Patent ID: 9529912
Filing Date: 2016-12-27
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. A metadata querying method, comprising: classifying the to-be-searched-for metadata into multiple groups; sampling one piece of metadata with a smallest feature value from each group; using at least a part of feature values in each piece of the first metadata obtained after the sampling as an index of each piece of first metadata respectively, and searching a sparse index table preset in a memory for finding container identifiers corresponding to the indices of the plurality of pieces of first metadata; selecting, from the container identifiers corresponding to the indices of the plurality of pieces of first metadata according to the number of times that the container identifiers corresponding to the indices of the plurality of pieces of first metadata are found, a first container identifier that meets a set condition; loading metadata in a container corresponding to the first container identifier into a metadata cache; and searching the metadata cache for a data block that is the same as a data block in the to-be-searched-for metadata wherein the sparse index table records a container identifier, and a location index of said container identifier in the sparse index table is at least a part of feature values of a piece of metadata stored in a container corresponding to the container identifier in the index table; wherein the location index of a container identifier in the index table is obtained by using the following method: sampling second metadata from metadata stored in a container, and at least one of: using a feature value in the second metadata as a location index of a container identifier corresponding to the container from which the second metadata is sampled in the sparse index table; and using a part of feature values of the second metadata as a location index of a container identifier corresponding to the container from which the second metadata is sampled in the sparse index table, wherein the location index is a location of the container identifier corresponding to the container from which the second metadata is sampled; wherein the location index of a container identifier corresponding to the container from which the second metadata is sampled in the sparse index table is determined by a first-level index offset indicating a row index and a second-level index offset indicating a column index; and