FILE TREE STREAMING IN A VIRTUAL FILE SYSTEM FOR CLOUD-BASED SHARED CONTENT

• US 20160321287A1
• Filed: 04/27/2016
• Published: 11/03/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Inventors: Luthra, Tanooj, Malhotra, Ritik, Tallamraju, Sri Sarat Ravikumar
• Granted Patent: US 10,929,353 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0891 using clearing, invalidating or resetting means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1081 for peripheral access to main memory, e.g. direct memory access [DMA]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/122 of the least frequently used [LFU] type, e.g. with individual count value
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/113 Details of archiving lifecycle management in storage systems G06F3/0649; backup systems G06F11/1446
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/172 Caching, prefetching or hoarding of files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1727 Details of free space management performed by the file system saving storage space on storage systems G06F3/0608; management of blocks in storage devices G06F3/064
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1748 De-duplication implemented within the file system, e.g. based on file segments de-duplication techniques in storage systems for the management of data blocks G06F3/0641
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1774 Locking methods, e.g. locking methods for file systems allowing shared and concurrent access to files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/183 Provision of network file services by network file servers, e.g. by using NFS, CIFS network file access protocols H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/185 Hierarchical storage management [HSM] systems, e.g. file migration or policies thereof details of archiving G06F16/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/196 Specific adaptations of the file system to access devices and non-file objects via standard file system access operations, e.g. pseudo file systems dedicated interfaces to storage systems G06F3/0601
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/23 Updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2443 Stored procedures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1016 Performance improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1044 Space efficiency improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/154 Networked environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/463 : File
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/60 : Details of cache memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/657 : Virtual address space management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/46 : Multiprogramming arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 : wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 : Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 : at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 : Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 : specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• 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: H04L 67/34 : involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 : using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream

Abstract

Systems for fast views of items in file directories or file folders when interacting with a cloud-based service platform. A server in a cloud-based environment interfaces with one or more storage devices to provide storage of shared content accessible by two or more user devices. A file tree request to view the file directory or file folder of a particular sought after item is issued from an application operating on one of the user devices. Additional file tree items in a file tree hierarchy are prefetched by the cloud-based service platform. The application closes the file tree metadata stream after receiving the portion of the file tree that pertains to the particular item and before receiving the entirety of the metadata pertaining to all of the file tree metadata of all of the items in the directory or folder that contains the particular sought after item.

Claims

1. A method to implement prefetching in a cloud-based storage system, the method comprising:

receiving a first file tree request to retrieve directory metadata pertaining to a directory in a hierarchical file system within a cloud-based storage system;

fetching a first portion of the directory metadata from the cloud-based storage system; and

prefetching a second portion of the directory metadata from the cloud-based storage system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second portion of the directory metadata corresponds to metadata for additional levels of a directory hierarchy.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein prefetching of the second portion of the directory metadata is determined by at least one of, data location, access patterns, or machine learning, or any combination thereof.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying at least a first portion of a set of file tree item metadata messages pertaining to the directory in the hierarchical file system.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising invoking a second file tree request to retrieve a second portion the directory metadata.

6. The method of claim 5, the second portion corresponds to additional levels of a directory hierarchy.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the file tree item metadata messages are based at least in part on object metadata associated with shared content stored in the cloud-based storage system.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the file tree item metadata messages characterize one or more relationships between the file tree items.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the one or more relationships between the file tree items comprise a hierarchical relationship.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the one or more relationships between the file tree items a parent-child relationship.

11. A computer readable medium, embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium, the non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when stored in memory and executed by a processor causes the processor to perform a set of acts to implement prefetching in a cloud-based storage system, the acts comprising:

receiving a first file tree request to retrieve directory metadata pertaining to a directory in a hierarchical file system within a cloud-based storage system;

fetching a first portion of the directory metadata from the cloud-based storage system; and

prefetching a second portion of the directory metadata from the cloud-based storage system.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the second portion of the directory metadata corresponds to metadata for additional levels of a directory hierarchy.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein prefetching of the second portion of the directory metadata is determined by at least one of, data location, access patterns, or machine learning, or any combination thereof.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 11, further comprising instructions which, when stored in memory and executed by the processor causes the processor to perform acts of displaying at least a first portion of a set of file tree item metadata messages pertaining to the directory in the hierarchical file system.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising instructions which, when stored in memory and executed by the processor causes the processor to perform acts of invoking a second file tree request to retrieve a second portion the directory metadata.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15, the second portion corresponds to additional levels of a directory hierarchy.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the file tree item metadata messages are based at least in part on object metadata associated with shared content stored in the cloud-based storage system.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the file tree item metadata messages characterize one or more relationships between the file tree items.

19. A system to implement prefetching in a cloud-based storage system, the system comprising:

a storage medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions; and

a processor or processors that execute the instructions to cause the processor or processors to perform a set of acts, the acts comprising,

receiving a first file tree request to retrieve directory metadata pertaining to a directory in a hierarchical file system within a cloud-based storage system;

fetching a first portion of the directory metadata from the cloud-based storage system; and

prefetching a second portion of the directory metadata from the cloud-based storage system.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein prefetching of a second portion of the directory metadata is determined by at least one of, data location, access patterns, or machine learning, or any combination thereof.