{
  "patent_number": "US 9760393",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How Virtual Machines Keep Their Data Separate on Shared Storage",
  "original_title": "Storage architecture for virtual machines",
  "summary": "A method for virtual machines to store data in isolated, non-mixed logical storage units to improve security and management efficiency within a shared physical storage pool.",
  "what_it_does": "This patent describes a way to organize how virtual machines (VMs) talk to physical hard drives. Instead of letting multiple VMs dump their data into the same shared storage bucket, the system creates 'logical units'—essentially private lanes for each VM's virtual disk. A specialized 'virtualized disk I/O handler' sits between the VM and the storage. When a VM wants to read or write data, this handler intercepts the request, checks if it has permission, and maps the request specifically to the correct, isolated logical unit. This prevents data from different VMs from being commingled, which makes it easier to take snapshots or move individual VMs without affecting others.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover storage architectures where data from multiple virtual machines is intentionally stored on the same logical unit.",
    "Does not cover physical storage management that lacks a virtualized disk I/O handler for request interception.",
    "Does not cover non-virtualized computing environments where direct hardware access is not mediated by a hypervisor.",
    "Does not cover storage systems that do not utilize a storage pool abstraction layer."
  ],
  "filed": "2015-11-10",
  "granted": "2017-09-12",
  "expires": null,
  "status": "active",
  "holder": "VMware LLC",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/vmware-llc",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Rene W. Schmidt",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/rene-w-schmidt"
    },
    {
      "name": "Daniel K. Hiltgen",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/daniel-k-hiltgen"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 12,
  "tags": [
    "software",
    "telecommunications",
    "ai_ml"
  ],
  "abstract": "Some embodiments of the present invention include a method comprising: accessing units of network storage that encode state data of respective virtual machines, wherein the state data for respective ones of the virtual machines are stored in distinct ones of the network storage units such that the state data for more than one virtual machine are not commingled in any one of the network storage units.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/9760393/azure-machine-learning",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/9760393/azure-machine-learning/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US9760393",
  "relatedPatents": []
}