B-FILE ABSTRACTION FOR EFFICIENTLY ARCHIVING SELF-EXPIRING DATA

• US 20090327376A1
• Filed: 06/30/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Nath, Suman Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 8,924,362 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/901 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures for retrieval from the web G06F16/951
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0613 in relation to throughput
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0616 in relation to life time, e.g. increasing Mean Time Between Failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0679 Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for data processing and storage management. In an illustrative implementation an exemplary computing environment comprises at least one data store, a data processing and storage management engine (B-File engine) and at least one instruction set to instruct the B-File engine to process and/or store data according to a selected data processing and storage management paradigm. In an illustrative operation, the illustrative B-File engine can generate a B-File comprising multiple buckets and store sample items in a random bucket according to a selected distribution. When the size of the B -FILE grows to reach a selected threshold (e.g., maximum available space), the B-File engine can shrink the B-File by discarding the largest bucket. Additionally, the B-File engine can append data to existing buckets and explicitly cluster data when erasing data such that data can be deleted together into the same flash block.

Claims

1. A system allowing for the storage and/or management of data in a computing environment comprising:

a B-File engine operative to process data for storage and/or management; and

an instruction set comprising at least one instruction instructing the B-File engine to process data according to a selected data storage and/or management paradigm,

wherein the data storage and/or management paradigm comprises at least one instruction to receive and process data for storage and/or management utilizing a B-File comprising one or more data storage buckets.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the computing environment comprises a solid state storage device comprising a flash storage device.

3. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein the B-File comprises a tail bucket.

4. The system as recited in claim 3, wherein the computing environment comprises an in-memory portion operable to process data in one or more of a page buffers using one or more block pointers.

5. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the B-File engine is operable to append data to a selected B-File bucket according to the data storage and/or management paradigm.

6. The system as recited in claim 5, wherein the B-File engine processes one or more block pointers as part of data storage and/or management.

7. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein B-File engine comprises one or more portions of a computing environment.

8. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the B-File engine comprises one or more portions of a solid state device controller.

9. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the B-File engine is operable to discard one or more buckets of the B-File.

10. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the B-File comprises expiring data.

11. A method to store and/or manage data utilizing a B-File comprising:

receiving data for storage and management;

appending received data in one or more selected buckets of the B-File; and

discarding one or more selected B-File buckets having expiring received data.

12. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising defining one or more buckets in the B-File.

13. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising monitoring the size of the one or more selected buckets of the B-File.

14. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising monitoring whether the received data is expiring.

15. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising clustering one or more items with the same level of expiration intensity in the one or more selected B-File buckets.

16. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising mapping the first application bucket to the first B-File bucket.

17. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising appending new one or more items in a tail bucket of the B-File.

18. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising appending new one or more items associated with the one or more selected buckets of the B-File.

19. The method as recited in claim 11, further comprising maintaining in-memory page of one or more recently inserted items.

20. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions to instruct a computing environment to perform a method comprising:

receiving data for storage and management;

appending received data in one or more selected buckets of the B-File; and

discarding one or more selected B-File buckets having expiring received data.