Patents by Inventor Edmund B. Nightingale
Edmund B. Nightingale 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).
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Publication number: 20130346669Abstract: A computer system includes one or more field programmable gate arrays as a coprocessor that can be shared among processes and programmed using hardware libraries. Given a set of hardware libraries, an update process periodically updates the libraries and/or adds new libraries. One or more update servers can provide information about libraries available for download, either in response to a request or by notifying systems using such libraries. New available libraries can be presented to a user for selection and download. Requests for updated libraries can arise in several ways, such as through polling for updates, exceptions from applications attempting to use libraries, and upon compilation of application code.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 20, 2012Publication date: December 26, 2013Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Brian LaMacchia, Paul Barham
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Patent number: 8543863Abstract: Dynamically replicated memory is usable to allocate new memory space from failed memory pages by pairing compatible failed memory pages to reuse otherwise unusable failed memory pages. Dynamically replicating memory involves detecting and recording memory faults, reclaiming failed memory pages for later use, recovering from detected memory faults, and scheduling access to replicated memory pages.Type: GrantFiled: November 18, 2009Date of Patent: September 24, 2013Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Engin Ipek, Thomas Moscibroda, Douglas C. Burger, Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy P. Condit
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Patent number: 8533299Abstract: A system including a plurality of servers, a client, and a metadata server is described herein. The servers each store tracts of data, a plurality of the tracts comprising a byte sequence and being distributed among the plurality of servers. To locate the tracts, the metadata server generates a table that is used by the client to identify servers associated with the tracts, enabling the client to provide requests to the servers. The metadata server also enables recovery in the event of a server failure. Further, the servers construct tables of tract identifiers and locations to use in responding to the client requests.Type: GrantFiled: April 19, 2010Date of Patent: September 10, 2013Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson, Jonathan R. Howell, Galen C. Hunt
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Patent number: 8533404Abstract: Implementations of a file system that is supported by a non-volatile memory that is directly connected to a memory bus, and placed side by side with a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), are described.Type: GrantFiled: July 15, 2009Date of Patent: September 10, 2013Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Jeremy P. Condit, Edmund B. Nightingale, Benjamin Lee, Engin Ipek, Christopher Frost, Doug Burger
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Patent number: 8447833Abstract: A client device configured to write to both a growth server and a live server replica that the growth server is replacing during a growth phase is described herein. The client device first determines the growth server designated to replace a corresponding live server replica of a set of server replicas associated with a storage index. The client device then transmits a write request associated with the storage index to the set of server replicas and to the growth server. The client device may perform the determining based on storage assignment mappings. The storage assignment mappings are provided to the client device by a metadata server while the growth server retrieves data associated with the storage index from the live server replica.Type: GrantFiled: March 6, 2012Date of Patent: May 21, 2013Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson, Jonathan R. Howell
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Patent number: 8438244Abstract: A system including at least one storage node and at least one computation node connected by a switch is described herein. Each storage node has one or more storage units and one or more network interface components, the collective bandwidths of the storage units and the network interface components being proportioned to one another to enable communication to and from other nodes at the collective bandwidth of the storage units. Each computation node has logic configured to make requests of storage nodes, an input/output bus, and one or more network interface components, the bandwidth of the bus and the collective bandwidths of the network interface components being proportioned to one another to enable communication to and from other nodes at the bandwidth of the input/output bus.Type: GrantFiled: April 23, 2010Date of Patent: May 7, 2013Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson, Jonathan R. Howell, Galen C. Hunt, David A. Maltz
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Publication number: 20120278400Abstract: The creation of an effective circuit between a sender device and a receiver device over the packet-switched network is described herein. To establish the effective circuit, the sender device sends a request to the receiver device through the packet-switched network. The request is associated with a bandwidth reservation from the receiver device for reception of a message from the sender device. The receiver device receives multiple requests from multiple sender devices and reserves bandwidth for at least one of the sender devices. The receiver device then sends a response to the at least one sender device providing clearance to send the message to the receiver device using the reserved bandwidth, the request and response establishing the effective circuit. The receiver device may also decline the requests of the other sender devices, causing the other sender devices to send other requests to other receiver devices.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 28, 2011Publication date: November 1, 2012Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Jeremy E. Elson, Edmund B. Nightingale
