DISTRIBUTED VIRTUAL STORAGE CLOUD ARCHITECTURE AND A METHOD THEREOF

• US 20130204849A1
• Filed: 10/03/2011
• Published: 08/08/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Peter Chacko
• Original Assignee: Peter Chacko
• Inventors: Chacko, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 9,128,626 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/692
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0641 De-duplication techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0661 Format or protocol conversion arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0664 at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
• 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 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a distributed information storage system which functions as virtual cloud storage overlay on top of physical cloud storage systems. The disclosure discloses transparently solving all the data management related security, virtualization, reliability and enables transparent cloud storage migration, cloud storage virtualization, information dispersal and integration across disparate cloud storage devices operated by different providers or on-premise storage. The cloud storage is owned or hosted by same or different third-party providers who own the information contained in the storage which eliminates cloud dependencies. This present disclosure functions as a distributed cloud storage delivery platform enabling various functionalities like cloud storage virtualization, cloud storage integration, cloud storage management and cloud level RAID.

Claims

1-50. -50. (canceled)

51. A virtual cloud storage system, which is a virtual overlay cloud of different physical cloud storage systems, for use in Wide Area Network, and at least one client machine, the virtual cloud storage system comprising:

at least one processing unit for executing computer programs;

at least one database to store metadata information;

at least one first network interface configured to receive cloud service requests by a virtual cloud storage from the at least one client machine;

at least one second network interface connecting a plurality of cloud storage service providers running different cloud services comprising cloud storage devices, and the virtual cloud storage ;

at least one of the modules including one or more computer programs, the computer programs including the instructions for;

receiving a request from the client machine to perform cloud storage services on a data;

accessing metadata by the virtual cloud storage to identify the cloud storage service providers for processing the request;

performing one or more data services when the request is storing the data;

extracting first storage parameters from at least one of the request, the data services and the data;

translating the first storage parameters into second storage parameters;

sending commands with the second storage parameters to the identified cloud storage service providers and receiving reply from the identified cloud storage service providers along with third storage parameters;

translating the reply and the third storage parameters to fourth storage parameters;

updating the database with the information about the data, a part of the first, second, third and fourth storage parameters and the data services performed;

providing a message to the client machine using fourth storage parameters,

wherein the virtual cloud storage system is configured as a cloud proxy to operate, in a manner that is transparent to both the client machines and the cloud storage service providers, by using the respective cloud service protocols of the client machines and the cloud storage service providers, and the virtual cloud storage system intercepts all cloud requests from the client machine and cloud replies from the cloud storage service providers.

52. The system of claim 51, wherein data services are at least one of data de-duplication, information dispersal, cloud storage integration, cloud storage virtualization and cloud RAID.

53. The system of claim 51, where in data services are at least one of result of data engineering or transformation operation creating a second set of data with a first set of data.

54. An architecture for implementing, a cloud proxy capable of implementing one or more data services comprising:

at least one processing unit for executing computer programs;

at least one database to store metadata information;

at least one first network interface configured to receive cloud service requests from the client machine;

at least one second network interface connecting the one or more cloud storage service providers comprising cloud storage devices and at least one cloud proxy;

the at least one cloud proxy comprising at least one of the modules including one or more computer programs, the computer programs including the instructions for,

receiving a request from the client machine to perform a cloud storage services on a data;

accessing metadata to identify the cloud storage service provider for processing the request;

performing one or more data services when the request is storing the data;

extracting first storage parameters from at least one of the request, the data services and the data;

translating the first storage parameters into second storage parameters;

sending commands with the second storage parameters to the identified cloud storage service provider and receiving reply from the identified cloud storage service provider along with third storage parameters;

translating the reply and the third storage parameters to fourth storage parameters;

updating the database with the information about the data, a part of the first, second, third and fourth storage parameters and the data services performed;

providing a message to the client machine using fourth storage parameters,

wherein the cloud proxy is configured to operate, in a manner that is transparent to both the client machines and the cloud storage service providers, by using the respective cloud service protocols of the client machines and the cloud storage service providers, and

the at least one cloud proxy exchanges the metadata across all the cloud proxies, and replicates the metadata updated on the at least one cloud proxy device to all the cloud proxies and the cloud proxy intercepts all cloud requests from the client machine cloud replies from the cloud storage services providers.

