VIRTUAL FILE SYSTEM STACK FOR DATA DEDUPLICATION
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A data virtualization storage appliance performs data deduplication transformations on the data. The original or non-deduplicated file system is used as shell to hold the directory/file hierarchy and file metadata. The data of the file system is stored by a separate data storage in a transformed and deduplicated form. The deduplicated data store may be implemented as one or more hidden files. The shell file system preserves the hierarchy structure and potentially the file metadata of the original, non-deduplicated file system in its original format, allowing clients to access file metadata and hierarchy information easily. The data of a file may be removed from the shell file system and replaced with a data layout that specifies the arrangement of deduplicated data segments needed to reconstruct the file data. The data layout associated with a file may be stored in a separate data stream in the shell file system.
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Citations
39 Claims
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1-16. -16. (canceled)
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17. A method of maintaining metadata in a data storage system, the method comprising:
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receiving a storage command; determining a data storage operation and a metadata update operation in response to the storage command; providing the data storage operation to a data storage system; receiving an indicator of successful completion of the data storage operation from the data storage system; and in response to the receiving the indicator of successful completion, providing the metadata update operation to a metadata storage system. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A method of storing data in a data storage system, the method comprising:
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receiving a metadata storage command including a metadata attribute and a metadata attribute value; determining a metadata attribute type associated with the metadata attribute value; comparing the metadata attribute type with file system metadata attribute types; in response to the metadata attribute type matching at least one of the file system metadata attribute types, storing the metadata attribute value in association with a file system file as a file system metadata attribute of the matching file system metadata type; and in response to the metadata attribute type not matching any of the file system metadata attribute types, storing the metadata attribute and the metadata attribute value in a data stream in association with the file system file. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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29. A computer-readable storage medium including instructions adapted to direct a computer to perform an operation, the operation comprising:
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receiving a storage command; determining a data storage operation and a metadata update operation in response to the storage command; providing the data storage operation to a data storage system; receiving an indicator of successful completion of the data storage operation from the data storage system; and in response to the receiving the indicator of successful completion, providing the metadata update operation to a metadata storage system. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33)
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34. A computer-readable storage medium including instructions adapted to direct a computer to perform an operation, the operation comprising:
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receiving a metadata storage command including a metadata attribute and a metadata attribute value; determining a metadata attribute type associated with the metadata attribute value; comparing the metadata attribute type with file system metadata attribute types; in response to the metadata attribute type matching at least one of the file system metadata attribute types, storing the metadata attribute value in association with a file system file as a file system metadata attribute of the matching file system metadata type; and in response to the metadata attribute type not matching any of the file system metadata attribute types, storing the metadata attribute and the metadata attribute value in a data stream in association with the file system file. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
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Specification