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Patent number: 8255742Abstract: Dynamically replicated memory is usable to allocate new memory space from failed memory pages by pairing compatible failed memory pages to reuse otherwise unusable failed memory pages. Dynamically replicating memory involves detecting and recording memory faults, reclaiming failed memory pages for later use, recovering from detected memory faults, and scheduling access to replicated memory pages.Type: GrantFiled: November 18, 2009Date of Patent: August 28, 2012Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Engin Ipek, Jeremy P. Condit, Edmund B. Nightingale, Douglas C. Burger, Thomas Moscibroda
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Publication number: 20120197958Abstract: A plurality of servers configured to receive a plurality of requests associated with a plurality of byte sequences are described herein. The requests for each byte sequence are received by a single one of the servers. Each server is further configured to serially process the requests it receives while the other servers also perform serial processing of requests in parallel with the server. Also, the requests for each byte sequence are transmitted to the single one of the servers by a plurality of clients, each client independently identifying the single one of the servers for the byte sequence based on system metadata.Type: ApplicationFiled: January 31, 2011Publication date: August 2, 2012Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson
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Patent number: 8219741Abstract: Implementations of a file system that is supported by a non-volatile memory that is directly connected to a memory bus, and placed side by side with a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), are described.Type: GrantFiled: June 16, 2009Date of Patent: July 10, 2012Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Jeremy P. Condit, Engin Ipek, Edmund B. Nightingale, Benjamin C Lee, Christopher Frost, Doug Burger
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Publication number: 20120166590Abstract: A client device configured to write to both a growth server and a live server replica that the growth server is replacing during a growth phase is described herein. The client device first determines the growth server designated to replace a corresponding live server replica of a set of server replicas associated with a storage index. The client device then transmits a write request associated with the storage index to the set of server replicas and to the growth server. The client device may perform the determining based on storage assignment mappings. The storage assignment mappings are provided to the client device by a metadata server while the growth server retrieves data associated with the storage index from the live server replica.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 6, 2012Publication date: June 28, 2012Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson, Jonathan R. Howell
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Publication number: 20120137167Abstract: A system and method for mitigating memory errors in a computer system. Faulty memory is identified and tested by a memory manager of an operating system. The memory manager may perform diagnostic tests while the operating system is executing on the computer system. Regions of memory that are being used by software components of the computer system may also be tested. The memory manager maintains a stored information about faulty memory regions. Regions are added to the stored information when they are determined to be faulty by a diagnostic test tool. Memory regions are allocated to software components by the memory manager after checking the stored information about faulty memory regions. This ensures a faulty memory region is never allocated to a software component of the computer system.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 30, 2010Publication date: May 31, 2012Applicant: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Garrett Leischner, Andrew J. Lagattuta, Matthew Jeremiah Eason, Landy Wang, John R. Douceur, Baskar Sridharan, Edmund B. Nightingale
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Patent number: 8181061Abstract: A system including a plurality of servers, a client, and a metadata server is described herein. The servers each store tracts of data, a plurality of the tracts comprising a byte sequence and being distributed among the plurality of servers. To locate the tracts, the metadata server generates a table that is used by the client to identify servers associated with the tracts, enabling the client to provide requests to the servers. The metadata server also enables recovery in the event of a server failure. Further, the servers construct tables of tract identifiers and locations to use in responding to the client requests.Type: GrantFiled: April 19, 2010Date of Patent: May 15, 2012Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson, Jonathan R. Howell, Galen C. Hunt
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Patent number: 8140646Abstract: A speculative web browser engine may enable providing transmission of content between a server and a client prior to a user-initiated request for the content hidden in imperative code (event handlers), which may reduce user-perceived latency when the user initiates the imperative code. In some aspects, a speculative browser state may be created from an actual browser state and used to run the event handlers. The event handlers may be modified to direct actions of the event handler to update the speculative browser state. Speculative content may be transmitted between the server and the client in response to an execution of the modified code. The speculative content may be stored in a cache and made readily available for use when the user initiates the event handler and finds that the desired content has already been fetched.Type: GrantFiled: June 4, 2009Date of Patent: March 20, 2012Assignee: Microsoft CorporationInventors: James W. Mickens, Jonathan R. Howell, Jacob R. Lorch, Jeremy E. Elson, Edmund B. Nightingale
