Dot Hill bolsters technology portfolio

LONGMONT — Dot Hill Systems Corp.’s two latest patents may give the Longmont-based data-storage firm a leg up on the competition.

One of the patents improves reliability and usability for storage controllers and data-storage systems, the company claims. Storage controllers contain the control logic that performs commands for overall management of device operations.

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The second patent granted covers technology that helps improve the overall management experience for storage administrators, by reducing repetitive extraneous information relayed by storage system controllers, improving available network bandwidth and reducing clutter at the user interface.

The company now has 67 patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

“To meet the needs of today’s ?always on’ business world, data storage has changed radically; technology innovation is essential to driving greater levels of functionality, ease of use, capacity and throughput,” said Jim Kuenzel, senior vice president of engineering at Dot Hill “These new patents are further testament to Dot Hill’s technology innovation and to the depth and breadth of our technical talent, which is unmatched across the storage industry.”

The first of the two most recently granted patents provides a method for managing storage controller code, where two different versions of code are stored in storage controller memory. The code identifiers designate which of the two code versions is to be a primary version, which the storage controller will initially attempt to boot.

If any problems are encountered in booting or operating with the primary version of code, the controller first stops execution of the failing code, second, switches to the other version of storage controller code, and third, initiates a boot sequence from the other version of code.

This invention is helpful for allowing a controller to successfully boot if a version of code is either corrupted or has other problems. A test or experimental version of code can be loaded into a storage controller. If the test or experimental version of code cannot boot, the controller will automatically select an older stable version of code and successfully boot.

The second patent provides a method for notifying a user of events involving the data-storage system. Storage controllers in the data-storage system maintain subscription statistics for each user of the data storage system, where the subscription statistics describe which informational, error and other events the user wishes to be notified of. The data-storage system also keeps track of which events have already been reported to a requesting user, so that the same events are not reported to the same user multiple times.

Russell Index

In late June, Dot Hill was added to the Russell Microcap Index.

Membership in the index, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the appropriate growth and value style indexes. Russell determines membership for its equity indexes primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes.

“Our inclusion in the Russell Microcap Index is an important achievement for us, and we recognize that it significantly increases our visibility within the investment community,” said Dana Kammersgard, president and chief executive officer of Dot Hill Systems.

Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies. An industry-leading $3.9 trillion in assets currently are benchmarked to them.

Dot Hill’s market capitalization is $58.5 million.