updated leaf node and the ancestor nodes are associated with one or more protection techniques for recovering data stored in the hierarchical data structure.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one executable software module is further configured to:

store a protection level indicator on the at least one memory for the updated leaf node; and

store a protection level indicator on the at least one memory for each of the ancestor nodes of the updated leaf node.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one executable software module is further configured to, for each ancestor node of the updated leaf node, store protection level information, the protection level information comprising the number of children of the ancestor node having the protection level of the ancestor node.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the protection level information further comprises the number of children of the ancestor node at each other protection level.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more protection techniques comprises one or more of error correction, redundancy, and mirroring.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more protection techniques comprises mirroring and the protection levels represent the number of mirrored copies of the nodes.