Shared namespace for storage clusters
US8255430B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Aug 24, 2009 |
| Grant date | Aug 28, 2012 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Aug 31, 2030 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F16/166
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Any client application uses a namespace application to resolve its pathname in order to reference a computer file. Computer files are stored in a fixed-content storage cluster and are accessed by retrieving a unique identifier for the computer file using the namespace application. Any type of pathname scheme from any client application is supported by the namespace. The namespace application uses a bindings table to record bindings between objects including the start date and end date for each binding, and direction and separator data used in the pathname scheme. An attribute table in the namespace keeps track of each attribute and its value for each object of the namespace including a start date and an end date for each attribute. The namespace provides syntactic generality in that any pathname scheme of a client application can be resolved to identify a unique computer file in the storage cluster. The namespace may be shared between applications because when one application modifies a file or its attributes using the namespace, another application using a different pathname scheme has access to the exact same data and modifications. The namespace provides a near instantaneous con…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.