SHORTCUT INPUT/OUTPUT IN VIRTUAL MACHINE SYSTEMS

Decentralized deduplication operations in a computer system employ a hash index that is a variant of a B+ tree to support both efficient sequential updates as well as efficient random updates. Sequential update is selected when deduplication is infrequently performed, such as on the order of days, and random update is selected when deduplication is performed more frequently, such as on the order of seconds. More frequent deduplication may be beneficial during periods when large amounts of temporary duplicate data are created, and the system may not have enough storage space to accommodate the temporary spike in demand.