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Storage system

a storage system and storage technology, applied in the field of storage systems, can solve the problems of inability to fully provide long-term management for a large amount of information, which increases more and more, and achieves the effect of capacity scalability

Inactive Publication Date: 2005-09-01
MATSUNAMI NAOTO +2
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention provides a storage system that can manage a large amount of file information over a long term by controlling input / output to / from an external storage system. The storage system can build a file system over a storage area locally provided thereby and a storage area provided by the external storage system. The storage system can also build NAS with capacity scalability. The technical effect of the invention is to provide a storage system with capacity scalability that can manage a large amount of file information over a long term."

Problems solved by technology

The conventional hierarchical storage technique, however, has a problem in that the capacity scalability is limited by the number of magnetic disk drives and the number of magnetic tape drives which can be connected to the computer, thereby failing to fully provide long-term management for a large amount of information which increases more and more over time.

Method used

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first embodiment

[0026] To begin with, a first embodiment will be described.

(1) Exemplary System Configuration

[0027]FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary computing system in the first embodiment. In the following description, “x” represents an arbitrary integer.

[0028] A storage 1 represents a disk array system which has a disk controller 11 (hereinafter called the “DKC 11”); a plurality of magnetic disk drives 17xx (hereinafter called the “disks 17xx”); and a management device 18. Assume in the first embodiment that each disk 17xx is an FC (Fibre Channel) disk which includes a Fibre Channel interface.

[0029] Next, the configuration of the DKC 11 in the storage 1 will be described for purposes of illustration. The DKC 11 comprises one or a plurality of NAS channel adaptors 110x (hereinafter called the “CHN 110x”); one or a plurality of heterogeneous storage connection adaptors 111x (hereinafter called the “CHD 111x”); a plurality of disk adaptors 12x (hereinafter called the “DKA 12x”); a shared memory 1...

second embodiment

[0114] In this way, in the second embodiment, a file system PFSx created on a logical device PLDEVx within the storage 1 is combined with a file system SFSx created on a logical device SLDEVx defined in the heterogeneous storage 500 to build a file system PFSX which comprises a single directory tree that has a capacity too large to be built only with the internal disk capacity. With this configuration, the host can use a large scaled file system with a transparent single view without being conscious of whether a file system resides in the storage 1 or in the heterogeneous storage 500.

[0115] Also, the host 0(400) specifies a file system name PFS0 and a file name when it issues an access request for a file stored in the PFS0 or in the SFS0 mounted in the PFS0. Upon receipt of the access request from the host 0(400), the CHN0 confirms whether an associated file is stored in the PFS0 or SFS0, and subsequently accesses data in the file stored in the heterogeneous storage system in a simi...

third embodiment

[0116] Next, a third embodiment will be described.

[0117]FIG. 14 illustrates a second exemplary application of the first embodiment. While FIG. 14 is basically the same as FIG. 13, an increased number of PLDEV's and SLDEV's are provided in the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 14.

[0118] Assuming that the operation of data started in January 2003, PLDEV0, PLDEV1 have been initially established in the storage 1, and file systems PFS0, PFS1 have been created on the respective logical devices. The PFS0 is defined as a home file system, and the PFS1 is mounted at a mount point m1 to create a single view file system PFS0, thereby providing the host 0(400) with a file service.

[0119]FIG. 15A shows an exemplary state of the volume management table 131 at the time of January 2003. In the volume management table 131, “LV” indicates a logical volume recognized by the CHN0. “LUN” indicates the number of a LU recognized by the CHN0. “Storage” indicates a storage which stores the LU, where STR0 repr...

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Abstract

While a large amount of files can be intensively managed, the capacity scalability is limited by the number of magnetic disk drives and the number of magnetic tape drives which can be connected to a system, thereby failing to provide satisfactory long-term management for a large amount of information which increases more and more over time. A storage system of the present invention is designed for connection with a heterogeneous storage which can be controlled by the storage system, and creates file systems in a storage area reserved within the storage system and in a storage area provided by the heterogeneous storage.

Description

[0001] The present application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10 / 822,700, filed Apr. 13, 2004, and claims priority from Japanese application JP2004-037596 filed on Feb. 16, 2004, the content of which are incorporated by reference into this application.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to a storage system for use by a computing system. [0003] JP-A-9-297699 (pages 3-4 and FIG. 1) discloses a system referred to as a hierarchical storage system which comprises a computer, and a high speed storage and a low speed storage connected to the computer. In JP-A-9-297699 (pages 3-4 and FIG. 1), more frequently used files are stored in a high speed storage such as a magnetic disk drive, while less frequently used files are stored in an inexpensive low speed storage such as a tape drive. Then, a table is used to manage the access frequency for each file, and is referenced to determine which file is allocated to or stored in which storage. SUMMARY OF THE I...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): G06F3/06G06F7/00G06F12/00G06F12/08G06F13/10G11B31/00
CPCG06F3/0607G06F3/0685G06F3/0631G06F12/08G11B31/00
Inventor MATSUNAMI, NAOTOSONODA, KOJIYAMAMOTO, AKIRA
Owner MATSUNAMI NAOTO