Storage System Latency Correlation Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Identifying the significant contributing factors to storage system latency is a time-intensive and computationally expensive process, making it challenging to effectively address and optimize storage system performance.
Innovation Solution
Instrumenting storage systems with sensors to measure latency and component activity, correlating these measurements with storage system latency to identify potential contributing factors, and using correlation analysis to validate hardware upgrades or software patches.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional methods are used to identify contributing factors to storage system latency, then comprehensive analysis can be performed, but the process becomes time-intensive and computationally expensive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and isolates specific sensor measurements from the storage system components that are most likely to contribute to latency. By selecting and monitoring only the most relevant metrics (such as disk I/O, network activity, CPU utilization) rather than analyzing all possible system parameters, the solution achieves comprehensive latency factor identification while significantly reducing analysis time and computational resources required.
2Measurement precision
If comprehensive sensor measurements are collected from all storage system components, then complete latency analysis is possible, but system complexity and measurement overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by instrumenting only the specific storage system components and processes that are most likely to contribute to latency with sensors. Rather than uniformly monitoring all system elements, the solution selectively places measurement instruments on critical components (such as disk drives, network interfaces, and specific software processes), thereby achieving complete latency analysis capability while minimizing the overall complexity of the measurement system.
3Measurement precision
If correlation analysis is performed on all sensor measurements to identify latency factors, then accurate bottleneck identification is achieved, but computational resources and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements partial action by performing correlation analysis only on the selected subset of sensor measurements that are most relevant to latency, rather than analyzing all available system metrics. By focusing computational resources on the most promising measurements (such as I/O operations, network throughput, and CPU utilization during latency events), the solution achieves accurate bottleneck identification while significantly reducing the computational energy consumption required for the analysis.
Data Source
AI summary
Described herein are methods, systems and machine-readable media that facilitate an analysis of the contributing factors of storage system latency. The variation over time of the storage system latency is measured, along with the variation over time of the activity of various processes and/or components, the various processes and/or components being potentially contributing factors to the storage system latency. The latency measurements are correlated with the process and/or component measurements. High correlation, while not providing direct evidence of the causation of latency, is nevertheless used to identify likely factors (i.e., processes, components) contributing to latency. The latency measurements are plotted over time, the plot including supplemental information indicating, at any time instant, likely factors contributing to the storage system latency.