Data Shredding Architecture for Redundant Secure Storage

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional data storage systems lack an integrated approach to achieve high performance, scalability, space-efficiency, security, data integrity, and reliability, often focusing on a single aspect such as data reliability without addressing the broader needs of performance, security, and resource efficiency.

Innovation Solution

A shredding and deshredding system that allocates data into portions, generates redundant parts using redundancy generators, and stores them as shreds, allowing for efficient storage and retrieval by using a deshredder to reconstruct the original data from a smaller number of shreds, while also incorporating encryption, compression, and signature generation for enhanced security and integrity.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If conventional encoding approaches (RAID) are used to ensure data reliability, then data integrity is improved, but overall system performance and resource efficiency deteriorate due to lack of integrated optimization

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata integrityVSAvoidsystem performance

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments data into multiple shreds and distributes them across different storage locations. This segmentation enables parallel processing during both encoding and decoding operations, improving system performance while maintaining data reliability through distributed redundancy.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent creates a universal encoding framework that simultaneously addresses multiple requirements: data reliability through redundancy, security through encryption integration, performance through parallel processing, and space efficiency through optimized shred distribution. This multi-functional approach resolves the contradiction by making the system adaptable to various operational priorities.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Reliability

If more redundant data is generated to improve data reliability, then data recovery capability is improved, but storage space efficiency deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata recovery capabilityVSAvoidstorage space

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements partial redundancy by allowing data recovery from a subset of shreds rather than requiring all shreds. The system generates just enough redundant information to enable recovery from k out of n shreds, avoiding the storage overhead of complete redundancy while maintaining robust data recovery capability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent allows dynamic adjustment of redundancy parameters, enabling the system to optimize the balance between storage space and data recovery capability based on specific requirements. By changing the parameters of the encoding scheme, the system can adapt the amount of redundancy to match available storage resources.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

3Object-affected harmful factors

If data is encrypted to improve security, then unauthorized access protection is improved, but processing overhead increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveunauthorized access protectionVSAvoidprocessing overhead

Core Design Contradiction:

Object-affected harmful factorsVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies encryption to individual shreds rather than the entire data set, enabling parallel encryption and decryption operations. This segmentation reduces processing overhead by allowing multiple encryption operations to occur simultaneously while maintaining strong security protection for the complete data reconstruction.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

4Quantity of substance

If data is compressed to improve space efficiency, then storage capacity is improved, but decompression processing time increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvestorage capacityVSAvoiddecompression processing time

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies compression to individual shreds independently, enabling parallel compression and decompression operations. This segmentation allows the system to achieve space efficiency through compression while minimizing processing time delays by performing compression operations concurrently rather than sequentially.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Data Source

PatentUS7636724B2Data storage system and method by shredding and deshredding

Publication Date: 2009.12.22 PURE STORAGE INC

AI summary

A system and method for data storage by shredding and deshredding of the data allows for various combinations of processing of the data to provide various resultant storage of the data. Data storage and retrieval functions include various combinations of data redundancy generation, data compression and decompression, data encryption and decryption, and data integrity by signature generation and verification. Data shredding is performed by shredders and data deshredding is performed by deshredders that have some implementations that allocate processing internally in the shredder and deshredder either in parallel to multiple processors or sequentially to a single processor. Other implementations use multiple processing through multi-level shredders and deshredders. Redundancy generation includes implementations using non-systematic encoding, systematic encoding, or a hybrid combination. Shredder based tag generators and deshredder based tag readers are used in some implementations to allow the deshredders to adapt to various versions of the shredders.