Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080208930 | MANAGEMENT OF REDUNDANCY IN DATA ARRAYS - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture, wherein a determination is made that a first data array in a plurality of data arrays has to be repaired to replace a failed storage device within the first data array. A storage device is selected from a selected data array of the plurality of data arrays to replace the failed storage device, wherein a data value corresponding to the selected data array is less than the data value corresponding to the first data array. | 08-28-2008 |
20080301495 | REASSIGNING STORAGE VOLUMES FROM A FAILED PROCESSING SYSTEM TO A SURVIVING PROCESSING SYSTEM - Provided are a method, system, and program for reassigning storage volumes from a failed processing system to a surviving processing system. A first processing system detects a failure of a second processing system. The first processing system determines device groups of storage devices managed by the failed second processing system and determines for each determined device group, hosts that connect to storage devices in the device group. The first processing system sends, for each device group, a unit check to each determined host indicating failure of each device group through one storage device in the device group to which the determined host connects. The determined hosts execute instructions to terminate any I/O operations in progress on the storage devices in the device group in response to the unit check indicating failure of one storage device in the device group and issue, a command to one storage device for the device group to end the busy condition. | 12-04-2008 |
20090063768 | ALLOCATION OF HETEROGENEOUS STORAGE DEVICES TO SPARES AND STORAGE ARRAYS - A plurality of storage devices of a plurality of types is provided. A plurality of criteria is associated for each of the plurality of storage devices, based on characteristics of the plurality of storage devices, wherein the plurality of criteria can be used to determine whether a selected storage device is a compatibility spare for a storage device in a storage device array, and whether the selected storage device is an availability spare for the storage device in the storage device array. A determination is made by a spare management application, based on at least the plurality of criteria and at least one optimality condition, of a first set of storage devices selected from the plurality of storage devices to be allocated to a plurality of storage device arrays, and of a second set of storage devices selected from the plurality of storage devices to be allocated as spares for the plurality of storage device arrays. An allocation is made of the first set of storage devices to the plurality of storage device arrays. An allocation made of the second set of storage devices as spares for the plurality of storage device array. | 03-05-2009 |
20090083447 | CONTROL OF INFORMATION UNITS IN FIBRE CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS - Provided are a system and an article of manufacture, wherein a primary storage control unit receives an information unit from a remote host over a fibre channel connection. The primary storage control unit adjusts an information unit pacing parameter included in a response sent from the primary storage control unit to the remote host, wherein the information unit pacing parameter indicates the number of information units that the remote host is allowed to send to the primary storage control unit without waiting for any additional response from the primary storage control unit. | 03-26-2009 |
20090125689 | SYSTEM AND ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE FOR PROVIDING AN ADDRESS FORMAT COMPATIBLE WITH DIFFERENT ADDRESSING FORMATS USED FOR ADDRESSING DIFFERENT SIZED ADDRESS SPACES - Provided are a system and article of manufacture for providing an address format compatible with different addressing formats used for addressing different sized address spaces. An address format is used in an operating system to address storage space in a storage device comprising a first region and a second region of storage space. A first group of applications uses the address format to only address the storage space in the first region and is not coded to use the address format to access the second region and a second group of applications uses the address format to address the storage space in the first and second regions. | 05-14-2009 |
20090144464 | USAGE OF PERSISTENT INFORMATION UNIT PACING PROTOCOL IN FIBRE CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture, wherein a primary storage control unit receives an information unit from a remote host over a fibre channel connection, wherein persistent information unit pacing is implemented over the fibre channel connection. Information is maintained on how many large writes have been received at the primary storage control unit over at least one logical path established over the fibre channel connection between the primary storage control unit and the remote host, wherein a large write is an input/output (I/O) operation for which a number of data information units that are processed exceeds a default value of an information unit pacing credit. The primary storage control unit adjusts an information unit pacing parameter included in a response sent from the primary storage control unit to the remote host, wherein the adjusting is based at least on the information maintained on how many large writes have been received at the primary storage control unit over the at least one logical path. | 06-04-2009 |
20090150626 | DETERMINING WHETHER TO USE A FULL VOLUME OR REPOSITORY FOR A LOGICAL COPY BACKUP SPACE - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for determining whether to use a full volume or repository for a logical copy backup space. A determination is made of a source volume to backup using a logical copy operation. The logical copy operation is completed upon indicating the source volume data to backup. During a logical copy duration, point-in-time data in the source volume as of a point-in-time when the logical copy was established is copied to a backup space in response to receiving an update to the point-in-time data. A history of writes to the source volume is processed to determine whether to allocate a full target volume as the backup space providing a corresponding data unit for each data unit in the source volume or allocate a repository as the backup space, wherein the repository uses less storage space than the full target volume. The logical copy operation using the determined full target volume or repository as the backup space is initiated. | 06-11-2009 |
