Method and Apparatus to Share a Single Storage Drive Across a Large Number of Unique Systems When Data is Highly Redundant

摘要

A boot appliance for writing data to a particular host system's boot image and returning boot image data to a particular host system of a plurality of host systems. The boot appliance includes at least one storage medium, wherein the at least one storage medium is configured to store a base boot image and a plurality of variance boot images. The boot appliance further includes a buffer. The base boot appliance also includes a computer readable medium embodying computer code configured to cause the boot appliance to perform a method for writing data to a particular host system's boot image and for returning boot image data to a particular host system of a plurality of host systems.

主权项

1. A method for writing data to a particular host system's boot image, wherein the particular host system's boot image is based upon a base boot image and a particular variance boot image of a plurality of variance boot images, the particular variance boot image being associated with the particular host system, the method comprising:
receiving write data for the particular host system's boot image, wherein the received write data is associated with a location of the particular host system's boot image; reading data from the base boot image, wherein a location of the data read from the base boot image corresponds to the location associated with the received write data for the particular host system's boot image; comparing the received write data to the data read from the base boot image; determining whether a portion of the received write data is different from the data read from the base boot image; and writing the portion of the received write data in the particular variance boot image upon a determination that the portion of the received write data is different from the base boot image.