SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ACCESSING A DATA OBJECT STORED IN A DISTRIBUTED STORAGE NETWORK

• US 20100287200A1
• Filed: 07/19/2010
• Published: 11/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cleversafe Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Dhuse, Greg
• Granted Patent: US 8,630,987 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1088 Reconstruction on already foreseen single or plurality of spare disks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

A user device includes a browser module, a DSN interface to a local or external DSN memory and a DS processing module coupled to the DSN interface for storing and retrieving the data object from the DSN memory, wherein the data object is divided into a plurality of data segments and wherein each of the plurality of data segments is stored in the DSN memory as a plurality of encoded data slices that are generated based on an error encoding dispersal function. The browser module is operable to interpret a user input as a request to display a data object, determine the data object is stored in the DSN memory, request the DS processing module to retrieve the data object from the DSN memory and request an application program to open the data object for display.

Claims

1. A user device for retrieving a data object stored in a distributed storage network (DSN) memory, comprises:

a DSN interface that is operably coupled to interface with the DSN memory;

a browser module that is operable to interpret a user input to produce a file command, wherein the file command includes a file name for the data object;

an application program operating in the user device with a DS processing module operable to;

receive the file command from the browser module;

determine that the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on the file name for the data object;

determine a virtual DSN address for the data object;

retrieve file data from the data object stored in the DSN memory; and

process the file data for display on a graphical user interface of the user device.

2. The user device of claim 1 wherein the data object is divided into a plurality of data segments and wherein each of the plurality of data segments is stored in the DSN memory as a plurality of encoded data slices that are generated based on an error encoding dispersal storage function.

3. The user device of claim 2, wherein the application program in the user device is further operable to:

sequentially stream the plurality of data segments of the data object by;

identifying a next sequential data segment of the data object to generate an identified data segment;

retrieving at least a number T of the plurality of encoded data slices for the identified data segment from the DSN memory, wherein the number T corresponds to a number of the plurality of encoded data slices needed to reconstruct the identified data segment based on an error encoding dispersal function; and

reconstructing the identified data segment from at least the number T of the plurality of encoded data slices to produce a reconstructed data segment.

4. The user device of claim 2, wherein the file name for the data object includes a domain name for the DSN memory and wherein the application program in the user device is further operable to determine that the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on the domain name for DSN memory.

5. The user device of claim 2, wherein the file name for the data object includes a local drive of the user device mapped to the DSN memory and wherein the application program in the user device is further operable to determine that the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on the local drive.

6. The user device of claim 2, wherein the file name for the data object includes a virtual DSN address and wherein the application program in the user device is further operable to determine that the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on the virtual DSN address.

7. The user device of claim 2, wherein the application program is further operable to:

determine a virtual DSN address for the data object by accessing a user vault of virtual DSN addresses associated with the user device.

8. The user device of claim 7, wherein the application program is further operable to:

determine a physical location for the data object by accessing a virtual DSN address to physical location table that includes a physical location of the plurality of encoded data slices for the data object.

9. A user device for retrieving a data object, wherein the data object is stored in a distributed storage network (DSN) memory, comprises:

a DSN interface that is operably coupled to interface with the DSN memory;

a DS processing module coupled to the DSN interface for storing and retrieving the data object from the DSN memory, wherein the data object is divided into a plurality of data segments and wherein each of the plurality of data segments is stored in the DSN memory as a plurality of encoded data slices that are generated based on an error encoding dispersal function; and

a browser module with a DS processing module that is operable to;

interpret a user input as a request to display the data object;

determine the data object is stored in the DSN memory;

request the DS processing module to retrieve the data object stored in the DSN memory; and

process the data object for display.

10. The user device of claim 9, wherein the browser module is further operable to:

determine the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on a file name for the data object.

11. The user device of claim 10, wherein the file name for the data object includes a domain name for the DSN memory and wherein the browser is further operable to determine that the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on the domain name for the DSN memory.

12. The user device of claim 10, wherein the file name for the data object includes a virtual DSN address for the DSN memory and wherein the browser is further operable to determine that the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on the virtual DSN address for the DSN memory.

13. The user device of claim 12, wherein the browser is further operable to:

translate the virtual DSN address in the file name into a physical address for the plurality of encoded data slices of the data object.

14. The user device of claim 13 wherein the browser module is further operable to:

sequentially retrieve the plurality of data segments of the data object by;

identifying a next sequential data segment of the data object to generate an identified data segment;

retrieving at least a number T of the plurality of encoded data slices for the identified data segment from the DSN memory, wherein the number T corresponds to a number of the plurality of encoded data slices needed to reconstruct the identified data segment based on an error encoding dispersal function; and

reconstructing the identified data segment from at least the number T of the plurality of encoded data slices to produce a reconstructed data segment.

15. A method for generating streaming multimedia content from a data object, wherein the data object is stored in a distributed storage network (DSN) memory, comprises:

receiving a file command to display multimedia content from the data object, wherein the file command includes a filename for the data object;

determining the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on the file name;

determining a virtual DSN address for the data object based on the file name;

sequentially retrieving a plurality of data segments of the data object by;

identifying a next sequential data segment of the data object to generate an identified data segment;

retrieving at least a number T of a plurality of encoded data slices for the identified data segment from the DSN memory, wherein the number T corresponds to a number of the plurality of encoded data slices needed to reconstruct the identified data segment based on an error encoding dispersal function; and

reconstructing the identified data segment from at least the number T of the plurality of encoded data slices to produce a reconstructed data segment;

processing the reconstructed data segment to generate the multimedia content; and

transmitting the multimedia content to a graphical user interface for display.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the file name for the data object includes a user vault identifier.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein determining a virtual DSN address for the data object includes:

accessing a user vault in a virtual DSN address space based on the user vault identifier in the file name for the data object.