Hierarchical namespace with strong consistency and horizontal scalability

US10789217B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC · US

Inventors

• Georgi M. Chalakov · Duvall, US
• Shane Mainali · Duvall, US
• Thomas Leo Marquardt · Newcastle, US
• Zichen Sun · Sammamish, US
• Maneesh Sah · Sammamish, US
• Esfandiar Manii · Kirkland, US
• Saurabh Pant · Kanchinakote, IN
• Dana Yulian Kaban · Seattle, US
• Saher B. Ahwal · Redmond, US
• Jun Chen · Dongguan, CN
• Da Zhou · Beijing, CN
• Amit Singh · San Jose, US
• Junhua Gu · Bothell, US
• Shaoyu Zhang · Shanghai, CN
• Wei-Chen Chen · Redmond, US
• Jingchao Zhang · Shanghai, CN
• Quan Zhang · Nanhu, CN

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 22, 2018
• Grant date: Sep 29, 2020
• Expiry date: Jan 31, 2039

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04L67/1095
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatuses are provided for a storage system that implements a hierarchical namespace service. A storage system includes a plurality of physical nodes and a plurality of sets of virtual nodes. Each set of virtual nodes is managed by a corresponding physical node. Each virtual node is configured to manage a respective set of directory blocks. Each directory block is a respective partition of a storage namespace and is managed by a corresponding single virtual node. Each virtual node maintains a directory block map. The directory block map maps file system object names in a hierarchical namespace to entity block identifiers in the flat namespace for entity blocks (files and folders) stored in directories corresponding to the managed set of directory blocks. Load balancing may be performed by moving virtual nodes between physical nodes, and by splitting directory blocks.