86 results about "Logical volume management" patented technology

A method and apparatus for ensuring valid journaled file system metadata during a backup operation are provided. With the method and apparatus, mechanisms are provided for suspending write I / O operations to storage devices during a point-in-time backup operation. Once the point-in-time backup operation is completed, the suspended write I / O operations are released and may then be processed by the storage system. In one exemplary embodiment, when a point-in-time operation is initiated, a point-in-time backup flag is set in a logical volume manager. In response to receiving a write I / O operation, the logical volume manager checks the status of the point-in-time backup flag to determine if a point-in-time backup operation is currently being performed. If the flag is not set, then the write I / O operation is logged and performed in a normal manner. If the flag is set, then the write I / O operation is stored in a hold queue of the logical volume manager. The write I / O is not permitted to be sent to the storage system while stored in the hold queue. When the point-in-time backup operation is completed, the suspended write I / O operations in the hold queue are permitted to be sent to the storage system and the metadata for the file system is updated to reflect the committing of the write I / O operations.

There is provided a logical volume management method for storage system. When a logical volume is created on a flash memory drive, a management computer allocates logical volume while flash memory chip border of flash memory drive is taken into account. Specifically, a table for managing a correlation between each parity group and the flash memory chip of the flash memory drive is obtained and the logical volume is allocated in such a manner that a flash memory chip is not shared by a plurality of logical volumes. When complete erasing of logical volume data is performed, the management computer specifies a flash memory chip on which complete data erasing is to be performed, and the storage system completely erases data exclusively on the chip of interest with a use of a function of completely erasing data at a time by chip unit of the flash memory chip (chip erasing).

Provided is an information system including a server apparatus having a virtualization control unit which implements a virtual machine, and a storage apparatus having a virtual logical volume management unit which provides a virtual logical volume (VLU) configured by using a real logical volume (RLU). In the system, the VLU is allocated to each of the virtual machines implemented in the same server apparatus, the RLUs configuring the VLU for each virtual machine differ depending on the virtual machine, an identifier of the virtual machine is added to an I / O request of the virtual machine, the I / O request with the identifier is transmitted to the storage apparatus, and the RLU as a target in the I / O request is identified based on the identifier by the storage apparatus.

A system and method for Write Once, Read Many (WORM) compliant storage is disclosed. A storage administrator in user space is employed as an interface between the kernel space WORM VFS and the user applications. The storage administrator accesses the WORM VFS through the operating system's Virtual File System. The WORM VFS comprises of three layers: a data encryption\compression layer, the WORM filesystem layer and a logical volume manager. The data encryption\compression layer preprocesses the data as it moves between from the user space and the WORM filesystem layer. The WORM filesystem layer stores the compressed and encrypted data on the physical disk drives in a specialized disk format. The logical volume manager manages the physical disk drives. A NVRAM journal aids in crash recovery.

There is provided a logical volume management method for storage system. When a logical volume is created on a flash memory drive, a management computer allocates logical volume while flash memory chip border of flash memory drive is taken into account. Specifically, a table for managing a correlation between each parity group and the flash memory chip of the flash memory drive is obtained and the logical volume is allocated in such a manner that a flash memory chip is not shared by a plurality of logical volumes. When complete erasing of logical volume data is performed, the management computer specifies a flash memory chip on which complete data erasing is to be performed, and the storage system completely erases data exclusively on the chip of interest with a use of a function of completely erasing data at a time by chip unit of the flash memory chip (chip erasing).

A data I / O system comprises a plurality of storage devices and a controller which controls the storage devices. In the data I / O system, the controller further includes a read / write unit, responsive to the subsequent receipt of a read request and a write request, for reading data stored in the storage devices and writing data in the storage devices, a logical volume management unit for mapping between a logical image of the data storage of a host processor (logical volume) and an actual space in the storage devices, a volume management unit for managing an active primary production volume (P-VOL) and second multiple mirror volumes (S-VOL) created as mirror images of the primary volume, and an S-VOL restoring unit for restoring the data of a first S-VOL with the data of a second S-VOL depending on the type of an error that happens in the first S-VOL.

