Multi-Segment SAN Modeling for Heterogeneous Protocol Management
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional storage area networks (SANs) face difficulties in discovering, modeling, and managing heterogeneous collections of manageable entities with diverse transport mechanisms and protocols, leading to cumbersome management and isolation of issues in large, geographically diverse, multi-vendor SANs.
Innovation Solution
A multi-segment perspective is introduced, where the SAN is modeled as an interconnection of protocol-independent segments, each operating under a specific transport mechanism, connected by an intersegment device like a network bridge or multiprotocol router, allowing for the enumeration and management of distinct segments and their connections, enabling communication paths across multiple segments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional SAN management applications model heterogeneous collections of manageable entities as a single fabric, then the SAN can be managed as a unified system, but the complexity of discovering, modeling, and managing diverse transport mechanisms and protocols increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the heterogeneous SAN environment into multiple homogeneous fabric segments, each managed independently with its own discovery and modeling processes. This allows the management application to handle each segment according to its specific transport mechanism and protocol, reducing overall complexity while maintaining unified management capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The management application acts as an intermediary that discovers, models, and manages multiple homogeneous fabric segments independently, then integrates their information to provide unified SAN management. This intermediary approach allows heterogeneous environments to be managed without requiring the system to directly handle all protocol diversities simultaneously.
2Loss of information
If the SAN is modeled as a single large fabric encompassing all manageable entities, then comprehensive monitoring is achieved, but isolating and drilling down into specific problem areas becomes cumbersome
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the SAN into multiple homogeneous fabric segments, the system maintains comprehensive monitoring capability at the overall SAN level while enabling operators to easily isolate and drill down into specific problem areas by working with individual manageable segments rather than a single large fabric.
3Adaptability or versatility
If conventional management applications attempt to manage all manageable entities in a large heterogeneous SAN, then unified management is achieved, but the number of manageable entities becomes substantial and unwieldy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the large heterogeneous SAN into multiple smaller homogeneous fabric segments, each with a manageable number of entities. This segmentation maintains unified management capability while improving productivity by reducing the complexity of managing individual segments, allowing more efficient discovery, modeling, and management operations.
Data Source
AI summary
Configurations herein present a multi-segment perspective of the SAN that models the SAN as an interconnection of protocol independent segments, each operable according to a particular transport mechanism and connected to other segments by an intersegment device such as a network bridge. Each segment is operable to include a fabric of manageable entities, such as storage arrays, switches, and hosts, that operate according to particular protocols and transport mechanisms employed by the fabric. Groups of manageable entities operable according to a particular protocol or transport mechanism are enumerated as a separate segment, and managed as a separate entity from the management application. The intersegment connections occur via an inter segment device operable to perform the mapping or translation from the respective address space of the segments. Therefore, a path from an initiator to a receiver manageable entity may be enumerated and managed by the management application as a multi-segment connection.