Kansas, Massachusetts Inventors Develop Data Services Virtualization System

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 9 -- Rodney A. Dekoning and David A. Kopper, both of Wichita, Kan., Joseph Blount of El Dorado, Kan., Ronald D. Proulx of Burlington, Mass., and Mark S. Vetter of Holden, Mass., have developed a method for providing data services.

According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method, and associated system, for delivering data services such as virtualization to legacy devices. The method involves reserving a metadata region in memory of a storage resource in a storage pool that is controlled by (or is captive to) a data services platform. The metadata region includes a global set containing information used by the data services platform to manage the data services, including virtualization of volumes throughout the storage pool. The method includes locating an available legacy storage device and retrieving element information for the legacy storage device."

An abstract of the invention, released by the Patent Office, said: "A volume or virtualized legacy volume is built based on the collected element information, and the global set in the metadata region is update to include volume information for the legacy storage device. The legacy storage device includes memory that stores legacy or user data, but the steps of the method are performed to leave the legacy data unchanged."

The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 7,363,457 on April 22.

The patent has been assigned to Sun Microsystems Inc., Santa Clara, Calif.

The original application was filed on July 21, 2005, and is available at: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,363,457.PN.&OS=PN/7,363,457&RS=PN/7,363,457.

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