Patents by Inventor Alan Ray Merrell

Alan Ray Merrell has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Architecture for access to embedded files using a SAN intermediate device
    Patent number: 6907457
    Abstract: An intermediate system, such as a switch or storage domain manager, in a storage area network includes a plurality of clients, a file server which manages access to storage according to a file system architecture using file system parameters, and one or more storage systems. Processing resources are included in the intermediate system, which manage communication according to a storage area network protocol, such as SCSI and variations like FCP, which identifies units of storage according to storage area network parameters. The processing resources farther include logic to identify a particular message received from one of the plurality of clients under the storage area network protocol as a message relating to the file system architecture, to parse the particular message for file system parameters of an access according to the file system architecture, and to translate the file system parameters to an access using storage area network parameters.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2001
    Date of Patent: June 14, 2005
    Assignee: Dell Inc.
    Inventors: Alan Ray Merrell, Stephen Gouze Luning
  • Architecture for access to embedded files using a san intermediate device
    Publication number: 20020099797
    Abstract: An intermediate system, such as a switch or storage domain manager, in a storage area network includes a plurality of clients, a file server which manages access to storage according to a file system architecture using file system parameters, and one or more storage systems. Processing resources are included in the intermediate system, which manage communication according to a storage area network protocol, such as SCSI and variations like FCP, which identifies units of storage according to storage area network parameters. The processing resources farther include logic to identify a particular message received from one of the plurality of clients under the storage area network protocol as a message relating to the file system architecture, to parse the particular message for file system parameters of an access according to the file system architecture, and to translate the file system parameters to an access using storage area network parameters.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 25, 2001
    Publication date: July 25, 2002
    Inventors: Alan Ray Merrell, Stephen Gouze Luning