WRITING A FILE TO A CLOUD STORAGE SOLUTION

• US 20110276656A1
• Filed: 05/05/2010
• Published: 11/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Go Daddy Operating Company LLC (GoDaddy, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Go Daddy Group Incorporated (GoDaddy, Inc.)
• Inventors: Miller, Joseph, Krouse, Brian, Strange, Brent, Knapp, Adam, Nilsen, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 8,234,372 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers

Abstract

Systems and methods of the present invention provide for a user uploading a file and a customized metadata about the file to a file storage system. This information may be forwarded to an application, possibly an API, which may divide the file into a plurality of file chunks if the file is greater than a predetermined file size. One or more tracker servers may check a database to locate optimal file locations for the file or file chunks to be stored within the file storage system. These optimal locations may be returned from the tracker servers to the application/API which may perform an HTTP request to write the file to the file storage system. The file write may be validated and finalized, and the successful write may be displayed to the user on a user interface on a client.

Claims

1. A method, comprising the steps of:

a) receiving from a user a file and a customized metadata about the file to be written to a data storage within a file storage system, via a user interface on a client and an application on one or more servers hosted in a data center, the data storage, the file storage system, the client and the one or more servers communicatively coupled to a network;

b) separating the file into a plurality of file chunks if a size for the file is greater than a pre-determined file size threshold;

c) checking the data storage, by one or more tracker servers, to locate a plurality of optimal file locations for the file to be stored within the file storage system, the one or more tracker servers communicatively coupled to the network;

d) returning the plurality of optimal file locations from the one or more tracker servers to the application;

e) performing an HTTP request, by the application, to write the file or the plurality of file chunks to the plurality of optimal file locations;

f) validating, by the one or more tracker servers, that the file or the plurality of file chunks were written successfully; and

g) finalizing, by the one or more tracker servers, a plurality of data in the data storage about the file, the plurality of data comprising the plurality of optimal file locations and the customized metadata about the file.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the file storage system comprises one or more storage node servers communicatively coupled to the network.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the application comprises an Application Programming Interface.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of forwarding the file and the customized metadata about the file from the user interface to the application.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of forwarding the file and the customized metadata about the file from the application to the one or more tracker servers.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of replicating the file or the plurality of file chunks according to a replication policy for the file storage system.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of optimal file locations comprises two locations.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of displaying the plurality of optimal file locations to the user on the user interface.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of file chunks are each 16 MB in size.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the HTTP request is a PUT command.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of writing the file to the plurality of optimal file locations by the application.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising the step of, subsequent to the application writing the file to the plurality of optimal file locations, informing the one or more tracker servers that the file was written to the plurality of optimal file locations, by the application.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of, concurrent with the finalizing step, beginning a plurality of background worker processes.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of displaying to the user that the file or plurality of file chunks were written successfully, on the client by the one or more tracker servers.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the one or more tracker servers are required to make sure that at least two valid copies of the file or the plurality of file chunks exist before displaying to the user that the file or the plurality of file chunks were written successfully.