20090150627 | DETERMINING WHETHER TO USE A REPOSITORY TO STORE DATA UPDATED DURING A RESYNCHRONIZATION - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for determining whether to use a repository to store data updated during a resynchronization. Writes to a primary storage are transferred to a secondary storage. A logical copy of the secondary storage as of a point-in-time is established. Writes to the secondary storage in the logical copy received from the primary storage during a logical copy duration after the point-in-time are stored in a repository that comprises less storage space than the secondary storage in the logical copy. The transferring of writes to the secondary storage is suspended. During the suspension writes to the primary storage are indicated in an out-of-synch data structure. A determination is made as to as to whether available storage space in the repository is sufficient to store writes transferred from the secondary storage while transferring the writes from the out-of-synch data structure in response to ending the suspension of the transferring of writes from the primary to the secondary storages. The repository is used to store data in the secondary storage as of the point-in-time that is to be updated by writes transferred from the primary storage following the ending of the suspension in response to determining that the available storage space in the repository is sufficient to store writes transferred from the secondary storage while transferring the writes indicated in the out-of-synch data structure. | 06-11-2009 |
20090183026 | Thresholding Hardware Errors - A system is provided to protect against ill-behaved microcode by balancing between an actual occurrence of a hardware problem and a microcode bug setting a flag appearing as a hardware problem. In this method, the error recovery is performed only on a single piece of hardware and no further error recovery action is taken on other pieces of similar hardware. The approach addresses the problem by treating a hit on one card as a hardware problem, but as a bug on subsequent cards. The invention keeps track of whether or not the same event has occurred on the same type of hardware so not to take action on more than one instance of the hardware. Subsequent hits on another instance of the hardware will not trigger the hardware related recovery on additional hardware. | 07-16-2009 |
20090204972 | AUTHENTICATING A PROCESSING SYSTEM ACCESSING A RESOURCE - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for authenticating a processing system accessing a resource. An association of processing system identifiers with resources, including a first and second resources, is maintained. A request from a requesting processing system in a host is received for use of a first resource that provides access to a second resource, wherein the request is generated by processing system software and wherein the request further includes a submitted processing system identifier included in the request by host hardware in the host. A determination is made as to whether the submitted processing system identifier is one of the processing system identifiers associated with the first and second resources. The requesting processing system is provided access to the first resource that the processing system uses to access the second resource. | 08-13-2009 |
20090210622 | COMPRESSED CACHE IN A CONTROLLER PARTITION - A method of extending functionality of a data storage facility by adding to the primary storage system new functions using extension function subsystems is disclosed. One example of extending the functionality includes compressing and caching data in a data storage facility to improve storage and access performance of the data storage facility. A primary storage system queries a data storage extension system for availability of data tracks. If the primary storage system does not receive a response or the data tracks from the data storage extension system, it continues caching by fetching data tracks from a disk storage system. The storage extension system manages compression/decompression of data tracks in response to messages from the primary storage system. Data tracks transferred from the data storage extension system to the primary storage system are marked as stale at the data storage extension system and are made available for deletion. | 08-20-2009 |
20090216954 | APPARATUS, SYSTEM, AND METHOD FOR SELECTING A SPACE EFFICIENT REPOSITORY - An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for selecting a space efficient repository. A cache receives write data. A destage module destages the data sequentially to a coarse grained repository such as a stride level repository and destages a directory entry for the data to a coarse grained directory such as a stride level directory if the data satisfies a repository policy. In addition, the destage module destages the data to a fine grained repository such as a track level repository overwriting an existing data instance and destages the directory entry to a fine grained directory such as a track level directory if the data does not satisfy the repository policy. | 08-27-2009 |
20090248917 | USING PRIORITY TO DETERMINE WHETHER TO QUEUE AN INPUT/OUTPUT (I/O) REQUEST DIRECTED TO STORAGE - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for using priority to determine whether to queue an Input/Output (I/O) request directed to storage. A maximum number of concurrent requests directed to a storage is measured. The measured maximum number of concurrent requests is used to determine a threshold for a specified priority. Subsequent requests of the specified priority directed to the storage are allowed to proceed in response to determining that a current number of concurrent requests for the specified priority does not exceed the determined threshold for the specified priority. Subsequent requests directed to the storage having a priority greater than the specified priority are allowed to proceed. Subsequent requests directed to the storage having the specified priority are queued in a queue in response to determining that the current number of concurrent requests for the specified priority exceeds the overall threshold. | 10-01-2009 |
