Patent ID: 11921714
Assignee: DELL PRODUCTS L.P.
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 19:
20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:
the storage control system is configured to concurrently perform the merging process and the tree construction process as part of a background process;
the storage control system is configured to update the storage metadata structure to comprise the first tree data structure, and the third tree data structure in place of the second tree data structure, in response to completion of the background process;
the storage control system is configured to persist a state of the background process at points in time during operation of the background process;
wherein in persisting the state of the background process, the storage control system is configured to:
utilize a plurality of pointers that point to locations in the leaf levels of the first and second tree data structure, wherein the plurality of pointers are configured to provide an indication, at a given point in time, of which metadata entries in the leaf levels of the first and second tree data structures have not been added to the leaf level of the third tree data structure; and
persist an intermediate structure of the third tree data structure.