Patents by Inventor Steven S. Watanabe

Steven S. Watanabe 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).

  • Patent number: 7293195
    Abstract: A system and method for coordinated bringup of a storage appliance in a storage appliance cluster. The repaired storage appliance, during its initialization, sets a variety of state values in a predetermined memory location comprising a state data structure, which is detected by a remote direct memory access read operation by the surviving storage appliance. By the use of the RDMA operations, the repaired storage appliance and surviving storage appliance coordinate the bringup and giveback of data servicing functionality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 29, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2007
    Assignee: Network Appliance, Inc.
    Inventors: Steven S. Watanabe, Susan M. Coatney, Alan L. Rowe, Ye Sun
  • Patent number: 7260678
    Abstract: A system and method for determining a disk ownership model to be utilized by a storage system is disclosed. The storage system and method determines the individual disk ownership of each accessible disk to the storage system. If the number of disks utilizing a first ownership model is exceeded, the storage system utilizes the first ownership model. Otherwise, the storage system utilizes a second ownership model.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 13, 2004
    Date of Patent: August 21, 2007
    Assignee: Network Appliance, Inc.
    Inventors: Gaurav Agarwal, Susan M. Coatney, Steven S. Watanabe, Alan L. Rowe, Samuel M. Cramer, Gautam Dev Sharma
  • Patent number: 7249150
    Abstract: A system and method for enabling parallel replay of a backup memory log of client transaction request entries to a network storage appliance file system is provided. The backup memory is typically implemented as a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM). An initiator establishes a swarm of messages with a plurality of transaction blocks pointing to logged request entries and related states associated therewith. The states represent the various phases of file system recovery and disk storage including a retrieval of disk information (data and meta-data), typically in the form of a LOAD, and a subsequent modify phase. The swarm is transferred to the file system for parallel disk information-retrieval in an interleaved process. Any transactions that cannot be performed due to a required prerequisite action (e.g. a prior file-create) are returned to the initiator for reloading once the prerequisite action has occurred.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 3, 2001
    Date of Patent: July 24, 2007
    Assignee: Network Appliance, Inc.
    Inventors: Steven S. Watanabe, John K. Edwards, Blake H. Lewis
  • Patent number: 7143235
    Abstract: A technique forecasts the behavior of a RAID subsystem when processing a proposed configuration management request that modifies a topology or attribute configuration, e.g., RAID groups and volume layout, of a storage array managed by the subsystem. In response to the proposed request, the RAID subsystem returns a set of projected result data instead of committing the request to the storage array configuration. An operator issues the proposed request in accordance with a novel view-only mode of a configuration management command. The view-only mode is manifested as an ā€œ-nā€ option that instructs a configuration thread of the RAID subsystem to return pre-committed results without actually committing the modification.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 21, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2006
    Assignee: Network Appliance, Inc.
    Inventors: Steven S. Watanabe, Stephen H. Strange, Scott Schoenthal