Patents by Inventor William Carl Biester

William Carl Biester 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).

  • Merkle tree reference counts
    Patent number: 8457018
    Abstract: A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for managing data commonality in a Merkle tree is disclosed. Reference counts are associated with a node in the Merkle tree. Data commonality is detected and the root of the detected data commonality is determined. If a node is the root node of the detected data commonality, the nodes reference count is incremented. When an object is deleted, the root node of the object is determined. The reference count of the node is decremented. If the count reaches zero, the node is removed from the Merkle tree, and its child nodes are decremented.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2013
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventors: Richard Ruef, Kurt Everson, Nickolay Dalmatov, William Carl Biester
  • Systems and methods for using thin provisioning to reclaim space identified by data reduction processes
    Patent number: 8332612
    Abstract: The invention provides a system to reclaim space identified as no longer in use and comprises a vLUN, a thinly provisioned mapped LUN, a mapping layer, and a data reduction engine. Chunks of data are stored at logical chunk addresses (LCAs) in the vLUN and are mapped to corresponding physical chunk addresses (PCAs) in the thinly provisioned mapped LUN. The data reduction engine performs a data reduction process on a first logical chunk of data stored at a first LCA in the vLUN, where the first logical chunk has a size that is a nonzero integer multiple of the size of the storage extent of the thinly provisioned mapped LUN. After the data reduction process, the PCA associated with the first logical chunk is no longer needed, and the thinly provisioned mapped LUN is instructed to deallocate the PCA associated with the first logical chunk that is no longer needed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 5, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 11, 2012
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventors: Helen S. Raizen, Michael E. Bappe, Agarkov Vadim Nikolaevich, William Carl Biester, Richard Ruef, Karl M. Owen
  • Systems and methods for using thin provisioning to reclaim space identified by data reduction processes
    Patent number: 8156306
    Abstract: The invention provides a system to reclaim space identified as no longer in use and comprises a vLUN, a thinly provisioned mapped LUN, a mapping layer, and a data reduction engine. Chunks of data are stored at logical chunk addresses (LCAs) in the vLUN and are mapped to corresponding physical chunk addresses (PCAs) in the thinly provisioned mapped LUN. The data reduction engine performs a data reduction process on a first logical chunk of data stored at a first LCA in the vLUN, where the first logical chunk has a size that is a nonzero integer multiple of the size of the storage extent of the thinly provisioned mapped LUN. After the data reduction process, the PCA associated with the first logical chunk is no longer needed, and the thinly provisioned mapped LUN is instructed to deallocate the PCA associated with the first logical chunk that is no longer needed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2009
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2012
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventors: Helen S. Raizen, Michael E. Bappe, Agarkov Vadim Nikolaevich, William Carl Biester, Richard Ruef, Karl M. Owen
  • Efficient read/write algorithms and associated mapping for block-level data reduction processes
    Patent number: 8140821
    Abstract: A system configured to optimize access to stored chunks of data is provided. The system comprises a vLUN layer, a mapped LUN layer, and a mapping layer disposed between the vLUN and the mapped LUN. The vLUN provides a plurality of logical chunk addresses (LCAs) and the mapped LUN provides a plurality of physical chunk addresses (PCAs), where each LCA or PCA stores a respective chunk of data. The mapping layer defines a layout of the mapped LUN that facilitates efficient read and write access to the mapped LUN.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2012
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventors: Helen S. Raizen, Michael E. Bappe, Agarkov Vadim Nikolaevich, William Carl Biester, Richard Ruef, Karl M. Owen