COMMAND LINE INTERPRETER FOR ACCESSING A DATA OBJECT STORED IN A DISTRIBUTED STORAGE NETWORK

• US 20110016122A1
• Filed: 07/19/2010
• Published: 01/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cleversafe Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Young, Jesse Louis, Motwani, Manish, England, Matthew Michael, Gladwin, S. Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 8,819,011 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/736
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1008 in individual solid state devices G06F11/1004 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1044 with specific ECC/EDC distribution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2211/1059 Parity-single bit-RAID5, i.e. RAID 5 implementations
• 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]

Abstract

A user device includes a DSN interface operably coupled with a DSN memory and a DS processing module for storing and retrieving a data object from the DSN memory, wherein the data object is partitioned 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 user device also includes a command line interpreter operable to interpret a file command as a request to display the data object by an application program, determine the data object is stored in the DSN memory and request the DSN processing module to retrieve the data object from the DSN memory and provide the data object to the application program.

Claims

1. A method for displaying a data object, wherein the data object is stored in a distributed storage network (DSN) memory, comprises:

interpreting a file command to display the data object by a command line interpreter operating on a user device, wherein the file command includes a file name of the data object;

determining an application program to process the data object based on the file command;

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

requesting a DSN processing module to retrieve the data object from the DSN memory and provide the data object to the application program; and

requesting an application program to input the data object and process the data object for display.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the file name for the data object includes a domain name for the DSN memory, a data object name and a file type identifier.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining an application program to process the data object based on the file command includes:

determining a file type of the data object based on the file type identifier, wherein the file type is a multimedia file; and

identifying a multimedia player to display the data object based on the file type.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

retrieving the data object by the DSN processing module by streaming sequential data segments of the data object.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein retrieving the data object by the DSN processing module by streaming sequential data segments of the data object includes:

translating the filename into a virtual DSN address to determine a location of the data object in the DSN memory, wherein the data object is stored as a plurality of data segments;

identifying a next sequential data segment of the plurality of data segments 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;

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

providing the reconstructed data segment to the multimedia player.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

processing the reconstructed data segment by the multimedia palyer to generate multimedia content.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

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

8. 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 partitioned 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;

a command line interpreter operating in the user device operable to;

interpret a file command to display the data object, wherein the file command includes a file name of the data object;

determine an application program to process the data object based on the file command;

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

request the DSN processing module to retrieve the data object from the DSN memory and provide the data object to the application program; and

request the application program to receive the data object and process the data object for display.

9. The user device of claim 8, wherein the file name for the data object includes a local drive of the user device that is mapped to the DSN memory and wherein the command line interpreter is further operable to determine that the data object is stored in the DSN memory based on the local drive.

10. The user device of claim 9, wherein the command line interpreter is further operable to:

determine a file type of the data object based on the file type identifier, wherein the file type is a multimedia file; and

identify a multimedia player to display the data object based on the file type.

11. The user device of claim 10, wherein the DS processing module is operable to:

retrieve the data object from the DSN memory by streaming sequential data segments of the data object.

12. The user device of claim 11, wherein the DS processing module is operable to:

translate the filename into a virtual DSN address to determine a location of the plurality of encoded data slices of the data object in the DSN memory;

identify a next sequential data segment of the plurality of data segments to generate an identified data segment;

retrieve 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;

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

providing the reconstructed data segment to the multimedia player.

13. The user device of claim 12, wherein the multimedia player is operable to:

process the reconstructed data segment to generate multimedia content; and

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

14. A user device for displaying 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 operably coupled to the DSN interface for storing and retrieving the data object from the DSN memory, wherein the data object is partitioned 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;

a command line interpreter operable to interpret a file command to display the data object, wherein the file command includes a file name of the data object; and

an application program operating in the user device that is operable to;

receive the file name of the data object from the command line interface;

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

request the DSN processing module to retrieve the data object from the DSN memory; and

process the data object for display.

15. The user device of claim 14, wherein the file name for the data object includes a domain name for the DSN memory, a data object name and a file type identifier.

16. The user device of claim 15, wherein the command line interpreter is further operable to:

determine a file type of the data object based on the file type identifier; and

interpret the file command to launch the application program.

17. The user device of claim 14, wherein the DS processing module is operable to:

retrieve the data object from the DSN memory by streaming sequential data segments of the data object.

18. The user device of claim 17, wherein the DS processing module is further operable to:

translate the filename into a virtual DSN address to determine a location of the plurality of encoded data slices of the data object in the DSN memory;

identify a next sequential data segment of the plurality of data segments to generate an identified data segment;

retrieve 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;

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

providing the reconstructed data segment to the application program.