407 results about "Storage virtualization" patented technology

A router for use in a network includes a scalable architecture and performs methods for implementing quality of service on a logical unit behind a network port; and for implementing storage virtualization. The architecture includes a managing processor, a supervising processor; and a plurality of routing processors coupled to a fabric. The managing processor has an in-band link to a routing processor. A routing processor receives a frame from the network, determines by parsing the frame, the protocol and logical unit number, and routes the frame to a queue according to a traffic class associated with the logical unit number in routing information prepared for the processors. An arbitration scheme empties the queue in accordance with a deficit round robin technique. If a routing processor detects the frame's destination is a virtual entity, and so is part of a virtual transaction, the router conducts a nonvirtual transaction in concert with the virtual transaction. The nonvirtual transaction accomplishes the intent of the virtual transaction but operates on an actual network port, for example, a storage device.

Methods and apparatus for implementing storage virtualization on a network device of a storage area network are disclosed. A frame or packet is received at a port of the network device. It is then determined that the frame or packet pertains to access of a virtual storage location of a virtual storage unit representing one or more physical storage locations on one or more physical storage units of the storage area network. A virtual-physical mapping between the one or more physical storage locations and the virtual storage location is then obtained. A new or modified frame or packet is then sent to an initiator or a target specified by the virtual-physical mapping.

The splitting of storage applications and functions into a control path (CP) component and a data path (DP) component is disclosed. Reads and writes may be handled primarily in the DP. The CP may be responsible for discovery, configuration, and exception handling. The CP can also be enabled for orchestrating complex data management operations such as snapshots and migration. Storage virtualization maps a virtual I/O to one or more physical I/O. A virtual target (vTarget) in the virtual domain is associated with one physical port in the physical domain. Each vTarget may be associated with one or more virtual LUNs (vLUNs). Each vLUN includes one or more vExtents. Each vExtent may point to a region table, and each entry in the region table may contain a pointer to a region representing a portion of a pExtent, and attributes (e.g. read/write, read only, no access) for that region.

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates end-to-end virtualization. During operation, a network interface residing on an end host sets up a tunnel. The network interface then encapsulates a packet destined to a virtual machine based on a tunneling protocol. By establishing a tunnel that allows a source host to address a remote virtual machine, embodiments of the present invention facilitate end-to-end virtualization.

A method and apparatus for providing network virtualization on a packet network are disclosed. For example, the method receives a request from a user, wherein the request comprises at least one of: a feature of a network component or a network component for a virtual network. The method determines if the request can be instantiated over one or more real network resources, and then instantiates the request via the one or more real network resources, if it is determined that the request can be instantiated.

A network mediator corresponding to a computing device uses packet filters to restrict network communications. The network mediator includes a set of one or more filters, each filter having parameters that are compared to corresponding parameters of a data packet to be passed through the network mediator. The network mediator determines whether to allow the data packet through based on whether the data packet parameters match any filter parameters. The set of filters can be modified by a remote device, but cannot be modified by the computing device whose communications are being restricted. When a data packet is sent from the computing device, the data packet will include the virtual address which is changed to the network address by the network mediator prior to forwarding the packet on the network, and vice versa. By virtualizing the addresses, the computing device is restricted in accessing other devices over the network.

This invention describes a high-performance, log-structured implementation of a RAID subsystem that can be efficiently implemented in software. The methods described here allow the RAID subsystem to achieve high performance without using specialized hardware such as non-volatile memory or hardware XOR/DMA engines. Furthermore, the RAID implementation described here is well suited for supporting many functions required for advanced storage virtualization such as virtual disks, graceful addition and removal of disks, tolerating multi-disk failures, and snapshots.

An apparatus and process for relabelling and redirecting at least some of the read transaction data frames and the write transaction write data and transfer ready frames in a network so as to bypass a storage manager and pass directly between the client and a storage device via a switch. This eliminates the storage manager as a bottleneck. Some embodiments redirect every read and write transaction, and others redirect only large transactions, or only ones not stored in cache or when latency gets too high. Redirection is accomplished by transmission from the storage manager to a switch redirection commands that contain old and new address data. When a frame to be redirected comes in, its address is compared to the old address data. If there is a match, the new address data is substituted and the frame is passed to a conventional routing process to be routed so as to bypass the storage manager.