20100036975 | REPEAT CCW COUNT ARGUMENT FOR DEVICE COMMAND WORD PROCESSING - A method of packaging a plurality of repeating commands for device command word (DCW) processing in a computer environment having an I/O link handling complex instruction chains for a processing operation is provided. Locate record information is packaged into DCW prefix parameter data. The locate record information includes an intent count argument. The plurality of repeating commands are embedded as a truncated concatenation to the first locate record information. The plurality of repeating commands are identified by redefining the intent count argument for the plurality of repeating commands as a repeat count argument using a flag argument incorporated into the locate record information. The repeat count argument indicates a number of times for a control unit in the computer environment to execute the plurality of repeating commands. | 02-11-2010 |
20100036977 | CKD PARTIAL RECORD HANDLING - A method for combining partial records into a single direct memory access (DMA) operation for a count key data (CKD) protocol in a computer environment is provided. In an initiator processor of the computer environment, a number of the partial records to be prefetched is determined by gathering a plurality of descriptor information for a command according to a predetermined algorithm having a plurality of assumptions for the command. The number of partial records is prefetched. At least one of record headers and record keys of the number of partial records are concatenated into the single DMA operation. The DMA operation is forwarded to a receiver process to be completed. | 02-11-2010 |
20100036978 | EMBEDDED LOCATE RECORDS FOR DEVICE COMMAND WORD PROCESSING - A method of packaging locate record commands for device command word (DCW) processing is provided. A first locate record command is packaged into DCW prefix parameter data. The first locate record command includes first search and first seek arguments, a first intent count argument, a first transfer length factor argument, and a plurality of remaining arguments. A plurality of truncated locate record commands is embedded in the DCW prefix parameter data as concatenations to the first locate record command. Each of the plurality of truncated locate record commands include a unique search argument, intent count argument, and transfer length factor argument. Seek argument parameters for each of the plurality of truncated locate record commands are calculated by taking an offset from the first seek argument and the first search argument, applying the offset to each of the plurality of truncated locate record commands. The plurality of remaining arguments is shared. | 02-11-2010 |
20100036982 | INTERROGATE PROCESSING FOR COMPLEX I/O LINK - A method for facilitating input/output (I/O) communication for a processing operation is provided. An interrogate command is obtained by an I/O communications adapter. The interrogate command queries for status information of the processing operation to be provided in an interrogate response. A fixed number of resources and a time allocated to the interrogate command is throttled by pre-allocating the fixed number of resources needed for the interrogate command, and maintaining a timestamp for a interrogate message. The interrogate message is forwarded from the I/O communications adapter to a control unit. If the interrogate response is not received by the I/O communications adapter within a limited timeout period as measured by the timestamp, or if the interrogate message is received while the fixed number of pre-allocated resources are in use, the I/O communications adapter returns a busy response indicating the control unit is busy to prevent overrunning the control unit. | 02-11-2010 |
20100037098 | TERMINATE OPERATIONS FOR COMPLEX I/O LINK - Method, system and computer program product embodiments for, in an input/output (I/O) link handling complex instruction chains, a messaging scheme incorporating a method of error recovery between an initiator processor and a receiver processor, are provided. An operation initiation message is been sent from the initiator processor to the receiver processor for the receiver processor to begin work on an operation. If determined to be necessary, a terminate operation message is sent from the initiator processor to the receiver processor. The initiator processor withholds sending additional messages for the operation until a terminate operation response message is received. Once the terminate operation message is received, outstanding messages in process are flushed from the receiver processor. The receiver processor withholds sending additional messages to the initiator processor as the outstanding messages are completed. The terminate operation response message is sent from the receiver processor to the initiator processor. | 02-11-2010 |
20100086077 | CONCURRENT ENABLEMENT OF PERSISTENT INFORMATION UNIT PACING - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture, in which a logical path is established between a control unit and a channel over a fibre channel connection. Code for persistent information unit pacing is loaded into the control unit and the channel. An indicator is set in node descriptors of the control unit and the channel to indicate concurrent enablement of persistent pacing while retaining the established logical path between the control unit and the channel. | 04-08-2010 |
20100100764 | REDUNDANCY INFORMATION FOR ADJUSTING THRESHOLD FOR COMPONENT FAILURE IN A MULTI-LAYER SYSTEM - A first unit and a second unit are provided in a multi-layer computing system, wherein the first unit is at a higher layer than the second unit in the multi-layer computing system, and wherein the first unit is a higher level unit and the second unit is a lower level unit. The higher level unit sends to the lower level unit, information to adjust a threshold for failure of components coupled to the lower level unit, wherein the higher level unit has more information on a degree of redundancy in the multi-layer computing system than the lower level unit. The lower level unit adjusts the threshold for the failure of the components, by using the information sent from the higher level unit. | 04-22-2010 |
