Preemptive extraction of data from long latency storage in a cloud computing environment

Abstract

A resource utilization mechanism (RUM) preemptively extracts data from long latency storage in a cloud computing environment to economically and quickly provide data that is infrequently accessed by customers. The RUM identifies periods of low resource utilization where capacity can be efficiently utilized, identifies data to be retrieved, and retrieves the data from long latency storage to make it available to the customer. The RUM may notify a customer that the data is available and allow the customer to accept terms of use for the data or opt out of using the data.

1 . An apparatus comprising:
 a long latency storage and low latency storage for storing customer data;   at least one processor;   a memory coupled to the at least one processor; and   a resource utilization mechanism (RUM) residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor, wherein the RUM preemptively extracts data from long latency storage and places the preemptively extracted data in low latency storage to provide infrequently accessed data to a customer application before it is requested by the customer application.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the low utilization of cloud resources includes central processor utilization, disk utilization and network utilization. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the RUM identifies periods of low utilization of cloud resources where excess capacity can be efficiently utilized, identifies data to be preemptively retrieved, and retrieves the data from long latency storage and makes it available to the customer application. 
     
     
         4 . The apparatus of  claim 3  wherein the RUM further identifies periods of low utilization by tracking and recording resource usage; analyzing resource usage; and predicting periods of low utilization of resources. 
     
     
         5 . The apparatus of  claim 3  wherein identifying data to be preemptively retrieved further comprises considering data requests from the customer application for future needs. 
     
     
         6 . The apparatus of  claim 3  wherein the RUM receives a data pre-order message from a customer application. 
     
     
         7 . The apparatus of  claim 6  wherein the data pre-order message is manually provided by a user of the customer application. 
     
     
         8 . The apparatus of  claim 3  wherein identifying data to be preemptively retrieved further comprises analyzing access patterns to long latency data by the customer application. 
     
     
         9 . The apparatus of  claim 3  wherein making the long latency data available to the customer application further comprises notifying the customer application of availability of the data, giving the customer application terms of access to the data and allowing a user of the customer application to accept the terms or opt out of using the data.