Robin.io Granted Nine New Patents in Network Service Pipeline Deployment and Cloud-Native Storage Management

Robin.io received nine new patent awards from the U.S Patent and Trademark Office during the first nine months of 2021. The patent awards boost the company’s IP portfolio in three technologies central to the management and orchestration of 5G and enterprise cloud-native applications with Kubernetes. The new patents bring the company’s IP portfolio to a total of 75 across its product portfolios, which include Robin Cloud Native Platform (CNP), Robin Cloud Native Storage (CNS), Robin Multi-Datacenter Automation Platform (MDCAP).

Management of Data-intensive Stateful Applications

Orchestration of heterogeneous multi-role applications (#11086725) A multi-role application may be orchestrated using multiple orchestration approaches and objects of the multi-role application may be discovered and added to an application definition. The application definition may be used to create snapshots of the application and the snapshot may be used to rollback, clone, backup or migrate the application. Clone snapshots of storage volumes may be gradually populated with data from prior snapshots to reduce loading on a primary snapshot. Rolling back kubernetes applications (#11113158). All the Kubernetes objects of a multi-role application are discovered and added to an application definition. The application definition is used to create snapshots of the application and perform operations using the snapshots. Rolling back the application to a snapshot involves deleting objects other than PVCs, followed by rolling back storage volumes mounted to the PVCs, followed by recreating objects according to the application snapshot.

Reducing READ loads on cloned snapshots (#11099937) Clones of storage volumes may be gradually populated with data from prior snapshots to reduce read traffic on the primary snapshot.

Automated management of bundled applications (#11036439) Chaos testing of bundled applications may be performed and storage volumes may be created, expanded, and/or moved based on usage of the bundled application.

Automated management of bundled applications (#10908848) Clones snapshots of storage volumes may be gradually populated with data from prior snapshots to reduce loading on a primary snapshot. Chaos testing of the bundled application may be performed and storage volumes may be created, expanded, and/or moved based on usage of the bundled application. 

Redo log for append only storage scheme (#11023328) Data is written in segments and Metadata is stored in the segments indicating LBAs of data stored therein and offsets within the segments at which data for LBAs are stored. For write requests, index entries are stored in an index buffer for a segment and written to the segment when the buffer is full. A redo entry is created in a redo buffer for multiple storage volumes and slices for each write request. Write requests are acknowledged when the redo buffer is written to redo segments on a storage device. On restart, index buffers are reconstructed from the redo segments if needed. 

Block map cache (#10976938) A block map records segments where current data for an LBA of a slice of a storage volume is stored. Block maps may be written to a storage device in order to free memory. Block maps may be read back into memory when needed. Writing and reading of block maps may be performed upon fragments of block maps. 

Implementing secure communication in a distributed computing system (#10896102)  This patent deals with automated securing of multi-role applications with Kerberos and SSL. The application might get rolled back or cloned and the newly recovered/created application should also have a secure communication setup. This also involves management of the secure communication when new roles/new containers are added as part of scale out/upgrade. In case the storage volumes are lost due to hardware failure, this patent lists the method to recover and re-establish the secure communication.

Automation of Network Service Pipeline Deployment

The ninth patent deals with health monitoring of automatically deployed and managed network pipelines (#11108638). Deployment of a network service pipeline may be automated by defining workflows comprising functions of instances of elements. Workflows may be defined in a graphical user interface including menus for the selection of elements, functions, and predefined workflows. A workflow may be dynamic such that addition or modification of a function invokes a trigger that automatically populates or modifies parameters of the functions of the workflow.

“While working remotely and under challenging conditions brought on by the pandemic, our engineering team kept up the pace of innovation at Robin,” said Partha Seetala, founder and CEO of Robin.io. “With 75 patents in our IP portfolio, we are in an ideal position to give enterprises and telcos the products and services they need in order to reliably and consistently deploy and manage cloud-native applications at global scale.”

Members of the Robin.io engineering team named as inventors on these patents include:

• Ravi Kumar Alluboyina
• Sree Nandan Atur
• Abir Bhattacharyya
• Tushar Doshi
• Manjunath Mageswaran
• Ashok Mishra
• Jagadish Kumar Mukku
• Ripulkumar Hemantbhai Patel
• Partha Sarathi Seetala
• Kapil Upadhayay
• Dhanashankar Venkatesan
• Pragash Vijayaragavan
• Shravan Kumar Vallala