Storage Association Fault Notification Through Alternate Paths
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Solution Overview
Problem
In storage systems without fault detection functionality in switches, hosts cannot timely detect faulty associations with nodes, leading to continued communication through faulty paths, affecting service execution.
Innovation Solution
Nodes in the storage system send notification messages through non-faulty associations to hosts, using reserved fields in existing protocols to indicate association status changes, allowing hosts to actively request and determine specific faulty associations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If the switch does not have fault detection function, then device complexity is reduced, but the host cannot timely detect faulty associations leading to service disruption
Solution Approach 1:
The storage system sends feedback notifications to the host about association status changes. When an association fault occurs, the storage system actively notifies the host through alternative associations, enabling timely fault detection without requiring the switch to have fault detection functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The storage system acts as an intermediary that monitors association status and communicates fault information to the host. This mediator approach allows fault detection to be implemented at the storage system level rather than requiring the switch to have complex fault detection capabilities.
2Duration of action of stationary object
If the host continuously sends messages through a faulty association, then communication persistence is maintained, but service reliability is degraded
Solution Approach 1:
The storage system provides feedback about association status to the host, enabling the host to detect faults and switch to alternative associations. This feedback mechanism allows the host to maintain communication persistence by using alternative paths while avoiding continued use of faulty associations that would degrade service reliability.
3Reliability
If the host switches association upon fault detection, then service reliability is improved, but fault detection timeliness must be enhanced
Solution Approach 1:
The storage system sends timely feedback notifications to the host about association status changes. By actively monitoring and notifying the host of faults through alternative associations, the system minimizes fault detection time, enabling the host to quickly switch associations and maintain service reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A fault notification method is provided, and is applied to a node in a storage system. In the method, when an association between a host and the storage system is faulty, the node in the storage system notifies, through another association, the host that a status of the association between the host and the storage system changes, so that the host actively requests the node to obtain association status information, to learn of the faulty association between the host and the storage system in time and switch the association for executing a service.