US Patent 6,321,238: Hybrid shared nothing/shared disk database system (Oracle Corporation)

Title: Hybrid shared nothing/shared disk database system
Patent Number: US Patent 6,321,238
Issued: November 20, 2001
Filed: December 28, 1998
Parent case: n/a
Inventor(s): Putzolu, Gianfranco
Assignee: Oracle Corporation
Referenced at issuance: n/a
Referenced after issuance by these Oracle Corporation patents: US Patent 6,711,571 , US Patent 7,107,270 , US Patent 7,139,772 , US Patent 7,277,897. Also compare to Oracle's US Patent 6,341,340.
Blogger comment: 

There were 12 prior US patents referenced at issuance with none deemed remarkable for the scope and purposes of this blog.

This patent is interesting for its use of the word 'ownership' in its claims. An advanced search at USPTO online on May 9, 2008 of references to this patent using ref/6321238 reveals 9 references. A more refined search reveals no hits.

Abstract:

A database or some portion thereof is partitioned into ownership groups. Each ownership group is assigned one or more database servers as owners of the ownership group. The database servers that are assigned as owners of an ownership group are treated as the owners of all data items that belong to the ownership group. That is, they are allowed to directly access the data items within the ownership group, while other database servers are not allowed to directly access those data items.

Independent claims (as numbered):

1. A database system including:

one or more persistent storage devices having a database stored thereon;

a plurality of database servers executing on a plurality of nodes;

wherein each node of said plurality of nodes has direct access to said one or more persistent storage devices;

wherein at least a portion of said database is partitioned into a plurality of ownership groups;

wherein each ownership group of said plurality of ownership groups is assigned an owner set;

wherein only processes that are executing on database servers that are members of the owner set of an ownership group are allowed to directly access data within said ownership group.

10. A method for managing access to a database stored on one or more persistent storage devices that are directly accessible to a plurality of database servers executing on a plurality of nodes, the method including the steps of:

partitioning at least a portion of said database into a plurality of ownership groups;

assigning an owner set to each ownership group of said plurality of ownership groups; and

allowing only processes executing in database servers that belong to the owner set of each ownership group to directly access data within said ownership group.

19. A computer readable medium carrying instructions for managing access to a database stored on one or more persistent storage devices that are directly accessible to a plurality of database servers executing on a plurality of nodes, the instructions including instructions for performing the steps of:

partitioning at least a portion of said database into a plurality of ownership groups;

assigning an owner set to each ownership group of said plurality of ownership groups; and

allowing only processes executing in database servers that belong to the owner set of each ownership group to directly access data within said ownership group.