Patents by Inventor Jonathan T. Wall

Jonathan T. Wall 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).

  • Method and apparatus to utilize free cache in a storage system
    Patent number: 7895244
    Abstract: A system is provided to improve performance of a storage system. The system comprises a multi-tier buffer cache. The buffer cache may include a global cache to store resources for servicing requests issued from one or more processes at the same time, a free cache to receive resources from the global cache and to store the received resources as free resources, and a local cache to receive free resources from the free cache, the received free resources to store resources that can be accessed by a single process at one time. The system may further include a buffer cache manager to manage transferring resources from the global cache to the free cache and from the free cache to the local cache.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 22, 2011
    Assignee: Network Appliance, Inc.
    Inventors: Jason S. Sobel, Jonathan T. Wall
  • Method and apparatus for parallel updates to global state in a multi-processor system
    Patent number: 7836033
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for synchronizing updates to a large set of global counters are described. In one embodiment, the method includes making updates to a global state in response to a file system making changes to data in memory. In parallel, updates are made to a copy of the global state in a temporary buffer in response to the file system flushing the data changes to a mass storage device. The temporary buffer thus includes a set of deltas representing the changes to be made to the global state in response to the changed data in memory being pushed to the mass storage device. The method further includes merging the deltas in the temporary buffer with the global state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 24, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2010
    Assignee: Network Appliance, Inc.
    Inventors: Jay R. Moorthi, Jonathan T. Wall
  • Method and apparatus to utilize free cache in a storage system
    Patent number: 7606807
    Abstract: A system is provided to improve performance of a storage system. The system comprises a multi-tier buffer cache. The buffer cache may include a global cache to store resources for servicing requests issued from one or more processes at the same time, a free cache to receive resources from the global cache and to store the received resources as free resources, and a local cache to receive free resources from the free cache, the received free resources to store resources that can be accessed by a single process at one time. The system may further include a buffer cache manager to manage transferring resources from the global cache to the free cache and from the free cache to the local cache.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2006
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2009
    Assignee: Network Appliance, Inc.
    Inventors: Jason S. Sobel, Jonathan T. Wall