The invention discloses a logical volume management method applied for a hierarchical memory system. A volume group bit chart is arranged, and the bits of the volume group bit chart correspond to the physical zones of a physical volume one to one; and the bits in the volume group bit chart indicate whether the corresponding physical zone is occupied or not. The method comprises the following steps: A. initializing a mapping array, wherein each element in the mapping array corresponds to one bit in the volume group bit chart, and the element value shows the position of the corresponding bit in the volume group bit chart; B. seeking a bit set to be invalid in the volume group bit chart and setting the value of the bit to be valid; C. recording the position of the sought bit in the volume group bit chart into the element corresponding to the mapping array of the logical volume; and D. creating a new logical volume which is mapped to the physical zone corresponding to the sought bit. The invention also discloses a memory system adopting the logical volume management method. With the scheme, the invention does not need to distribute a large number of physical zones in initialization, achieves the dynamic use of the physical zones, and greatly saves the memory resources.

Errors arising in logical volume partitions are detected and corrected automatically well before the errors cause a failure to access data. A database is created of configuration information about the logical volume partitions defined in physical volume headers, and the database is stored in storage separate from the headers. Thereafter the errors are detected by capturing configuration information about the logical volume partitions from the headers, and comparing the captured configuration information to the configuration information in the database. The errors are automatically corrected in the corrupt headers. If requested, a report is generated of the volumes and disk partitions that are inaccessible or missing or have the wrong size. The configuration check is performed periodically as a background task and during a re-boot after a system crash or interruption of a configuration process or when invoked prior to a recovery install or database restore.

A snapshot expansion system and a method, applicable to a logical volume manager, are provided. A snapshot space is allocated in a volume group space of a logical volume (LV) to create a snapshot. When a data write request is sent to the LV, the total capacity of the snapshot is compared with the current stored data volume of the snapshot space, thereby obtaining a difference representing the size of the remaining capacity of the snapshot space. Then, whether the difference is smaller than a preset value is detected. When the difference is smaller than the preset value, a capacity space is measured off in the volume group space to expand the capacity of the snapshot space through a standard expansion algorithm. The snapshot expansion system and method are capable of ensuring sufficient snapshot space to accommodate backup data, thereby ensuring availability of the snapshot.

Exemplary embodiments of the invention provide logical volume management for a storage subsystem in a virtual machine environment. In one embodiment, a storage system comprises a storage subsystem including a processor, a memory, one or more virtual disks, and one or more logical disks each corresponding to a physical storage area in the storage subsystem; and a host computer connected with the storage subsystem via a network, the host computer including a plurality of virtual machines running thereon, the virtual machines each being connected to at least one of the virtual disks or logical disks in the storage subsystem. In the storage subsystem, abstract disks each represent one of the virtual disks or logical disks. An abstract disk management table is stored in the memory of the storage subsystem to manage a relationship between the abstract disks and the one or more virtual disks and between the abstract disks and the one or more logical disks.

A method for enabling dynamic response to I / O failure caused by an out-of-space condition in a file system hosted on a logical volume. An I / O failure response (FR) daemon is implemented to bridge operations between the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) executing in user space and I / O control functions executing in the kernel space. When the file system does not have sufficient space to complete an I / O, the I / O controller signals the I / O FR daemon, which executes the following sequence of operations: (1) alert the LVM that the file system requires additional space; (2) provide a notification to the application level about the resizing; and (3) re-start the I / O operation once the resizing operation completes. The LVM receives the alert and initiates an automatic expansion of the file system to include additional storage space from reserve space on the volume group. The I / O is completed once the expansion operation completes.

Logical disks are provided, which are created by device managers. The logical volume manager is modified to use only logical disks. The device managers may be plug-in modules. This allows new device managers to be added to the logical volume manager at any time without changing the code in the logical volume manager. Anything that can be made to appear as a logical disk through the use of a device manager plug-in may then be used with the logical volume manager. A device manager for network attached storage may be written allowing network attached storage devices to be treated as local disk drives by the logical volume manager, thereby allowing all of the capabilities of the logical volume manager to be used with the network attached storage devices.

The invention provides an easily-implemented cloud-storage-based network hard disk device and a management method thereof. The easily-implemented cloud-storage-based network hard disk device is implemented in two parts including a server side and a client side. According to the characteristics of Linux, which includes stability, high efficiency and applicability to serving as a server, the server side is implemented mainly through the iSCSI (Internet small computer system interface) protocol, logical volume management and NFC (near field communication) servers under a Linux environment and virtualizes unoccupied storage space distributed in different spaces into a hard disk for the client side to use; the client side is implemented mainly through ASP.NET (active server pages.NET) and can smoothly complete the functions of file folder creation, deleting and moving and file uploading, downloading, moving, deleting and searching.