The present invention is generally directed to a system and method for virtualizing storage in a networked system. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, in a system having an initiator and at least one storage device, an inventive method determines, based upon a SCSI command received by a manager from the initiator, which of the data storage devices are implicated by the SCSI command. The method then forms an iSCSI command that is sent from the manager to each of the implicated storage devices, and receives at the manager an iSCSI response from each of implicated storage devices, after each of the storage devices has completed its implicated data transactions with the initiator. Finally, the method forms a SCSI response that is sent by the manager to the initiator. A corresponding system is also provided.

A storage area network (SAN) controller and method for storing and replicating data between sites in a storage area network in which storage controllers at each site implement storage virtualization. A storage cell is implemented at each site comprising at least one storage controller and a pool of physical storage coupled to the controller. A copy set comprising a logical unit (LUN) of storage, referred to as a member, in each of the storage cells is defined. As operational data transactions are performed against one of the members of a copy set, they are replicated, immediately or after a delay, in each other member of the copy set. As changes are made to dependent attributes such as size of one member of the copy set, the change is replicated in each other member of the copy set automatically. Changes can be made in the independent attributes such as size of each member of the copy set independently of other members of the copy set.

A system for coordination for quality of service in multi-layer storage virtualization environments includes a first, second and third storage entity at a respective first, second and third layer of virtualized storage. The first storage entity sends a request for an I/O task to the second storage entity. In response to the request, the second storage entity may be configured to cooperate with the third storage entity to perform one or more I/O operations to satisfy one or more quality of service requirements associated with the I/O task.

A storage virtualization environment is provided that includes a system for providing one or more virtual volumes. The system may include a host system and a set of storage devices, each of which includes physical block addresses that stores data. Further, the system includes a network switch system connecting the host system and the set of storage devices and is configured to define and manage a virtual volume associated with data distributed across the physical block addresses. The network switch system includes a first virtualization layer that maintains first tier objects including information reflecting a relationship between the physical block addresses and one or more logical partitions of virtual volume data. Moreover, the network switch system includes a second virtualization layer that maintains second tier objects including information reflecting a logical configuration of the virtual volume. The network switch system manages the virtual volume for the host system using the first and second tier objects.

A storage virtualization environment is provided that includes a network switch system for initializing a virtual volume in a system including a host system, and storage devices. The network switch system includes storage processors including first and second tier storage processors and a Virtualization Coherency Manager (VCM) for receiving storage connectivity identifying which storage processors are connected to selected ones of the storage devices. Further, the network switch system includes a master storage processor for creating a logical tree based on the storage connectivity information, the logical tree reflecting a virtual volume of data distributed across the storage devices and includes (i) first tier objects representing partitions of the virtual volume data and (ii) second tier objects representing a logical configuration of the virtual volume. In one embodiment, the VCM assigns the first tier objects to selective ones of the first tier storage processors and assigns the second tier objects to selective ones of the second tier storage processors based on the logical tree. Further, each of the selective first and second tier storage processors initialize a local portion of the virtual volume to allow the host system to access the virtual volume through the network switch system.

The invention relates to a method for allocating mass storage resources according to needs in a heterogeneous SAN (Storage Area Network) environment, belonging to the field of storage area networks, in particular to the technical field of storage virtualization therein. The invention is characterized by designing and realizing an out-of-band storage virtualization system aiming at a heterogeneousstorage application server and various storage devices in the SAN environment and providing a method for allocating the mass storage resources according to needs based on allocation while writing anddynamic address mapping mechanism on the basis of the system. The method can be used for allocating the storage resources according to the actual needs of applications, dynamically expanding the mapping relation between the logic storage space and the physical storage space, effectively increasing the utilization rate of the storage resources and the expandability of storage capacity, reducing the maintenance cost of the storage devices and realizing instant storage purchase.

A storage area network can include a storage virtualization entity—intelligent storage application resource (iSAR)—either as a separate device in the fabric, or as an integrated module in one or more switches within the fabric. All I/O operations can be re-directed to iSAR for processing. iSAR can segment virtual storage and physical storage into units, where each unit of the virtual storage is mapped to a single unit in physical storage. Data associated with incoming I/O operation can be compressed before being stored in physical storage. iSAR includes overflow reserve storage at the block, sub-page and page level to accommodate changes in compressed data size on subsequent I/O operations. These measures can improve I/O performance and reduce fragmentation. iSAR can also employ deduplication of incoming data stored on physical storage to improve storage efficiency.

