STORAGE AREA NETWORK FILE SYSTEM

• US 20120278450A1
• Filed: 07/09/2012
• Published: 11/01/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dataplow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Dataplow Incorporated
• Inventors: Soltis, Steven R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,583,760 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0635 by changing the path, e.g. traffic rerouting, path reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0643 Management of files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

A shared storage distributed file system is presented that provides clients with access to a storage area network (SAN) attached storage device. The access is provided either via block-level requests over the SAN or via file-level requests made to a server over a local area network (LAN). File requests are categorized between SAN requests and LAN requests. This categorization can be based on dividing the requests between write and read requests, or between requests that alter data stored on the storage device and requests that do not alter data on the storage device. In other embodiments, the categorization can be made on the size of the file or the data involved in the file request. In one embodiment, the client is able to access and interpret metadata stored on the storage device.

Claims

1. A client computer handling real-data data requests from an application, the client computer comprising:

a) a storage area network connection connecting the client computer to

i) a storage area network, and

ii) a SAN-attached storage over the storage area network;

b) a local area network connection connecting the client computer to

i) a local area network,

ii) a server computer over the local area network, and

iii) the SAN-attached storage via the server computer; and

c) client programming that configures the client computer to

i) retrieve metadata relating to the data request directly from the SAN-attached storage device via the storage area network,

ii) interpret the metadata,

iii) receive real-data from the SAN-attached storage device directly via the storage area network connection, and

iv) submit requests to modify the real-data on the SAN-attached storage device to the server computer via the local area network connection.