Utilizing a dispersed storage network access token module to retrieve data from a dispersed storage network memory

• US 9,081,715 B2
• Filed: 01/10/2012
• Issued: 07/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cleversafe Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Grube, Gary W., Markison, Timothy W., Dhuse, Greg, Resch, Jason K., Volvovski, Ilya, Leggette, Wesley
• Primary Examiner(s): Schwartz, Darren B
• Application Number:
  US13/347,204
• Publication Number:
  US 20120198537A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,281 Days
• Field of Search: 726/9, 713/159, 713/168, 713/172
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1008 in individual solid state devices G06F11/1004 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1076 Parity data used in redundant arrays of independent storages, e.g. in RAID systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1446 Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/17331 Distributed shared memory [DSM], e.g. remote direct memory access [RDMA]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/805 using a security table for the storage sub-system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/06 Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers , e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• 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]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/085 Secret sharing or secret splitting, e.g. threshold schemes

Abstract

A method begins by a computing device determining that data is stored in dispersed storage network (DSN) memory and sending a data retrieval request to a DSN access token module regarding the data. The method continues with the DSN access token module generating a plurality of sets of data slice read requests and sending the plurality of sets of data slices read requests to the computing device. The method continues with, for a set of data slices read requests, the computing device sending the set of data slices read requests to the DSN memory, receiving data slices from the DSN memory, and sending the data slices to the DSN access token module. The method continues with the DSN access token module decoding the data slices to produce a decoded data segment and sending the decoded data segment to the computing device.

Claims

1. A method for retrieving data from storage, the method comprises:

determining, by a computing device, that the data is stored in dispersed storage network (DSN) memory, wherein the data is stored as a plurality of sets of encoded data slices in accordance with a dispersed storage error encoding function; and

when the computing device is paired with a DSN access token module;

managing, by the DSN access token module, the pairing between the DSN access token module and the computing device;

sending, by the computing device, a data retrieval request to the DSN access token module regarding the data;

generating, by the DSN access token module, a plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of data slice read requests in response to the data retrieval request;

sending, by the DSN access token module, the plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of data slices read requests to the computing device; and

in response to receiving from the DSN access token module the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests, for a set of the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests;

sending, by the computing device, the set of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests to the DSN memory;

receiving, by the computing device, the at least a threshold number of data slices from the DSN memory;

sending, by the computing device, the received at least a threshold number of data slices to the DSN access token module;

decoding, by the DSN access token module, the received at least a threshold number of data slices in accordance with the dispersed storage error encoding function to produce a decoded data segment; and

sending, by the DSN access token module, the decoded data segment to the computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

the managing, by the DSN access token module, the pairing between the DSN access token module and the computing device including authenticating one or more of;

a vault identifier (ID) of the DSN memory associated with the computing device;

an object number associated with the computing device;

an access credential of the computing device;

a key of the computing device;

a user device ID associated with the computing device;

or a password associated with the computing device.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

the managing, by the DSN access token module, the pairing between the DSN access token module and the computing device including;

determining whether the DSN access token module is actively paired to the computing device; and

when the DSN access token module is not actively paired to the computing device, facilitating pairing of the DSN access token module to the computing device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the DSN access token module generating the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slice read requests further comprises one or more of:

authenticating the data retrieval request;

when the data retrieval request is authenticated, determining, for the data, DSN data storage information, which includes one or more of vault identification (ID), user ID, slice names, and a list of dispersed storage (DS) units;

or

generating the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slice read requests based on the DSN data storage information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing device determining that the data is stored in the DSN memory further comprises one or more of:

interpreting a read request regarding the data, wherein the read request indicates that the data is stored in the DSN memory;

receiving a response to a graphical user interface prompt regarding retrieval of the data;

or

when the computing device is paired with the DSN access token module, indicating that the data is stored in the DSN memory.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

sending, by the DSN access token module, de-segmenting information to the computing device; and

de-segmenting, by the computing device, a plurality of data segments in accordance with the de-segmenting information to produce the data, wherein the plurality of data segments includes the decoded data segment.

