Patent ID: 7899791
Filing Date: 2011-03-01
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: receiving, by a mirror storage server, ephemeral data from a source storage server wherein the ephemeral data comprises a file system intent record; caching, by the mirror storage server, the ephemeral data in temporary storage in the mirror storage server, the ephemeral data to be stored in a spill file if the mirror storage server performs a cache flush; monitoring a utilization of the temporary storage in the mirror storage server; tracking an age of at least one data block in the temporary storage; transmitting a cache flush hint message from the mirror storage server to a source storage server before performing the cache flush, wherein performing the cache flush comprises separating a plurality of data blocks in a block cache into a plurality of groups, one of the plurality of groups to contain the file system intent record, and writing a group that contains the filesystem intent record to a storage subsystem after writing a group that does not contain the file system intent record, wherein the cache flush hint is transmitted when a utilization of the temporary storage reaches a first predetermined level; waiting for an event to occur after the caching operation, where the event is one of a local cache flush trigger on the mirror storage server and a remote cache flush notification message, the message received from the source storage server; if the event is a local cache flush trigger, storing the ephemeral data in a storage subsystem of the mirror storage server; and if the event is a remote cache flush notification, discarding the ephemeral data.