MAINTAINING GLOBAL NAMESPACE CONSISTENCY FOR A DISTRIBUTED FILESYSTEM

• US 20160072889A1
• Filed: 08/27/2015
• Published: 03/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panzura, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Panzura, Inc.
• Inventors: Taylor, John Richard, Lin, Yun, Jung, Steve Hyuntae, Mondal, Shishir
• Granted Patent: US 10,630,772 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/16 File or folder operations, e.g. details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/3005 Mechanisms for avoiding name conflicts
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/3015 Name registration, generation or assignment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/457 containing identifiers of data entities on a computer, e.g. file names
• 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 67/288 Distributed intermediate devices, i.e. intermediate devices for interaction with other intermediate devices on the same level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams

Abstract

The disclosed embodiments disclose techniques for maintaining global name consistency for a distributed filesystem. Two or more cloud controllers collectively manage distributed filesystem data that is stored in one or more cloud storage systems; the cloud controllers ensure data consistency for the stored data, and each cloud controller caches portions of the distributed filesystem. During operation, a cloud controller receives a client request to perform a namespace operation upon a filesystem object. The cloud controller contacts the cloud controller that manages (“owns”) the portion of the global namespace for the distributed filesystem that includes the filesystem object. This second cloud controller ensures the consistency of the filesystem object across the distributed filesystem during the namespace operation.

Claims