Coupling a user file name with a physical data file stored in a storage delivery network

Abstract

A method of coupling a user file name to a physical data file stored within a storage delivery network, includes: assigning a logical file identification value (LFID) to a data file stored in one or more storage nodes and storing the LFID in a computer readable memory; storing in the computer readable memory a node identification value (Node ID) indicative of where the data file is stored among a plurality of geographically distributed storage nodes and associating the Node ID with the LFID; and storing in the computer readable memory a file name for the data file created by a user and associating the file name with the LFID, wherein the LFID correlates the file name with the Node ID transparently to the user and allows the user to access the data file using just the file name.

1 . A method of coupling a user file name to a physical data file stored within a storage delivery network, comprising:
 assigning a logical file identification value (LFID) to a data file stored in one or more storage nodes and storing the LFID in a computer readable memory;   storing in the computer readable memory a node identification value (Node ID) indicative of where the data file is stored among a plurality of geographically distributed storage nodes located in a wide area network and associating the Node ID with the LFID; and   storing in the computer readable memory a file name for the data file created by a user and associating the file name with the LFID, wherein the LFID correlates the file name with the Node ID transparently to the user and allows the user to access the data file using just the file name, wherein multiple file names created by multiple users are associated with the LFID thereby providing de-duplication of the data file stored among the plurality of geographically distributed storage nodes.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising calculating a unique media key for the data file and associating the media key with the LFID, wherein the media key is used to determine whether multiple users have uploaded identical data files that can be de-duplicated. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2  further comprising:
 storing in the computer readable memory an unaltered version of metadata contained in the data file in the computer readable memory and associating the metadata with the LFID; 
 storing in the computer readable memory an altered version of the metadata customized by a user and associating the metadata with the LFID, wherein for purposes of de-duplication only the unaltered version of the metadata is used to calculate the media key. 
 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3  wherein the altered metadata is associated with only one file name created by the user who customized the original metadata. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the file name comprises a virtual file path name representative of a hierarchical folder and file tree structure associated with the user.