Storage aggregator

• US 7,720,935 B2
• Filed: 03/29/2005
• Issued: 05/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Anantha, Anoop
• Primary Examiner(s): Srivastava; Vivek
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, MINH CHAU
• Application Number:
  US11/092,154
• Publication Number:
  US 20060224739A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,876 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0607 by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• 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]

Abstract

A storage aggregator is described. In an implementation, a method includes executing a module to determine whether sufficient storage is available to the module to store a particular content item and access a content storage provider over a network to open a client account to obtain additional storage when sufficient storage is not available.

Claims

1. A method comprising executing, via a processor, a storage aggregator module to perform operations comprising:

presenting an interface to a user to request to store a particular content item without a user knowing details of how and where the particular content item is to be physically stored by the storage aggregator module, storage available to the storage aggregator module being provided by a plurality of client accounts accessible to the storage aggregator module over a network;

determining that storage provided by a first client account at a first content storage provider to the storage aggregator module is insufficient to store the particular content item; and

accessing a second client account at the first content storage provider or a second content storage provider to open a client account without user interaction-comprising a user request to obtain additional storage in response to determining that storage provided by the first client account is insufficient, wherein opening the client account comprises randomly generating a client name and password without the user interaction such the requester is not aware of the opening of the client account,

wherein;

the storage aggregator module is separate from the first content storage provider and the second content storage provider; and

at least one of the first content storage provider and the second content storage provider is remotely located relative to the storage aggregator module and hosted by a web server.

2. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the executing further includes:

dividing the particular content item into a plurality of portions;

outputting at least one said portion for storage in the client account; and

outputting another said portion for storage in another client account.

3. A method as described in claim 2, wherein the executing further includes:

receiving a request for the particular content item from a requester;

retrieving one or more said portions;

configuring the one or more said portions to form the particular content item; and

providing the particular content item to the requestor.

4. A method as described in claim 1, wherein:

the particular content item is received by the module from a requester; and

the requester is not aware of the client account.

5. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the executing of the module is performed by a web server that is configured to receive a plurality of requests from a plurality of clients that access the web server over the network.

6. A method as described in claim 1 wherein at least one said client account is compatible with a content type that is incompatible with another said client account.

7. A method as described in claim 1, further comprising reformatting, to an unrelated type, at least a portion of the particular content item for storage in the client account, wherein the reformatted portion of the particular content item is not compatible with an application that requested the module to store the particular content item.

8. A method comprising:

receiving, at a storage aggregator, a content item from a requester for storage;

dividing, via the storage aggregator, the content item into a plurality of portions;

formatting, via the storage aggregator, a particular portion of the content item into a content format supported by a content storage provider, the particular portion of the content otherwise would not be compatible for storage on the content storage provider, wherein the content storage provider is where the particular portion of the content item is to be physically stored;

outputting, by the storage aggregator, at least one of the plurality of portions for storage in a client account of the content storage provider opened without a user interaction comprising a user request and another at least one of the plurality of portions for storage in another client account of the same content storage provider or another content storage provider opened without the user interaction, wherein each said client account is accessible over a network.

9. A method as described in claim 8, further comprising reformatting the at least one of the plurality of portions for storage in the client account.

10. A method as described in claim 9, wherein the reformatted at least one portion is not compatible with the other client account.

11. A method as described in claim 9, wherein:

the requestor includes an application that is configured to provide the content item; and

the reformatted at least one portion is not compatible with the application.

12. A method as described in claim 8, wherein each said client account is accessible using a respective client name and a respective password.

13. A method as described in claim 8, wherein the requester is an application and the receiving, the dividing, and the outputting are performed through execution of a module.

14. A method as described in claim 8, wherein the client account is available from a content storage provider and the other client account is available from another content storage provider.

15. A method as described in claim 8, further comprising:

determining whether there is sufficient storage available to store the content item; and

opening the other client account to obtain additional storage when sufficient storage is not available.

16. One or more computer readable media storing computer executable instructions that configure a computing device to perform a method, the method comprising:

aggregating storage available from a list of content storage providers over a network into a single content storage representation of a storage aggregator, the list of content storage provider being updated at periodic intervals, the plurality of content storage providers including an email provider, an online photo provider, and an online media storage provider, each content storage provider supporting one or more content formats for storage;

presenting an interface to a user to request to store content via the single content storage representation without the user'"'"'s direct interaction with the content storage providers;

dividing the content into a plurality of portions;

duplicating one or more of the portions of the content to provide redundancy;

selecting a particular content storage provider from the list of content storage providers to store a particular portion of the content by utilizing a plurality of considerations including;

amount of access time to the content storage providers;

amount of storage space of the content storage providers;

cost of storage space of the content storage providers;

amount of processing time to store the portion of the content;

obtaining a client account of the selected particular storage provider by generating a random client name and password of the client account;

formatting the particular portion of the content into a content format supported by the particular content storage provider, the particular portion of the content otherwise would not be compatible for storage on the particular content storage provider;

receiving a request for the content; and

reformatting and combining the processed portions of the content from the content storage providers to form the requested content item.

17. One or more computer readable media as described in claim 16, wherein the content is further processed by one or more techniques selected from the group consisting of:

compressing and encrypting.

18. One or more computer readable media as described in claim 16, wherein the content is processed such that the processed content is not readable by the at least one said content storage provider to understand data that is included in the content.