System and method for intelligent, globally distributed network storage
First Claim
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1. A data storage system comprising:
- a plurality of storage nodes, each node existing at a physical location and each storage node having associated contexts that define characteristics of each storage node, wherein first contexts including a political context, an economic context, and a geographic context are related to at least the physical location of each storage node and wherein second contexts including a network topological context are related to at least attributes of each storage node;
interface mechanisms coupled to each storage node for communicating data storage requests with the storage node, at least one data storage access request including performance criteria that define storage characteristics that are desired for data associated with the data storage access requests; and
data storage management processes that select one or more of the storage nodes to serve the at least one data storage access request based at least in part upon the first contexts and the second contexts that satisfy the performance criteria, wherein the first contexts and the second contexts are used to discriminate differences between the plurality of storage nodes and identify the selected one or more storage nodes to serve the at least one data storage access request.
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Abstract
A data storage system comprising a plurality of storage nodes, each node existing at a physical location having one or more contexts. Interface mechanisms couple to each storage node to communicate storage access requests with the storage node. Data storage management processes select one or more of the storage nodes to serve a data storage request based at least in part upon the particular contexts of each of the storage nodes.
202 Citations
25 Claims
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1. A data storage system comprising:
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a plurality of storage nodes, each node existing at a physical location and each storage node having associated contexts that define characteristics of each storage node, wherein first contexts including a political context, an economic context, and a geographic context are related to at least the physical location of each storage node and wherein second contexts including a network topological context are related to at least attributes of each storage node; interface mechanisms coupled to each storage node for communicating data storage requests with the storage node, at least one data storage access request including performance criteria that define storage characteristics that are desired for data associated with the data storage access requests; and data storage management processes that select one or more of the storage nodes to serve the at least one data storage access request based at least in part upon the first contexts and the second contexts that satisfy the performance criteria, wherein the first contexts and the second contexts are used to discriminate differences between the plurality of storage nodes and identify the selected one or more storage nodes to serve the at least one data storage access request. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of managing distributed data storage comprising the acts of:
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providing a plurality of distributed storage nodes, each node existing at a physical location and each node having one or more associated contexts that relate to storage characteristics of each node, the contexts including first contexts including a political context, an economic context, and a geographic context that are associated to at least the physical location and second contexts including a network topological context that are associated with attributes of the storage node; receiving a data storage task in one of the storage nodes; determining desired criteria associated with the received data storage task, wherein the desired criteria define storage characteristics for the data storage task; selecting one or more of the plurality of storage nodes by matching the desired criteria to the associated first and second contexts, wherein the selected one or more of the plurality of storage nodes have first and second contexts that satisfy the desired criteria; and executing the storage task in the one or more selected storage nodes. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A data storage service comprising:
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receiving data storage access requests from a file system, the storage access requests including performance criteria that defines storage requirements for data associated with the storage access requests; maintaining a state information data structure including state information describing the contexts of a number of network-accessible storage devices, wherein first contexts include a political context, an economic context, and a geographic context that are related to a physical location of the network-accessible storage devices and second contexts include a network topological context that is related to attributes of the network-accessible storage devices and wherein the first and second contexts are used to discriminate between storage characteristics of the number of network-accessible storage devices; and using the first and second contexts from the state information to allocate capacity within the network-accessible storage devices to handle the received data storage request by using network-accessible storage devices having contexts that satisfy the performance criteria. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25)
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Specification