Disclosed is a method and a system for remote mirror data backup over a network. The system comprises a local domain site and at least one remote domain site, wherein each site has one domain mirror agent and one storage server system thereon. Each storage server system includes one or more storage servers, and one of the domain mirror agents is predefined as the master mirror agent. With such a remote mirror system, the method performs the operations of virtual mirror device allocation, mirror operation, data consistency check, third mirror allocation, and recovery of local storage device. The present invention expands the conventional logical volume management (LVM) to a network environment, effectively improving the backup / recovery capability of remote mirroring.

A system and method for Write Once, Read Many (WORM) compliant storage is disclosed. A storage administrator in user space is employed as an interface between the kernel space WORM VFS and the user applications. The storage administrator accesses the WORM VFS through the operating system's Virtual File System. The WORM VFS comprises of three layers: a data encryption\compression layer, the WORM filesystem layer and a logical volume manager. The data encryption\compression layer preprocesses the data as it moves between from the user space and the WORM filesystem layer. The WORM filesystem layer stores the compressed and encrypted data on the physical disk drives in a specialized disk format. The logical volume manager manages the physical disk drives. A NVRAM journal aids in crash recovery.

Methods of hot-swapping a logical volume manager (LVM) and updating an associated extent map are presented. Methods for migrating a virtual machine running an application using an LVM from one physical machine to another physical machine are also presented. The LVM can be used by a database application or other applications in a single-node or multi-node environment. The LVM is shut down, version numbers for each segment of its associated extent map are saved, and a new LVM is started. The new LVM's extent map is compared with the old extent map, and segments in the LVM which have changed are selectively updated.

Systems and methods for consistent logical volume management of the storage subsystem. The present invention guarantees permanent identification data consistency while migrating, mirroring, creating, deleting LU and so on. It prevents the administrator from the change of management.

The invention discloses a system and a method for controlling streaming data storage. The system comprises a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) control module, a logical volume management module, a streaming data storage interface module, a time index and space management module and a host interface drive module, wherein the RAID control module is used for mapping the memory space of a disk into a plurality of RAID spaces; the logical volume management module is used for dividing the RAID spaces into a plurality of logical volumes and providing a memory interface; the streaming data storage interface module is used for analyzing streaming data and control command thereof, calling a memory address and calling the memory interface for storing the streaming data; the time index and space management module is used for maintaining a time index for each path of streaming data and periodically writing the time index back into the disk according to the memory interface; the host interface drive module is used for acquiring the streaming data and sending the streaming data and the control command thereof; and furthermore, the streaming data storage interface module takes the time as an index to continuously store the streaming data in a physical volume or a logical volume ofwith a continuous physical address space. The system is used for overcoming the problem that a conventional file system has low streaming data storage efficiency.

The invention belongs to the technical field of network storage, and discloses a method for creating an allocation-on-demand incremental volume. The volume has a two-layer volume structure, and realizes separation of a physical space and a logical space. The creating method comprises that: a user state interface participates in a new parameter (N) in a user state command lvcreate of a logical volume manger (LVM). The real volume of the bottom layer is a common logical volume, and the virtual volume of the upper layer is a data structure in a Linux kernel. The physical space of the real volume is allocated according to the actual requirement, so the utilization rate of a disk space is improved. Real-time monitoring of the physical space of the real volume and automatic capacity expansion of the actual space effectively avoid overflow of the spaces. A user can randomly designate capacity expansion increment magnitude as required to perform capacity expansion of the virtual volume. The volume processes the write request by adopting a mode of additional write. Moreover, the volume processes garbage fragments by adopting a quick and effective garbage reclamation algorithm.

A process, apparatus, and system are disclosed for automatically backing up and restoring a system configuration during the installation of new software on a software device. The apparatus may be embodied as a software installation module having a pre-removal module and a post-installation module. The pre-removal and post-removal procedures are embedded within a systems packaging files so that they may be automatically executed during the installation procedures for installing the new software. The apparatus may also include a recovery module configured to perform procedures that are similar to, but potentially more thorough than the procedures implemented by the post-installation procedure. Specifically, the apparatus may be incorporated in a server within a storage area network (SAN) and configured to operate with a plurality of physical disk drives also connected to the storage area network (SAN).

The work load imposed on an administrator increases because the administrator has heretofore performed the work of allocating volumes to applications of PC server devices and the work of taking over volumes for applications in accordance with change in PC server devices. To solve this problem, there is provided a volume management system in a computer system having storage devices each of which has a unit which manages volume configuration information in accordance with each application, a unit which manages volume usage information in accordance with each of volumes for the applications, and a unit which manages allocatable areas of the storage devices while partitioning the allocatable areas of the storage devices in accordance with performance and reliability, wherein the volume management system has: a unit which selects suitable allocation regions in accordance with the volume usages of the applications; a unit which selects a suitable allocation region in accordance with change of host performance and migrates a volume to the suitable allocation region when host configuration of an application is changed; and a unit which changes configuration information to perform change of setting on each host.

