SAN Boot LUN Identification With Historical Host Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods lack an automated and time-efficient way for SAN administrators to determine which hosts and related applications are SAN booted from a particular storage device, especially considering temporary or transitory usage of different operating systems.
Innovation Solution
Employing artificial intelligence and heuristic processes to detect known operating system patterns in real-time data, creating a comprehensive map of storage device and logical unit relationships, and supporting multiple storage protocols including NVMe, RDMA, Fibre Channel, and iSCSI, with mechanisms for static and long-term heuristics to discover and report hosts currently or previously booted to LUNs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If manual methods are used to track host-to-LUN relationships, then administrators can maintain some level of control, but the process becomes time-consuming and error-prone
Solution Approach 1:
The storage device autonomously maintains and updates the host-to-LUN relationship map by detecting boot operations and generating notifications automatically, eliminating the need for manual tracking by administrators. The system serves itself by self-monitoring and self-documented relationships.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback loops where the storage device monitors boot operations, detects changes in host-to-LUN relationships, and automatically updates the relationship map. This continuous feedback mechanism ensures accurate tracking without manual intervention.
2Loss of information
If administrators manually monitor SAN boot operations, then they can identify host-to-LUN relationships, but the complexity of tracking multiple hosts and temporary OS usage increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The storage device acts as an intermediary that automatically captures and records host-to-LUN relationship information at the source of the boot operation. This intermediary role eliminates the need for complex external monitoring systems while ensuring complete information capture.
Solution Approach 2:
The storage device pre-establishes and maintains the relationship map in advance, proactively tracking relationships before administrators need to query them. This preliminary action ensures information is ready when needed without requiring complex real-time monitoring.
3Reliability
If comprehensive tracking of all boot operations is implemented, then complete relationship history is maintained, but the processing overhead and resource consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential boot operation data needed for relationship tracking from the overall SAN traffic, focusing specifically on boot notifications rather than monitoring all storage operations. This selective extraction reduces processing overhead while maintaining reliability of relationship data.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided are a method, system, and computer program product in which operations are performed to establish communication with a plurality of hosts that are coupled to a plurality of storage devices over a storage area network (SAN). Further operations are performed to discover and report those hosts of the plurality of hosts that are currently or have previously been SAN booted to one or more logical unit numbers (LUNs) within one or more storage devices of the plurality of storage devices.