Systems and methods are disclosed for performing cache and I/O management in a multi-layer storage virtualization environment. Block virtualization may be implemented at various layers, each with one or more storage entities. One storage entity may coordinate and leverage the cache and the caching mechanism available with another storage entity. The storage entities may be at the same layer (horizontal cache coordination) or at different layers (vertical cache coordination). Cache coordination may include application-assisted read-ahead.

A storage virtualization system that follows a four-layer hierarchy model, which facilitates the ability to create storage policies to automate complex storage management issues, is provided. The four-layers are a disk pool, Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks (RAID arrays), storage pools and a virtual pool of Virtual Disks (Vdisks). The storage virtualization system creates virtual storage arrays from the RAID arrays and assigns these arrays to storage pools in which all of the arrays have identical RAID levels and underlying chunk sizes representing in abstraction very large arrays. Virtual disks are then created from these pools wherein the abstraction of a storage pool makes it possible to create storage policies for the automatic expansion of virtual disks as they fill with user files.

Systems, methods, apparatus and software can configure, support, and make use of a coordinator virtual device to determine which node or nodes of a cluster should be ejected from the cluster as a result of a cluster partition or other error event. Fencing software operating on the cluster nodes monitors the cluster for a cluster partition (split-brain) event, and when such an event occurs, software on the nodes attempts to gain control of the coordinator virtual device. A node that succeeds in gaining control of the coordinator virtual device survives. Nodes failing to gain control of the coordinator virtual device remove themselves or are removed from the cluster. The coordinator virtual device can be established by a virtual device configuration server which provides coordinator virtual device access to cluster nodes acting as virtual device configuration clients.

A system integrates an intelligent storage switch with a flexible virtualization system to enable efficient service of file and block protocol data access requests for information stored on the system. A storage operating system executing on a storage system coupled to the switch implements the virtualization system to provide a unified view of storage to clients by logically organizing the information as named files, directories and logical unit numbers. The virtualization system is illustratively embodied as a file system having a write allocator configured to provide a flexible block numbering policy that addresses volume management capabilities, such as storage virtualization, at a finer granularity (e.g., a single block) than that of previous non-flexible storage virtualization schemes. The flexible block numbering policy also yields substantial benefits in terms of increased write efficiency and elimination of storage “hot spots”, as well as a compelling point-in-time read-only data image (snapshot) mechanism.

Systems for backing up the data of an IT system by utilizing server or storage virtualization technology to create and move logical IT infrastructures dynamically. A virtualized IT system provides a server resource pool and a storage resource pool composed from multiple physical devices either within a datacenter or a globally located plurality of datacenters. The virtual server and the storage volume provisioned from those pools will be paired to form the virtual infrastructure. In other words, the virtual infrastructure becomes a logical IT environment build with the required computing and storage resources needed in order to execute specific applications. The virtual infrastructure can also be migrated within/among datacenter sites.

A network caching system has a multi-protocol caching filer coupled to an origin server to provide storage virtualization of data served by the filer in response to data access requests issued by multi-protocol clients over a computer network. The multi-protocol caching filer includes a file system configured to manage a sparse volume that “virtualizes” a storage space of the data to thereby provide a cache function that enables access to data by the multi-protocol clients. To that end, the caching filer further includes a multi-protocol engine configured to translate the multi-protocol client data access requests into generic file system primitive operations executable by both the caching filer and the origin server.

A storage virtualization computer system. The storage virtualization computer system comprises a host entity for issuing an IO request, a storage virtualization controller coupled to the host entity for executing IO operations in response to the IO request, and a at least one physical storage device, each coupled to the storage virtualization controller through a point-to-point serial-signal interconnect, for providing storage to the storage virtualization computer system through the storage virtualization controller. As an example, the point-to-point serial-signal interconnect can be a Serial ATA IO device interconnect.

For long-term data preservation, a storage virtualization system contains a metadata extraction module, an indexing module, a search module, and a virtualization module. The system utilizes two types of virtual volumes: unmarked volumes and marked volumes. The metadata extraction module extracts metadata that describes the data stored in logical volumes located in external storage. The indexing module scans the data and creates an index, and the index and metadata are stored in a local storage. After metadata is extracted for all data in a volume, and all data in the volume are indexed, the virtual volume corresponding to that volume is marked and the volume is ready to be made inactive. The search module allows a user to search for desired data using the metadata and the index stored in the local storage instead having to access the external storage systems where the data is actually stored.