CLIENT-SERVER MULTIMEDIA ARCHIVING SYSTEM WITH METADATA ENCAPSULATION

• US 20110282844A1
• Filed: 05/17/2010
• Published: 11/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Klein, Craig Anthony, Johnson, Timothy A., Bates, Allen Keith, Schwartz, Stephen Leonard, Topol, Anna W., Winarski, Daniel James, Mou, Yun, Dickens, Louie Arthur
• Granted Patent: US 10,296,711 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/661
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/113 Details of archiving lifecycle management in storage systems G06F3/0649; backup systems G06F11/1446
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/16 File or folder operations, e.g. details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/40 for processing medical images, e.g. editing

Abstract

A system, method and computer program product for archiving image, audio, and text data with metadata encapsulation in a client-server storage library is described. The server receives and holds the images, audio, or text to be archived in an image, audio or text logical partition which includes a directory of the images, audio, or text. The information is encapsulated in a metadata wrapper and stored in the library as a closed image, audio, or text file along with a closed copy of the directory. The closed image, audio, or text directory is also stored in the client. The images may be encapsulated in MXF, DICOM, Tape Archive (TAR) or GZIP formats. The storage library may have magnetic tapes, magnetic disks or optical disks as storage media.

Claims

1. An information archive system comprising:

a plurality of clients;

a server for receiving information to be archived from one of the clients, the server having an information logical partition for holding the received information; and

a library coupled to the server wherein upon receiving the information, the server encapsulates the information with metadata associated with the information and stores the encapsulated information in the library.

2. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the information logical partition includes an information directory and the encapsulated information is stored in the library along with a closed copy of the information directory.

3. The archive system of claim 2, wherein the closed copy of the information directory is also stored in the client sending the information.

4. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the encapsulated information is stored in the library as a closed information file.

5. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the information metadata includes content information.

6. The archive system of claim 5, wherein the content information includes title, person and scene descriptions.

7. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the information is encapsulated in a metadata wrapper.

9. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the library is a tape library having at least one tape media for storing the information.

10. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the library is an optical storage library having at least one optical media for storing the information.

11. The archive system of claim 10, wherein the optical media is selected from the group of Blu-ray Disc (BD), Digital Video Disc (DVD) and Compact Disc (CD).

12. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the library is a disk storage library having at least one disk media for storing the information.

13. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the library is a solid state memory library having at least one solid state memory for storing the information.

14. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the library includes an archive media directory for locating a particular media when storing and retrieving the information in the library.

15. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the library is used in a redundant storage system for recovering lost data.

16. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the information in the server are exported to the library to accommodate new information from the clients when a server storage threshold is reached.

17. The archive system of claim 1, wherein the information is selected from the group comprising still images, segments of a video stream, an entire video stream, audio, text, spreadsheets, and databases.

8. The archive system of claim 8, wherein the metadata wrapper is selected from the group of Material Exchange Format (MXF), Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) format, Tape Archive (TAR) format, and GZIP (GZ) format.

18. A computer implemented method for archiving information in a system having a plurality of clients, a server and a library, the method comprising:

receiving information from one of the clients into an information logical partition of the server;

encapsulating the information with information metadata; and

storing the encapsulated information in the library.

19. A computer program product for archiving information in a system having a plurality of clients, a server and a library, the program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program code embodied therein and operable for:

receiving information from one of the clients into an information logical partition of the server;

encapsulating the information with information metadata; and

storing the encapsulated information in the library.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the information logical partition includes an information directory and the encapsulated information is stored in the library along with a closed copy of the information directory.