POSIX File System Layering for Consistent Cloud Object Storage

The patent introduces a cloud interface appliance as an intermediary layer between the cloud object store and the local file system. This appliance translates file system operations into object storage operations, allowing legacy applications to use traditional file interfaces while accessing cloud storage. The appliance implements a translation layer that converts POSIX-compliant file operations into S3-compatible object operations, thus maintaining interface compatibility while leveraging cloud storage elasticity.

The patent segments storage into two parts: frequently accessed data remains on local storage for fast access, while less frequently accessed data is moved to cloud object storage for scalable capacity. The cloud interface appliance manages this segmentation automatically based on access patterns, ensuring that hot data maintains fast access speeds while cold data utilizes the scalable cloud storage infrastructure.

The cloud interface appliance acts as a security intermediary that implements encryption for data transmitted between the local system and cloud storage. It manages encryption keys locally and ensures that data is encrypted before being uploaded to the cloud and decrypted only when accessed locally, thus maintaining data security while enabling flexible cloud storage access.

Rather than requiring conversion of legacy applications, the patent introduces the cloud interface appliance as an intermediary that handles the translation from traditional file interfaces to object storage interfaces. This approach maintains application simplicity while achieving cloud compatibility, as the complexity of interface translation is encapsulated in the appliance rather than requiring application-level changes.