Prior art needed for only three claims (Score 1)

If the community will focus on only three claims in the S3 pending patent, prior art references can certainly be located. Why only three claims our of 75 you ask? Good question. Patents are structured in a hierarchy where there are root nodes (independent claims) and leave nodes (dependent claims). All you need to really do is focus on the root nodes (independent claims) and if you can refute those, you no longer have to worry about the independent (leaf node) claims.

The claims to look at are: 1, 28 and 55 which I have included here for reference.

1. A system, comprising: a plurality of computing nodes configured to implement: a web services interface configured to receive, according to a web services protocol, client requests for access to data objects, wherein a given one of said client requests for access to a given one of said data objects includes a key value corresponding to said given data object; a plurality of storage nodes configured to store replicas of said data objects, wherein each of said replicas is accessible via a respective locator value, and wherein each of said locator values is unique within said system; a keymap instance configured to store a respective keymap entry for each of said data objects, wherein for said given data object, said respective keymap entry includes said key value and each locator value corresponding to each stored replica of said given data object; and a coordinator configured to receive said client requests for access to said data objects from said web services interface, wherein in response to said given client request, said coordinator is configured to access said keymap instance to identify one or more locator values corresponding to said key value and, for a particular one of said one or more locator values, to access a corresponding storage node to retrieve a corresponding replica.

28. A method, comprising: receiving client requests for access to data objects via a web services interface according to a web services protocol, wherein a given one of said client requests for access to a given one of said data objects includes a key value corresponding to said given data object; storing replicas of said data objects on a plurality of storage nodes, wherein each of said replicas is accessible via a respective locator value, and wherein each of said locator values is unique within said system; storing a respective keymap entry for each of said data objects, wherein for said given data object, said respective keymap entry includes said client-specified key value and each locator value corresponding to each stored replica of said given data object; and in response to receiving said given client request, accessing said respective keymap entries to identify one or more locator values corresponding to said key value and, for a particular one of said one or more locator values, accessing a corresponding storage node and retrieving a corresponding replica.

55. A computer-accessible medium comprising instructions, wherein the instructions are executable to: process client requests for access to data objects, wherein said client requests for access to said data objects are received via a web services interface according to a web services protocol, and wherein a given one of said client requests for access to a given one of said data objects includes a key value corresponding to said given data object; instruct that replicas of said data objects be stored on a plurality of storage nodes, wherein each of said replicas is accessible via a respective locator value, and wherein each of said locator values is unique within said system; and instruct that a respective keymap entry for each of said data objects be stored, wherein for said given data object, said respective keymap entry includes said client-specified key value and each locator value corresponding to each stored replica of said given data object; wherein processing said given client request includes accessing said respective keymap entries to identify one or more locator values corresponding to said key value and, for a particular one of said one or more locator values, accessing a corresponding storage node and retrieving a corresponding replica.

Rough interpretation:

1. This claim is about the data architecture, not about its necessary operation. Files are stored. Meta data for each file stored exists. The meta data consists of two parts. Part 1 is the name of the file or an equivalent identifier. Part 2 is an on-disk or in-storage-network identifier that is unique across the storage infrastructure. There exists a one to many relationship between part 1 and parts 2 so that any given file name has one or more in-storage-network identifiers.

28. This is a "how to" or method claim that describes how the system works based on underlying data. Really simple: When you ask for a file, the database containing meta data can return one or more pointers to copies of the file within the storage network. That is, you ask for the "filename" and get back pointers to one or more replica's of the "filename".

55. This claim is about data (instructions) that tell the System what to do. Instructions include: a key value (filename), command to replicate data objects, updates to meta data to connect replica id's with key value, retrieve the storage id or instructions, fetch the data using the storage id or instructions.

I encourage more critical reading and interpretation than implied here. At first blush, the Google File System does this as did many other Internet companies that didn't standardize storage on single large RAID boxes.