Method and apparatus for storing transactional information in persistent memory

• US 6,901,481 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2001
• Issued: 05/31/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Stratus Technologies Ireland Ltd. (Stratus Technologies Bermuda Holdings Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Stratus Technologies Bermuda Ltd. (Stratus Technologies Bermuda Holdings Ltd.)
• Inventors: Olson, Thomas
• Primary Examiner(s): Bataille, Pierre-Michel
• Application Number:
  US09/790,750
• Publication Number:
  US 20010032300A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,559 Days
• Field of Search: 711/129, 711/170, 711/173, 711/172, 711/163, 711/154, 711/152, 711/123, 711/125, 711/126, 713/1, 713/2, 713/100, 703/24
• US Class Current: 711/129
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1435 using file system or storage system metadata
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1441 Resetting or repowering

Abstract

A method and apparatus for storing transactional information in persistent memory. In one embodiment, the invention features a persistent volatile memory and an intermediary program in communication with the persistent volatile memory. The intermediary program receives transactional information and stores the information in the persistent volatile memory. A computer uses the intermediary program to enable the contents of the persistent volatile memory to remain unaltered during a failure of the computer. Additionally, the intermediary program may determine whether the transactional information meets a predetermined criteria before storing the information in the persistent volatile memory.

Claims

1. In a computer comprising a volatile memory partitioned into a first, contiguous, non-persistent memory region directly accessible by an operating system running on the computer;

and a second contiguous persistent memory region not directly accessible by the operating system, a method for providing persistent of transactional information, the method comprising the steps of;

(a) receiving transactional information;

(b) determining that the received transactional information meets a predetermined criteria; and

(c) storing the received transactional information meeting the predetermined criteria in the second, persistent memory region.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the transactional information meeting the predetermined criteria comprises unbuffered writes to disk.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the transactional information meeting the predetermined criteria comprises one of the group consisting of a file copy, a file backup, a file update, and a file initialization.

4. A computer for committing transactional information, the computer comprising:

(a) a volatile memory partitioned into a first, contiguous, non-persistent memory region directly accessible by the operating system and initialized during a boot cycle, and a second, contiguous persistent memory region not directly accessible by the operating system and not initialized during a boot cycle;

(b) an intermediary program in communication with the second, contiguous persistent memory region, the intermediary program receiving transactional information and storing the received transactional information in the second, contiguous persistent memory, wherein the contents of the second contiguous persistent memory region remain unaltered through a system boot cycle.

16. The computer of claim 4 further comprising a filter driver module to identify particular transactional information from among the received transactional information for storage in the second, contiguous persistent memory region.

17. The computer of claim 16 further comprising storing the identified particular transactional information in the second, contiguous persistent memory region.

18. The computer of claim 4 wherein the second, contiguous persistent memory region further comprises a persistent cache.

19. The computer of claim 18, wherein the computer flushes the contents of the persistent cache to the second contiguous persistent memory region.

20. The computer of claim 18 further comprising a flushing thread to flush the contents of the persistent cache.

21. The computer of claim 4 wherein the identified, particular transactional information comprises unbuffered writes to disk.

22. The computer of claim 4 wherein the identified, particular transactional information comprises one of the group consisting of a file copy, a file backup, a file update, and a file initialization.

23. The computer of claim 4 further comprising a data structure to describe the state of the identified, particular transactional information stored in the second, contiguous persistent memory region.

5. A method for storing transactional in a computer system, the computer system comprising a volatile memory element and an operating system, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) partitioning the volatile memory element into a first contiguous, non-persistent memory region directly accessible by the operating system and a second, contiguous persistent memory region not directly accessible by the operating system;

(b) receiving, by the computer system, transacitional information;

(c) storing the received transactional information in the second, contiguous persistent memory region; and

(d) retrieving, by the computer system, the stored transactional information from the second, contiguous persistent memory region after a computer failure.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising, before step (d), identifying for retrieval particular transactional information stored in the second, contiguous persistent memory region.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising flushing the second, contiguous persistent memory region to a mass storage device.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising, before said flushing step, determining that the transactional information stored in the second, contiguous persistent memory region exceeds a predetermined threshold.

9. The method of claim 7 further comprising, before said flushing step, determining that a predefined amount of time has elapsed.

10. The method of claim 7 further comprising, before said flushing step, determining that a program is idle.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the program is an operating system controlling the computer.

12. The method of claim 7 further comprising determining, before the flushing step, that a file is closed.

13. The method of claim 7 further comprising determining, before said flushing step, that the computer is being shut down.

14. The method of claim 5 further comprising making a copy of the received transactional information.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising storing the copy of the received transactional information in the second, contiguous persistent memory region.