Rule driven automation of file placement, replication, and migration

Abstract

Techniques and mechanism are provided for deciding which storage device (or devices) a file should be stored on. These determinations can be used to guide either the placement of new files or the replication or migration of existing files to new storage volumes. These determinations may be made on the basis of simple rules, involving a small number of readily ascertainable file attributes.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 702,428, filed Jul. 25, 2005 and entitled “Scalable Clustered Storage System,” and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 702,429, filed Jul. 25, 2005 and entitled “Grid Management System,” the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference for all purposes.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to computer systems, and more specifically to techniques for rule driven automation of placement, migration, and replication in a storage network. [0003] File systems are most commonly stored on random access storage devices (like spinning magnetic disks). Traditionally these disks were directly attached to a single computer, via a disk controller. Many years ago it was the case the files on a disk could only be accessed by programs that were running on the computer to which the disks were attached. [0004] The adv...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0002] Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to computer systems, and more specifically to techniques for rule driven automation of placement, migration, and replication in a storage network.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately it is increasingly common for users or applications to use increasingly many files of increasingly many types.

No one storage volume or set of configuration parameters could possibly be right for all of these files.

System managers have traditionally been forced to select the storage volume and management discipline that was right for the most important files, and accept reduced performance (or price performance) for the rest of the files.

Images