Nutanix, Inc.
USER-DEFINED ANALYSIS OF DISTRIBUTED METADATA

Abstract:

Systems for ad-hoc analysis of metadata in distributed data storage systems. A distributed storage system comprises computing nodes and a storage pool that is accessible by computing nodes. The storage pool comprises stored information and respective metadata that describes the stored information. Instances of a metadata search engine are installed on the computing nodes such that the metadata search engines have access to both local data stored in the storage pool as well as to networked storage in the storage pool. A user defines metadata management application extensions for extending the metadata search engine using computer programming languages. When executed by the metadata search engine, the extensions perform user-defined functions. A metadata analysis command is associated with the user-defined function and the metadata analysis command is launched from within the metadata search engine to perform the user-defined function over metadata stored in the system. Some user-defined commands include map-reduce implementations.