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Publication number: 20110258290Abstract: A system including at least one storage node and at least one computation node connected by a switch is described herein. Each storage node has one or more storage units and one or more network interface components, the collective bandwidths of the storage units and the network interface components being proportioned to one another to enable communication to and from other nodes at the collective bandwidth of the storage units. Each computation node has logic configured to make requests of storage nodes, an input/output bus, and one or more network interface components, the bandwidth of the bus and the collective bandwidths of the network interface components being proportioned to one another to enable communication to and from other nodes at the bandwidth of the input/output bus.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 23, 2010Publication date: October 20, 2011Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson, Jonathan R. Howell, Galen C. Hunt, David A. Maltz
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Publication number: 20110258488Abstract: A metadata server configured to maintain storage assignment mappings in non-persistent storage is described herein. The tract storage assignment mappings associate servers with storage assignments, the storage assignments representing the data stored on the servers. Responsive to a failure, the metadata server receives the storage assignments from the servers and rebuilds the storage assignment mappings from the storage assignments. The metadata server is also configured to enable clients to operate during a recovery process for a failed server by providing the storage assignment mappings to the clients during the recovery process. Also during the recovery process, the replacement server for the failed server conditionally overwrites stored data with other data received from other servers as part of the recovery process.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 26, 2011Publication date: October 20, 2011Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson
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Publication number: 20110258297Abstract: A system including a plurality of servers, a client, and a metadata server is described herein. The servers each store tracts of data, a plurality of the tracts comprising a byte sequence and being distributed among the plurality of servers. To locate the tracts, the metadata server generates a table that is used by the client to identify servers associated with the tracts, enabling the client to provide requests to the servers. The metadata server also enables recovery in the event of a server failure. Further, the servers construct tables of tract identifiers and locations to use in responding to the client requests.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 19, 2010Publication date: October 20, 2011Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson, Jonathan R. Howell, Galen C. Hunt
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Publication number: 20110258482Abstract: A system including a plurality of servers, a client, and a metadata server is described herein. The servers each store tracts of data, a plurality of the tracts comprising a byte sequence and being distributed among the plurality of servers. To locate the tracts, the metadata server generates a table that is used by the client to identify servers associated with the tracts, enabling the client to provide requests to the servers. The metadata server also enables recovery in the event of a server failure. Further, the servers construct tables of tract identifiers and locations to use in responding to the client requests.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 19, 2010Publication date: October 20, 2011Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Edmund B. Nightingale, Jeremy E. Elson, Jonathan R. Howell, Galen C. Hunt
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Publication number: 20110258483Abstract: A Metadata server described herein is configured to generate a metadata table optimized for data durability and recovery. In generating the metadata table, the metadata server associates each possible combination of servers with one of the indices of the table, thereby ensuring that each server participates in recovery in the event of a server failure. In addition, the metadata server may also associate one or more additional servers with each index to provide added data durability. Upon generating the metadata table, the metadata server provides the metadata table to clients or servers. Alternatively, the metadata server may provide rules and parameters to clients to enable those clients to identify servers storing data items. The clients may use these parameters and an index as inputs to the rules to determine the identities of servers storing or designated to store data items corresponding to the index.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 20, 2011Publication date: October 20, 2011Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATIONInventors: Jeremy E. Elson, Edmund B. Nightingale, John R. Douceur, Stuart Schechter, Peter L. Montgomery
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Publication number: 20110119538Abstract: Dynamically replicated memory is usable to allocate new memory space from failed memory pages by pairing compatible failed memory pages to reuse otherwise unusable failed memory pages. Dynamically replicating memory involves detecting and recording memory faults, reclaiming failed memory pages for later use, recovering from detected memory faults, and scheduling access to replicated memory pages.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 18, 2009Publication date: May 19, 2011Applicant: Microsoft CorporationInventors: Engin Ipek, Jeremy P. Condit, Edmund B. Nightingale, Douglas C. Burger, Thomas Moscibroda