Virtual Storage Group Optimizer for Disk Contention
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In virtual-machine environments, hard-disk based storage devices perform poorly due to uncoordinated sharing between virtual machine guest operating systems, leading to performance issues when multiple virtual disks are accessed concurrently from the same physical hard drive, causing contention and reduced throughput.
Innovation Solution
A virtual storage group optimizer is used to automatically determine and manage associations between virtual devices and physical devices, grouping them to maximize throughput and responsiveness by treating sets of virtual devices as single physical disks, thereby minimizing resource contention.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If multiple virtual disks are accessed concurrently from the same physical hard drive, then storage resource utilization increases, but performance deteriorates due to recording arm contention
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments virtual disks into spindle groups based on their physical storage location. By grouping virtual disks that share the same physical spindle, the system can manage access patterns to minimize recording arm movement and contention, thereby improving performance while maintaining resource utilization.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a virtualization layer that maps multiple virtual disks to physical storage spindles in a many-to-many relationship. This dimensional transformation allows the system to abstract the physical storage topology from the virtual storage presentation, enabling optimized access patterns that improve performance despite concurrent access.
2Ease of operation
If a guest-OS has exclusive access to its storage devices, then access control is simplified, but performance is reduced when the VM host presents multiple virtual disks from the same physical drive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces virtual storage groups as an intermediary layer between guest operating systems and physical storage devices. This intermediary manages the mapping between virtual disks and physical spindles, allowing multiple virtual disks from the same physical drive to be accessed concurrently without degrading performance, while maintaining simple exclusive access control for each guest OS.
3Device complexity
If virtual storage devices are mapped to physical devices without optimization, then system complexity is reduced, but resource contention increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service optimization where the storage system automatically determines optimal mappings between virtual disks and physical spindles based on access patterns and performance metrics. This eliminates the need for manual configuration while reducing resource contention through intelligent, data-driven mapping decisions.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for aligning needs of virtual devices with hardware resources. The performance of virtual devices are tested using different groupings to determine mappings or relationships between the virtual devices and the physical devices from which they are drawn. Based on the results of the tests, spindle groups can be optimized.