Resilient Mirroring via Peer-to-Peer Storage Connections
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing network-centric data storage systems lack flexibility in presenting virtual storage to hosts, particularly in accommodating unusual host load activity and ensuring data resiliency and availability.
Innovation Solution
A self-contained intelligent storage element (ISE) that executes resilient mirroring processing instructions to establish peer-to-peer communication connections between storage devices, ensuring cache coherency and data resiliency across multiple controllers, thereby providing a virtual storage space that can be provisioned into multiple volumes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If network-centric storage systems consolidate storage capacity and control functionality, then storage handling capability and cost management improve, but flexibility in presenting virtual storage to hosts deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments storage resources into discrete storage elements that can be independently managed and presented. Each storage element can be dynamically allocated and configured, allowing the system to maintain consolidated storage infrastructure while providing flexible virtual storage presentations to multiple hosts through virtualization layers.
2Reliability
If data is mirrored across storage devices for resiliency, then data availability improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple storage devices into a unified networked storage system where mirroring is managed centrally through virtualization. This consolidation allows data to be mirrored across devices for resiliency while the virtualization layer abstracts the complexity, presenting a simplified interface to hosts and reducing overall system complexity despite the distributed mirroring architecture.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus and associated method including a first storage device and a second storage device, each coupled to a remote server independently of the other via a network. Resilient mirroring logic is stored in each of the storage devices that establishes a peer-to-peer communication connection with the other storage device in response to receiving a data access command from the remote server.