Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090006876 | STORAGE SYSTEM COMPRISING FUNCTION FOR REDUCING POWER CONSUMPTION - For at least one of storage unit, processor and cache memory which are I/O process-participating devices related to I/O command process, when a load of one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is a low load equal to or less than a predetermined threshold value, a processing related to a state of one or more of the I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is redirected to another one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof, and the state of the one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is shifted to a power-saving state. | 01-01-2009 |
20090144496 | FAST ACCESSIBLE COMPRESSED THIN PROVISIONING VOLUME - A computerized data storage system includes at least one storage device including a nonvolatile writable medium; a cache memory operatively coupled to the storage port and including a data storing area and a data management controller and a storage port. The storage port is operable to connect to a host computer, receive and send I/O information required by the host computer. The storage port is also operable to receive a request to read data, and, in response to the request to read data, the storage port is operable to send the data stored in the data storing area of the cache memory. The storage port is further operable to receive a request to write data, and, in response to the request to write data, the storage port is operable to send the write data to the data storing area of the cache memory. The storage system further includes a thin provisioning controller operable to provide a virtual volume having a virtual volume page, a capacity pool having a capacity pool page and manage a mapping between the virtual volume page and the capacity pool page. The storage system further includes a data compression controller operable to perform a compression operation, and a data decompression controller operable to perform a decompression operation. | 06-04-2009 |
20090240880 | HIGH AVAILABILITY AND LOW CAPACITY THIN PROVISIONING - A data storage system and method for simultaneously providing thin provisioning and high availability. The system includes external storage volume and two storage subsystems coupled together and to external storage volume. Each of storage subsystems includes disk drives and a cache area, each of the storage subsystems includes at least one virtual volume and at least one capacity pool. The virtual volume is allocated from storage elements of the at least one capacity pool. The capacity pool includes the disk drives and at least a portion of external storage volume. The storage elements of the capacity pool are allocated to the virtual volume in response to a data access request. The system further includes a host computer coupled to the storage subsystems and configured to switch input/output path between the storage subsystems. Each of the storage subsystems is adapted to copy received write I/O request to other storage subsystems. Upon receipt of request from another storage subsystem, storage element of the capacity pool of storage subsystem is prevented from being allocated to the virtual volume of that storage subsystem. | 09-24-2009 |
20100049823 | Initial copyless remote copy - Embodiments of the invention reduce the traffic between datacenters during initial remote copy. In one embodiment, a computer system comprises a first datacenter including a first source volume and a second datacenter including a second source volume. Prior to establishment of remote copy of deployed volumes between the first datacenter and the second datacenter, the first source volume of the first datacenter and the second source volume of the second datacenter have identical source objects. During establishment of remote copy, the first datacenter replicates the source object in the first source volume to a first target volume, the second datacenter replicates the source object in the second source volume to a second target volume, and a first replicated object in the first target volume and a second replicated object in the second target volume are related to each other by remote copy with no copying therebetween. | 02-25-2010 |
20100057789 | Low traffic failback remote copy - The local storage performs remote copy to the remote storage. For low traffic failback remote copy, the remote storage performs a delta copy to the local storage, the delta being the difference between the remote storage and local storage. The local storage backs up snapshot data. The remote storage resolves the difference of the snapshot of the local storage and the remote storage. The difference resolution method can take one of several approaches. First, the system informs the timing of snapshot of the local storage to the remote storage and records the accessed area of the data. Second, the system informs the timing of snapshot of the local storage to the remote storage, and the remote storage makes a snapshot and compares the snapshot and remote copied data. Third, the system compares the local data and remote copy data with hashed data. | 03-04-2010 |
20100058319 | AGILE DEPLOYMENT OF SERVER - System and method for agile deployment of servers. The system includes one or more storage subsystems, a host computer and a storage management server or general severs together with a system management server. A system administrator or a storage supplier preliminarily installs an application package on a server. The application package may include an operating system, programs, libraries, configuration data and initial data. When the system requires a new physical or virtual server, the system administrator replicates the installed application package and conducts the new server runs with the replicated application package. Operation sequences are provided for order of copying of the application package between the management servers and the storage subsystems. Change in the data from an initial state may be stored instead of the complete data. | 03-04-2010 |
20100107003 | Fast Data Recovery From HDD Failure - A storage system comprises a first storage device having a first plurality of hard disk drives and a first controller. The first controller stores data in the first plurality of hard disk drives by stripes. Each stripe includes M data and N parity data allocated to M+N hard disk drives of the first plurality of hard disk drives. A first hard disk drive includes data or parity data of both a first stripe of the stripes and a second stripe of the stripes, while a second hard disk drive includes data or parity data of only one of the first stripe or the second stripe. During data recovery involving failure of one of the first plurality of hard disk drives, the data in the failed hard disk drive is recovered for each stripe by calculation using data and parity data in other hard disk drives for each stripe. | 04-29-2010 |
20100274966 | HIGH AVAILABILTY LARGE SCALE IT SYSTEMS WITH SELF RECOVERY FUNCTIONS - Storage Systems in the IT system provide information of the status of its components to the System Monitoring Server. System Monitoring Server calculates storage availability of storage systems based on information using failure rates of the components, and determines whether the volumes of the storage system should be migrated based on a predetermined policy. If migration is required, System Monitoring Server selects the target storage system based on storage availability of storage systems, and requests migration to be performed. | 10-28-2010 |