55. The architecture of claim 54, wherein the at least one cloud proxy is selected from a group comprising a computer, a gateway and a cloud router.

56. The architecture of claim 54, wherein the data services are performed on at least one of data exchanged between the at least one client machine and the at least one cloud proxy and

the data stored in the one or more cloud storage devices.

57. The architecture of claim 54, wherein the data service is cloud storage virtualization, cloud storage management, cloud storage migration, cloud storage integration, cloud RAID, cloud storage de-duplication and information dispersal across the one or more cloud storage devices, located at, operated and managed by one or more cloud storage service providers.

58. The architecture as claimed in claim 54, wherein the at least one client machine accesses the one or more cloud proxy device through application layer protocols selected from a group comprising cloud API, HTTP based requests, Network File Server (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS) and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) and Extended Markup Language (XML) based web services.

59. The architecture as claimed in claim 54, wherein the at least one client machine access the one or more cloud proxy device through Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) based transport protocols.

60. The architecture as claimed in claim 54, wherein the at least one cloud proxy stores part of the data related to the at least one client machine in the database.

61. The architecture as claimed in claim 54, wherein the at least one cloud proxy stores the data of the client machine in the one or more cloud storage devices after de-duplicating the data.

62. The architecture as claimed in claim 54, wherein the at least one cloud proxy stores the data of the client machine by dividing the data into multiple fragments and storing each of the multiple fragments in one or more cloud storage devices.

63. A method to manage storage using distributed virtual cloud storage delivery architecture, said method comprising the acts of:

receiving a service request by at least one cloud proxy from at least one client machine to access services of one or more cloud storage devices, said cloud storage devices are associated with multiple cloud storage service providers;

selecting the one or more cloud storage services offered by the multiple cloud storage service providers for servicing the service request based on predetermined conditions, wherein the cloud proxy upon receipt of the service request performs one or more data services on data;

forwarding the request to the one or more cloud storage service provider for accessing the data from the cloud storage devices associated with the one or more cloud storage service provider;

upon receiving the request to retrieve the data, receiving the data by the at least one cloud proxy from one or more cloud storage devices through the cloud storage service provider and forwarding the received data to the client machine;

upon receiving the request to store the data, receiving the data by the at least one cloud proxy from the at least one client machines, and forwarding the received data to one or more cloud storage service providers to store in the cloud storage devices associated with the one or more cloud storage service providers;

updating the database with information about the data exchanged and the data services performed;

replicating the information to the at least one cloud proxy; and

sending data to the client machine.

64. The method as claimed in claim 63, further comprising migrating the data stored in one cloud storage device to another cloud storage device without disrupting the applications accessing the data while being moved.

65. The method as claimed in claim 63, wherein the one or more data services are selected from a group comprising data de-duplication, information dispersal, data integration, data migration, RAID, cloud storage virtualization or more data transformation algorithms.

66. The method of claim 63, wherein the data services are performed on at least one of data exchanged between the at least one client machine and the one or more cloud storage devices and data stored in the cloud storage devices.

67. The method of claim 63, wherein the data corresponding to the client machine is replicated across the one or more cloud storage devices of one or more cloud storage service providers.

68. The method of claim 63, wherein the data stored in the one or more cloud storage devices is integrated into a single logical view.

69. The method of claim 63, wherein the metadata for de-duplication and information dispersal is stored in the one or more cloud storage devices and the database of the at least one cloud proxy.

70. The method of claim 63, wherein the cloud volume management spans across the one or more cloud storage devices.