Method and device for managing metadata through bitmaps

Abstract

The invention discloses a method and device for managing metadata through bitmaps, wherein the method comprises the steps as follows: the catalog information of a file for storing the metadata is recorded by a file catalog level bitmap; the file information and file property information are recorded by the file and the property level bitmap of the file; when the next file of the file catalog is accessed, a first pointer pointing at addresses recorded by corresponding files is obtained through the file catalog level bitmap; moreover, corresponding file information and file property informationare obtained by the first pointer in the files and the property level bitmaps of the files. As the invention records various metadata like the file catalog, the files, the file properties of the files, and the file updating information in a laminated way through multi-level bitmaps, efficient storage, management, and searching on the file data are realized.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to a method for managing metadata in a computer storage system, in particular to a method and device for managing metadata in a bitmap manner. Background technique [0002] Metadata is data that describes data. Metadata is often used in file systems, volume management systems, and snapshot systems, and metadata information is used to describe the characteristics of data. [0003] There are various formats for managing metadata information, and metadata in different systems have different formats. For example, in the snapshot system, the amount of metadata information is relatively large, and will increase as the granularity of the management data block decreases. However, the metadata information semantics of the snapshot data is simple, and there is only one semantic meaning, so the metadata such as the snapshot system can be stored and managed in the form of a bitmap, which can save storage space. Information at the granulari...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0005] 1) The increase in the proportion of invalid data will cause a waste of storage space

[0006] When the data space is large, some more data may be temporarily invalid for the accessing user, so the proportion of such temporarily invalid data space will be greatly increased; obviously, allocating bitmap information for these invalid data in the memory will Great waste of precious memory resources

[0007] 2) The access efficiency of the bitmap is reduced

Therefore, when only one-level bitmap is used for metadata management, many invalid swap-in and swap-out operations will be done, which greatly reduces access efficiency

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