Exemplary embodiments provide techniques of managing storage systems including remote copy systems and improving the manageability by automating complicated operations. In one embodiment, a computer comprises a memory and a controller. The controller is operable to: manage a virtual volume to be provided for a server; manage a plurality of logical volumes provided from a plurality of storage systems; manage a condition to be required of the virtual volume, the condition relating to a location in which data to be sent to the virtual volume is stored; manage location information of each of the plurality of logical volumes, the location information of a logical volume being defined based on a location of the logical volume; and control to map the virtual volume to a logical volume of the plurality of logical volumes, based on the condition of the virtual volume and the location information of the logical volumes.

A method, system, and program product for controlling multi-node access to a disk storage system. In accordance with the method of the present invention, an active access authorization is set for a first node. The active access authorization enables read and write access by the first node to user and meta data within the disk storage system. A passive access authorization is set for a second node. The passive access authorization enables read-only access by the second node to logical volume management meta data within the disk storage system.

The invention provides a backup method and system based on a logical volume management simple volume. The method comprises the following steps: acquiring a complete data comparison table or an incremental data comparison table of the logical volume management simple volume; creating a backup mirror document, and mounting the backup mirror document in network block equipment; reading backup data from the logical volume management simple volume according to the complete data comparison table or the incremental data comparison table; performing write operation on the network block equipment to write backup data into the backup mirror document in the network block equipment. The simple logical volume is backed up completely according to the complete data comparison table when complete data backup is needed, usually, complete backup only needs to be performed once, and incremental backup is performed on the simple logical volume according to the incremental data comparison table when complete backup is not needed, so that the space can be saved effectively, and the space of the backup mirror document is relatively small.

Disclosed is a method and a system for remote mirror data backup over a network. The system comprises a local domain site and at least one remote domain site, wherein each site has one domain mirror agent and one storage server system thereon. Each storage server system includes one or more storage servers, and one of the domain mirror agents is predefined as the master mirror agent. With such a remote mirror system, the method performs the operations of virtual mirror device allocation, mirror operation, data consistency check, third mirror allocation, and recovery of local storage device. The present invention expands the conventional logical volume management (LVM) to a network environment, effectively improving the backup / recovery capability of remote mirroring.

Replay attacks in an encrypted file system are prevented by generating a session key and providing the session key to one or more drive managers and an encrypted file system process. When a drive request is received by the encrypted file system process the drive request is encrypted using the generated session key. The encrypted drive request is sent to a drive manager. The drive manager attempts to decrypt the drive request using the session key. If the encrypted drive request is successfully decrypted, then the drive manager performs the requested operation. On the other hand, if the request is not decrypted successfully, then the request is not performed by the drive manager. Drive managers can include both disk device drivers and a logical volume managers.

The invention discloses a method for enhancing logical volume management LVM functions, comprising the following steps: respectively setting a P factor of a physical volume and a P-C factor of a logical volume; obtaining the established or expanded logical volume containing the P-C factor and physical volume segments of the mapped physical volume containing the P factor; selecting one physical volume segment with a maximal P value and judging if the size of the physical volume segment is larger than and equal to that of the established or expanded logical volume when the size summation of the physical volume segments is larger than or equal to the size of the established or expanded logical volume; if the size of the physical volume segment is larger than and equal to that of the established or expanded logical volume, mapping the established or expanded logical volume to the physical volume segments; and if the size of the physical volume segment is smaller than that of the established or expanded logical volume, sorting all the physical volume segments according to comparison values, and mapping the established or expanded logical volume to the physical volume segment with the maximal comparison value till the establishment and expansion process of the logical volume is completed. The method not only considers the continuity of physical blocks but also considers the property of storage equipment when the logical volume is established and expanded.

A data I / O system comprises a plurality of storage devices and a controller which controls the storage devices. In the data I / O system, the controller further includes a read / write unit, responsive to the subsequent receipt of a read request and a write request, for reading data stored in the storage devices and writing data in the storage devices, a logical volume management unit for mapping between a logical image of the data storage of a host processor (logical volume) and an actual space in the storage devices, a volume management unit for managing an active primary production volume (P-VOL) and second multiple mirror volumes (S-VOL) created as mirror images of the primary volume, and an S-VOL restoring unit for restoring the data of a first S-VOL with the data of a second S-VOL depending on the type of an error that happens in the first S-VOL.