Patent ID: 8341363
Filing Date: 2012-12-25
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: receiving a request from a client to update data on a cloud network attached (NAS) device, wherein the cloud NAS device is part of a federation of two or more cloud NAS devices, wherein the federation of cloud NAS devices further comprises one or more cloud provider storage devices that store data for the cloud NAS devices; creating on the cloud NAS device snapshots of data and metadata associated with the updated data, the snapshot of the data being separate from the snapshot of the associated metadata; propagating the snapshot of metadata to all other devices in the federation wherein periodic exchanges of snapshots of metadata ensure that each device in the federation stores metadata for all of the data stored in the federation; determining based on an accessibility metric whether to maintain the updated data in the cloud NAS device; and determining based on the accessibility metric whether to transfer the snapshot of data to at least one of the additional cloud NAS devices and the one or more cloud provider storage devices.