Centralized Content Addressed Storage via Virtualization
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current data storage and backup solutions face challenges in providing cost-effective and efficient archiving and portability of data, particularly in maintaining centralized backup indices and managing redundant data, while also ensuring high data integrity and efficient resource utilization.
Innovation Solution
A centralized Content Addressed Storage (CAS) system is implemented using a virtualization layer to separate the CAS application from hardware devices, allowing for efficient data storage and retrieval by assigning unique identifiers to data objects, thereby reducing redundant storage and improving data integrity and resource management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If distributed or networked storage systems are used for CAS, then data storage efficiency is improved, but system complexity and difficulty of management increase
Solution Approach 1:
A centralized index server is introduced as an intermediary component that manages the CAS system centrally. The index server stores metadata about data objects and their locations, allowing distributed storage nodes to operate under centralized coordination. This reduces system complexity by centralizing management functions while maintaining the efficiency benefits of distributed storage.
2Reliability
If complete copies of data sets are stored, then data availability is improved, but storage volume and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of storing complete copies of data sets, the system stores only unique data objects with their content hashes. The CAS system uses content-addressable storage where data is retrieved based on its hash value rather than maintaining multiple full copies. This dramatically reduces storage volume while ensuring data availability through the uniqueness guarantee of content-based addressing.
3Reliability
If CAS programming interface is used in distributed systems, then data protection capability is improved, but ease of operation decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The CAS system implements a universal content-addressable storage interface that can be used across different distributed systems and applications. The standardized API allows various data protection scenarios (backup, archiving, deduplication) to be handled through a common interface, simplifying operations while maintaining robust data protection capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
A centralized content addressed storage (CAS) application and a method for providing data protection are implemented by running a CAS application on a virtualization layer of a computer platform. The virtualization layer presents to the CAS application a normalized representation of a hardware subsystem of the computer platform, shielding the CAS application from actual hardware devices of the computer platform. A storage device of the computer platform is used to store a raw data set and the CAS application generates a backup data set of the raw data set. The CAS application stores the backup data set to an archive mechanism of the computer platform and can also restore and recover the raw data set in the event it is lost, corrupted or otherwise destroyed. Multiple CAS applications can be operated separately or together and they may be the same or differ.