20100161902 | METHOD, SYSTEM, AND PROGRAM FOR AN ADAPTOR TO READ AND WRITE TO SYSTEM MEMORY - Provided are a method, system, and program for an adaptor to read and write to system memory. A plurality of blocks of data to write to storage are received at an adaptor. The blocks of data are added to a buffer in the adaptor. A determination is made of pages in a memory device and I/O requests are generated to write the blocks in the buffer to the determined pages, wherein two I/O requests are generated to write to one block split between two pages in the memory device. The adaptor executes the generated I/O requests to write the blocks in the buffer to the determined pages in the memory device. | 06-24-2010 |
20100325376 | Apparatus and Method to Maintain Write Operation Atomicity Where a Data Transfer Operation Crosses a Data Storage Medium Track Boundary - A method to maintain write operation atomicity where a write operation crosses a data storage medium track boundary. The method supplies a storage controller comprising a host adapter, a processor, and a NVS. The primary host adapter receives from a host computer a write request and data. The method determines if the write request will cross a data storage medium track boundary. If the write request will cross a data storage medium track boundary, the method indicates to the host adapter that the write request comprises a two-track transfer, and writes the data to the primary NVS as the data is received. If the host computer fails prior to providing all the data to the storage controller, the method discards the data written to the NVS to ensure write operation atomicity. | 12-23-2010 |
20110082951 | APPARATUS AND METHOD TO ADJUST A MULTI-PATH DEVICE RESERVATION - A method to adjust a multi-path device reservation by supplying a computing device and a storage controller interconnected with a communication link. The method further reserves a data storage device in communication with the storage controller, where that data storage device reservation is held by a first communication path group comprising a first plurality of communication paths configured in the communication link. If the method detects a failed communication path configured in the first communication path group, the method configures a second communication path group by removing the failed communication path from the first communication path group, wherein the second communication path group maintains the data storage device reservation. | 04-07-2011 |
20110179070 | VERIFYING A RECORD AS PART OF AN OPERATION TO MODIFY THE RECORD - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for verifying a record as part of an operation to modify the record, A search request is received to determine whether a record matches a value. A first component executes the search request to determine if the record matches the value. The first component sends a verify request to a second component that did not execute the search request to execute the search request to determine whether the record matches the value. A result of the first and second components executing the search request is logged. | 07-21-2011 |
20120216211 | AUTHENTICATING A PROCESSING SYSTEM ACCESSING A RESOURCE - Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for authenticating a processing system accessing a resource. An association of processing system identifiers with resources, including a first and second resources, is maintained. A request from a requesting processing system in a host is received for use of a first resource that provides access to a second resource, wherein the request is generated by processing system software and wherein the request further includes a submitted processing system identifier included in the request by host hardware in the host. A determination is made as to whether the submitted processing system identifier is one of the processing system identifiers associated with the first and second resources. The requesting processing system is provided access to the first resource that the processing system uses to access the second resource. | 08-23-2012 |
20130219122 | MULTI-STAGE CACHE DIRECTORY AND VARIABLE CACHE-LINE SIZE FOR TIERED STORAGE ARCHITECTURES - A method in accordance with the invention includes providing first, second, and third storage tiers, wherein the first storage tier acts as a cache for the second storage tier, and the second storage tier acts as a cache for the third storage tier. The first storage tier uses a first cache line size corresponding to an extent size of the second storage tier. The second storage tier uses a second cache line size corresponding to an extent size of the third storage tier. The second cache line size is significantly larger than the first cache line size. The method further maintains, in the first storage tier, a first cache directory indicating which extents from the second storage tier are cached in the first storage tier, and a second cache directory indicating which extents from the third storage tier are cached in the second storage tier. | 08-22-2013 |
20130282996 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MIGRATING DATA - Various embodiments provide systems and methods for migrating data. One system includes a small computer system interface logical unit number (SCSI LUN) configured to store protected data, a processor, and memory configured to store a peer-to-peer remote copy (PPRC) application. The processor is configured to execute the PPRC application to modify the protection in transmitted data and received data. One method includes receiving unprotected data, utilizing a PPRC application to add protection to the data to generate protected data, and storing the protected data in a protected SCSI LUN. Another method includes receiving, at a protected SCSI LUN, a request to transmit protected data, utilizing a PPRC application to strip the protection from the protected data to generate unprotected data, and transmitting the unprotected data to an unprotected SCSI LUN. | 10-24-2013 |