Patent · US Active

Metadata offload for a file server cluster

US7617216B2 · kind B2 · utility

8Cited by
37References
4Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 7, 2005
Grant dateNov 10, 2009
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 13, 2028

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F16/182
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A file server system has a cluster of server computers that share access to a file system in shared storage. One of the server computers has primary responsibility for management of access to the file system. In order to reduce the possibility of primary server overload when a large number of the clients happen to concurrently access the same file system, most metadata processing operations are offloaded to secondary server computers. This also facilitates recovery from failure of a primary server computer since only a fraction of the ongoing metadata operations of a primary server computer is interrupted by a failure of the primary server computer. For example, a secondary data mover may truncate, delete, create, or rename a file in response to a client request.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.