Self-organized storage nodes for distributed delivery network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9965369-B2
Application number	US-201514928167-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 30, 2015
Priority date	Apr 28, 2015
Publication date	May 8, 2018
Grant date	May 8, 2018

Abstract

A distributed delivery network for capacity enhancement of a communication link shared by multiple communication devices for network access service. The distributed delivery network may include one or more distributed storage devices, some of which may include at least one rotating disk storage device, a network interface, and one or more environmental sensors. Each distributed storage device may monitor data from the environmental sensor(s) and transition between an active state where messages are stored in or retrieved from the storage device, and a standby state where access is suppressed. The distributed storage devices may self-organize control operations for the distributed delivery network including message storage and retrieval and redundancy of messages, which may be determined by frequency of requests for the messages.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A communications system comprising:
a network gateway device in a mobile environment, wherein the network gateway device communicates messages for a plurality of user devices within the mobile environment via a shared wireless link;
a plurality of distributed storage devices coupled to the network gateway device, wherein at least two of the distributed storage devices of the plurality of distributed storage devices are located at different locations within the mobile environment, a distributed storage device of the plurality of distributed storage devices comprising:
a housing;
a rotating disk storage device within the housing;
a network interface to support communication with the network gateway device;
a sensor to produce a sensor signal indicating a characteristic of an environment external to the housing; and
a control circuit to detect an adverse operating condition for the rotating disk storage device based on the sensor signal, and to transition the distributed storage device from an active state to a standby state upon detection of the adverse operating condition, wherein:
in the active state, the distributed storage device enables access of the rotating disk storage device to store a subset of the messages received via the network interface, to retrieve the stored subset of the messages in response to requests received via the network interface, and to provide a given stored message of the stored subset of the messages for redundancy of storage within other distributed storage devices of the plurality of distributed storage devices based on a frequency of requests for the given stored message; and
in the standby state, the distributed storage device prevents access to the rotating disk storage device,

the control circuit further to determine that the distributed storage device is operating as a leader device for the plurality of distributed storage devices, and to, while the distributed storage device is operating as the leader device:
determine a message redundancy for the given stored message based on comparing the frequency of requests for the given stored message to a threshold; and
forward the given stored message for storing in one or more distributed storage devices of the plurality of distributed storage devices based on the message redundancy.

2. The communications system of claim 1 , wherein, upon transitioning from the active state to the standby state, the distributed storage device transmits an indication that the distributed storage device is unavailable.

3. The communications system of claim 2 , wherein the indication that the distributed storage device is unavailable is broadcast over a storage area network coupled with the network gateway device and the plurality of distributed storage devices.

4. The communications system of claim 1 , wherein the transition of the distributed storage device from the active state to the standby state is performed independently of an operational state of at least one other distributed storage device of the plurality of distributed storage devices.

5. The communications system of claim 1 , wherein, in the standby state, the distributed storage device configures the rotating disk storage device in a protected state.

6. The communications system of claim 5 , wherein the protected state comprises one or more of a parked media state, a deactivated state, or an unpowered state.

7. The communications system of claim 1 , wherein, in the standby state, the control circuit detects a safe operating condition for the rotating disk storage device based on the sensor signal and transitions the distributed storage device from the standby state to the active state upon detection of the safe operating condition.

8. The communications system of claim 1 , the control circuit further to, while the distributed storage device is operating as the leader device:
determine a change for an index of stored messages across the plurality of distributed storage devices; and
broadcast the change for the index to the plurality of distributed storage devices.

9. The communications system of claim 8 , the control circuit further to:
determine that the distributed storage device is no longer operating as the leader device for the plurality of distributed storage devices;
monitor broadcast messages for indications of changes to the index; and
update the index upon based on received indications of changes to the index.

10. The communications system of claim 8 , the control circuit further to, while the distributed storage device is operating as the leader device:
monitor for periodic status messages from the plurality of distributed storage devices;
determine that a second distributed storage device from the plurality of distributed storage devices is unavailable based upon not receiving a periodic status message from the second distributed storage device; and
flag one or more messages stored in the second distributed storage device as unavailable in the index.

11. The communications system of claim 1 , the control circuit further to, while the distributed storage device is operating as the leader device:
receive a request for a first message;
determine that the first message is stored in a first distributed storage device of the plurality of distributed storage devices;
retrieve the first message from the first distributed storage device; and
provide the first message in response to the request.

12. The communications system of claim 1 , the control circuit further to, while the distributed storage device is operating as the leader device:
receive a request for a first message;
determine that the first message is stored in a first distributed storage device of the plurality of distributed storage devices; and
provide a proxy address of the first message at the first distributed storage device in response to the request.

13. The communications system of claim 1 , wherein the control circuit determines that the distributed storage device is operating as the leader device for the plurality of distributed storage devices based on a result of a consensus election.

14. The communications system of claim 1 , the control circuit further to:
receive information related to an impending adverse operating condition for the rotating disk storage device; and
transition the distributed storage device from the active state to the standby state based on the impending adverse operating condition.

15. The communications system of claim 1 , the control circuit further to:
detect a failure of the rotating disk storage device; and
broadcast an indication that the distributed storage device is unavailable based on the detected failure.

16. The communications system of claim 1 , the control circuit further to:
perform a periodic diagnostic scan on the rotating disk storage device.

17. The communications system of claim 16 , the control circuit further to:
determine one or more storage locations of the rotating disk storage device failing the periodic diagnostic scan;
identify one or more messages stored in the one or more storage locations;
broadcast an indication that the one or more messages are unavailable; and
flag the one or more storage locations as unavailable for further use.

18. The communications system of claim 1 , wherein the network interface comprises any of a wired networking interface, a wireless networking interface, or combinations thereof.

19. The communications system of claim 1 , the distributed storage device further comprising:
a fitti

Assignees

• Viasat Inc

Inventors

• Dankberg Mark
• Velayudhan Nirmalkumar
• Righetti Joshua

Classifications

• G06F11/2069

  Management of state, configuration or failover · CPC title

• G06F11/2028

  eliminating a faulty processor or activating a spare · CPC title

• G06F11/3006

  where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems (multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50) · CPC title

• H04L47/746

  Reaction triggered by a failure · CPC title

• G06F11/2023

  Failover techniques · CPC title