7. A dispersed storage network (DSN) access token module comprises:

an interface module for interfacing with a computing device;

memory; and

a processing module operably coupled to the memory and operable to, when the DSN access token module is paired with the computing device;

receive a data retrieval request regarding the data from the computing device;

generate, a plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of data slice read requests in response to the data retrieval request;

send the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests to the computing device; and

in response to sending the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests, for a set of the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests;

receive at least a threshold number of data slices from the computing device, where the computing device received the at least a threshold number of data slices from the DSN memory in response to the set of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests;

decode the received at least a threshold number of data slices in accordance with a dispersed storage error encoding function to produce a decoded data segment; and

send the decoded data segment to the computing device.

8. The DSN access token module of claim 7, wherein the interface module comprises at least one of:

a universal serial bus (USB) interface module;

a personal area network (PAN) interface module;

a serial interface module for high-speed communications;

a 60 gigahertz (GHz) wireless transceiver;

or

a wireless local area network interface module.

9. The DSN access token module of claim 7, wherein the processing module is further operable to:

manage the pairing between the DSN access token module and the computing device by authenticating one or more of;

a vault identifier (ID) of the DSN memory associated with the computing device;

an object number associated with the computing device;

an access credential of the computing device;

a key of the computing device;

a user device ID associated with the computing device;

or

a password associated with the computing device.

10. The DSN access token module of claim 7, wherein the processing module is further operable to:

manage the pairing between the DSN access token module and the computing device by;

determining whether the DSN access token module is actively paired to the computing device; and

when the DSN access token module is not actively paired to the computing device, facilitating pairing of the DSN access token module to the computing device.

11. The DSN access token module of claim 7, wherein the generating the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slice read requests further comprises one or more of:

authenticating the data retrieval request;

when the data retrieval request is authenticated, determining, for the data, DSN data storage information, which includes one or more of vault identification (ID), user ID, slice names, or a list of dispersed storage (DS) units; and

generating the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slice read requests based on the DSN data storage information.

12. The DSN access token module of claim 7, wherein the processing module is further operable to:

send de-segmenting information to the computing device such that, when performed by the computing device, the computing device de-segments a plurality of data segments to produce the data, wherein the plurality of data segments includes the decoded data segment.

13. A user device for facilitating retrieval of data from a dispersed storage network (DSN) memory, the user device comprises:

a first module operable to determine that the data is stored in the DSN memory, wherein the data is stored as a plurality of sets of encoded data slices in accordance with a dispersed storage error encoding function; and

when the user device is paired with a DSN access token module, it includes receiving from the DSN access token module authentication of one or more of;

a vault identifier (ID) of the DSN memory, an object number associated with the user device, an access credential of the user device, a key of the user device, a user device ID associated, or a password associated with the user device; and

further includes;

a second module operable to send a data retrieval request to the DSN access token module regarding the data;

a third module operable to receive a plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of data slices read requests from the DSN access token module, wherein the DSN access token module generated the plurality of sets of at least a threshold number of data slices read requests in response to the data retrieval request; and

for a set of the plurality of sets of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests;

a fourth module operable to send the set of the at least a threshold number of data slices read requests to the DSN memory;

a fifth module operable to receive at least a threshold number of data slices from the DSN memory;

a sixth module operable to send the at least a threshold number of data slices to the DSN access token module; and

a seventh module operable to receive a decoded data segment from the DSN access token module, wherein the DSN access token module decoded the at least a threshold number of data slices in accordance with the dispersed storage error encoding function to produce the decoded data segment.

14. The user device of claim 13, wherein the first module is further operable to perform at least one of:

interpreting a read request regarding the data to determine that the data is stored in the DSN memory, wherein the read request indicates that the data is stored in the DSN memory;

receiving a response to a graphical user interface prompt regarding retrieval of the data to determine that the data is stored in the DSN memory;

or

when the user device is paired with the DSN access token module, indicating that the data is stored in the DSN memory.

15. The user device of claim 13 further comprises:

an eighth module operable to receive de-segmenting information from the DSN access token module; and

a ninth module operable to de-segment a plurality of data segments in accordance with the de-segmenting information to produce the data, wherein the plurality of data segments includes the decoded data segment.