Peer-to-peer enterprise storage
First Claim
1. A distributed network storage system includinga network of devices with dedicated storage media, some or all of the devices including unused storage capacity;
- a storage coordinator that manages storage of network files on the unused storage capacity of the dedicated storage media, the storage coordinator designating selected groups of nodes within the plurality of nodes and directing the nodes in a given group to communicate peer-to-peer to replicate associated group files and to store the replicated files on the storage media utilizing the otherwise unused storage capacity at the respective nodes;
an administrative console that administers policies set by a system administrator, the administrative console providing policies to the storage coordinator and setting policies that determine a predetermined minimum number of storage nodes in the group; and
the storage coordinator designating the groups in accordance with the policies provided by the administrative console, the storage coordinator selecting at least the predetermined minimum number of nodes for each of the respective groups.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A peer-to-peer storage system includes a storage coordinator that centrally manages distributed storage resources in accordance with system policies administered through a central administrative console. The storage resources, or “nodes,” are otherwise unused portions of storage media, e.g., hard disks, that are included in the devices such as personal computers, workstations, laptops, file servers, and so forth, that are connected to a corporate computer network, and are thus otherwise available only individually to the respective devices. The storage coordinator assigns the nodes to various “replication groups” and allocates the storage resources on each of the nodes in a given group to maintaining dynamically replicated versions of the group files. The storage nodes in a given group perform dynamic file replication and synchronization operations by communicating directly, that is, peer-to-peer, using a message-based protocol. The storage coordinator also manages distributed searches of file content on the network by selecting one node from each group to search through the associated group files. The selected nodes report the search results back to the storage coordinator, which organizes the results and provides them to the user. Thereafter, in response to a request for various files by the user, the storage coordinator instructs the nodes that are near neighbors of the user to provide the requested files. The storage coordinator thus ensures that the amount of the network bandwidth consumed by the search operation is minimized.
150 Citations
32 Claims
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1. A distributed network storage system including
a network of devices with dedicated storage media, some or all of the devices including unused storage capacity; -
a storage coordinator that manages storage of network files on the unused storage capacity of the dedicated storage media, the storage coordinator designating selected groups of nodes within the plurality of nodes and directing the nodes in a given group to communicate peer-to-peer to replicate associated group files and to store the replicated files on the storage media utilizing the otherwise unused storage capacity at the respective nodes; an administrative console that administers policies set by a system administrator, the administrative console providing policies to the storage coordinator and setting policies that determine a predetermined minimum number of storage nodes in the group; and the storage coordinator designating the groups in accordance with the policies provided by the administrative console, the storage coordinator selecting at least the predetermined minimum number of nodes for each of the respective groups. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A distributed network storage system including
a plurality of file storage nodes that are distributed on and communicate peer-to-peer over the network; -
a storage coordinator that manages file storage on the plurality of files storage nodes, the storage coordinator designating selected groups of nodes within the plurality of file storage nodes and directing the nodes in a given group to communicate peer-to-peer to replicate associated group files; a plurality of remote file storage nodes that communicate peer-to-peer over the network; a remote storage coordinator that manages file storage on the plurality of remote file storage nodes, the storage coordinator designating selected groups of nodes within the plurality of remote file storage nodes and directing the nodes in a given group to communicate peer-to-peer to replicate associated group files; an administrative console that administers policies set by a system administrator; the administrative console providing policies to the storage coordinator; the storage coordinator designating the groups in accordance with the policies provided by the administrative console; and the administrative console providing policies to the remote storage coordinator that govern the operations of the remote storage coordinator. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification