Namespace hierarchy preservation with multiple object storage objects

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11334540-B2
Application number	US-201615143339-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 29, 2016
Priority date	Sep 25, 2015
Publication date	May 17, 2022
Grant date	May 17, 2022

Abstract

To leverage the attributes of object storage for applications/systems created to interface with a network files system, an object storage backed file system can accept the defined file system commands from the applications/systems and transform the file system commands into requests that target object storage. The file system is “backed” by object storage because attributes and content of file system entities are stored in objects. For instance, content data and metadata of a file are stored in objects in object storage. This object storage backed file system can be considered a bridge between a client perceived hierarchical file system namespace and a flat namespace of an object storage.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
requesting, from an object storage that stores objects that back a file system, a first listing of namespace object keys each of which begins with a first object key by setting a list parameter as a root inode object key, wherein the object storage stores inode metadata of the file system as inode objects and hierarchical namespace encoding of the file system as namespace objects according to a flat namespace;
updating a structure based, at least in part, on the namespace object keys in the first listing, wherein the structure indicates a namespace hierarchy for the file system;
for each of the namespace object keys in the first listing,
retrieving from the object storage a namespace object identified by the first object key;
determining a second object key from the namespace object identified by the first object key;
setting the list parameter to the second object key; and
traversing the namespace hierarchy, including requesting from the object storage a second listing of namespace object keys, wherein each namespace object key in the second listing begins with the second object key;

constructing the namespace hierarchy, including updating the structure based, at least in part, on the namespace object keys in the second listing; and
supplying the structure for presentation of the namespace hierarchy.

2. The method of claim 1 ,
wherein each of the namespace objects in the first listing of namespace object keys comprise a self-identifying object key and an object key that identifies a corresponding second object.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first listing of namespace object keys and the second listing of namespace object keys are listings of different subsets of objects.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the namespace object keys identified by the first listing of namespace object keys comprises a name of a file or file container represented by a first namespace object and an object key of a second namespace object that represents a parent file container of the file or file container represented by the first namespace object.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the namespace objects identified by the first listing of namespace object keys corresponds to an inode object that comprises an inode number of a file or file container represented by the inode object.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the namespace objects identified by the first listing of namespace object keys and a corresponding inode object represent a file or file container of the file system.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the namespace objects identified by the first listing of namespace object keys has a corresponding inode object comprising a self-identifying key and at least an indication of a file or file container.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second object key is determined from the namespace object identified by the first object key through a mapping of an inode number of a file system entity to a parent inode and entity name.

9. One or more non-transitory machine-readable media having program code for an object storage backed file system, the program code comprising instructions to:
request, from an object storage that stores objects that back a file system, a first listing of namespace object keys that each begins with a first object key by setting a list parameter as a root inode object key, wherein the object storage stores inode metadata of the file system as inode objects and hierarchical namespace encoding of the file system as namespace objects according to a flat namespace;
update a structure based, at least in part, on the namespace object keys in the first listing, wherein the structure indicates a namespace hierarchy for the file system;
for each of the namespace object keys in the first listing,
retrieve from the object storage a namespace object identified by the first object key;
determine a second object key from the namespace object identified by the first object key;
set the list parameter to the second object key; and
traverse the namespace hierarchy, including requesting from the object storage a second listing of namespace object keys that each begins with the second object key;

construct the namespace hierarchy, including updating the structure based, at least in part, on the namespace object keys in the second listing; and
supply the structure for presentation of the namespace hierarchy.

10. The non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 9 ,
wherein each of the namespace objects in the first listing of namespace object keys comprise a self-identifying object key and an object key that identifies a corresponding second object.

11. The non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 9 , wherein the first listing of namespace object keys and the second listing of namespace object keys are listings of different subsets of objects.

12. The non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 9 , wherein each of the namespace object keys identified by the first listing of namespace object keys comprises a name of a file or file container represented by a first namespace object and an object key of a second namespace object that represents a parent file container of the file or file container represented by the first namespace object.

13. The non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 9 , wherein each of the namespace objects identified by the first listing of namespace object keys corresponds to an inode object that comprises an inode number of a file or file container represented by the inode object.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 9 , wherein each of the namespace objects identified by the first listing of namespace object keys and a corresponding inode object represent a file or file container of the file system.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 9 , wherein each of the namespace objects identified by the first listing of namespace object keys has a corresponding inode object comprising a self-identifying key and at least an indication of a file or file container.

16. An apparatus comprising:
a processor;
a network interface; and
a machine-readable medium comprising program code executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to,
request, via the network interface from an object storage that stores objects that back a file system, a first listing of namespace object keys that each begins with a first object key by setting a list parameter as a root inode object key, wherein the object storage stores inode metadata of the file system as inode objects and hierarchical namespace encoding of the file system as namespace objects according to a flat namespace;
update a structure based, at least in part, on the namespace object keys in the first listing, wherein the structure indicates a namespace hierarchy for the file system;
for each of the namespace object keys in the first listing,
retrieve from the object storage a namespace object identified by the first object key;
determine a second object key from the namespace object identified by the first object key;
set the list parameter to the second object key; and
traverse the namespace hierarchy, including requesting from the object storage a second listing of namespace object keys that each begins with the second object key;

construct the namespace hierarchy, including updating the structure based, at least in part, on the namespace object keys in the second listing; and
supply the structure for presentation of the namespace hierarchy.

17. The apparatus

Assignees

• Netapp Inc

Inventors

• Yammine Ghassan Abdallah
• Meier Kris Allen
• Preston Jason Dillard
• Beard Derek William

Classifications

• G06F16/192 Primary

  Implementing virtual folder structures · CPC title

• G06F16/22 Primary

  Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures · CPC title

• G06F16/1865

  Transactional file systems · CPC title

• G06F16/164

  File meta data generation · CPC title