20110066802 | DYNAMIC PAGE REALLOCATION STORAGE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT - In one embodiment, a storage system for storage management in a tiered storage environment comprises a plurality of storage volumes in a pool which are divided into a plurality of tiers having different tier levels, the tiers being organized according to a tier configuration rule, the plurality of storage volumes provided by a plurality of physical storage devices in the storage system; and a controller controlling the plurality of physical storage devices, the controller including a processor and a memory. The controller changes tier configurations of the tiers of storage volumes when the tier configuration rule is changed, the tier configurations including the tier levels. The controller allocates the pool to a plurality of virtual volumes based on a change of tier levels against the physical storage devices which occurs when the pool does not meet the tier configuration rule that was in effect. | 03-17-2011 |
20110072225 | APPLICATION AND TIER CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT IN DYNAMIC PAGE REALLOCATION STORAGE SYSTEM - For storage management in a tiered storage environment in a system having one or more applications running on a host computer which is connected to a storage system, the storage system comprises storage volumes in a pool which are divided into a plurality of tiers having different tier levels, the tiers being organized according to a tier configuration rule; and a controller. The controller allocates the pool to a plurality of virtual volumes based on a change of the tier levels against the physical storage devices. The controller stores a relation between data in the storage system being accessed by each application running on the host computer and an application ID of the application accessing the data. The tier level of a portion of a storage volume of the plurality of storage volumes is changed based at least in part on the application accessing data in the storage volume. | 03-24-2011 |
20110126083 | FAST DATA RECOVERY FROM HDD FAILURE - A storage system comprises a first storage device having a first plurality of hard disk drives and a first controller. The first controller stores data in the first plurality of hard disk drives by stripes. Each stripe includes M data and N parity data allocated to M+N hard disk drives of the first plurality of hard disk drives. A first hard disk drive includes data or parity data of both a first stripe of the stripes and a second stripe of the stripes, while a second hard disk drive includes data or parity data of only one of the first stripe or the second stripe. During data recovery involving failure of one of the first plurality of hard disk drives, the data in the failed hard disk drive is recovered for each stripe by calculation using data and parity data in other hard disk drives for each stripe. | 05-26-2011 |
20110153905 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR I/O PATH SWITCHING - A system for input/output path switching comprises a host; a network switch coupled to the host; and a plurality of storage systems which include a first storage system and a second storage system. For switching an I/O path, from a path between the host and the first storage system via the network switch to another path between the host and the second storage system via the network switch, one of the host or the network switch changes FCID (Fibre Channel Node port identifier) information therein, to migrate a WWPN (World Wide Port Name) from association with the first storage system network interface to association with the second storage system network interface. The FCID information includes address information of storage system network interfaces of the storage systems for connecting to the network switch. | 06-23-2011 |
20110208909 | REDUCTION OF I/O LATENCY FOR WRITABLE COPY-ON-WRITE SNAPSHOT FUNCTION - According to one aspect of the invention, a method of controlling a storage system comprises storing data in a first volume in the storage system which has volumes including the first volume and a plurality of second volumes; prohibiting write I/O (input/output) access against the first volume after storing the data in the first volume; performing subsequent write requests received by the storage system against the second volumes in the storage system after storing the data in the first volume, each write request having a target volume which is one of the second volumes; and in response to each one write request of the write requests, determining whether the target volume of the one write request is write prohibited or not, and performing the one write request only if the target volume is not write prohibited. | 08-25-2011 |
20110252274 | Methods and Apparatus for Managing Error Codes for Storage Systems Coupled with External Storage Systems - A system comprising a plurality of storage systems, which uses storage devices of multiple levels of reliability. The reliability as a whole system is increased by keeping the error code for the relatively low reliability storage disks in the relatively high reliability storage system. The error code is calculated using hash functions and the value is used to compare with the hash value of the data read from the relatively low reliability storage disks. | 10-13-2011 |
20120005504 | STORAGE SYSTEM COMPRISING FUNCTION FOR REDUCING POWER CONSUMPTION - For at least one of storage unit, processor and cache memory which are I/O process-participating devices related to I/O command process, when a load of one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is a low load equal to or less than a predetermined threshold value, a processing related to a state of one or more of the I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is redirected to another one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof, and the state of the one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is shifted to a power-saving state. | 01-05-2012 |
20120017061 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING DATA BETWEEN STORAGE SYSTEMS PROVIDING DIFFERENT STORAGE FUNCTIONS - A system comprises a plurality of storage systems, which provides different storage functions, and is controlled by a management server. The management server determines whether to change the control of the storage controller between the storage systems, or to mount the target volume as an external volume and keep the storage controller under control so that the storage function provided to the source volume is maintained even after the configuration change between the storage systems. After the determination, the management server instructs the storage system to perform according to the determination. | 01-19-2012 |
20120047346 | TIERED STORAGE POOL MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL FOR LOOSELY COUPLED MULTIPLE STORAGE ENVIRONMENT - A system comprises a first storage system including a first storage controller, which receives input/output commands from host computers and provides first storage volumes to the host computers; and a second storage system including a second storage controller which receives input/output commands from host computers and provides second storage volumes to the host computers. A first data storing region of one of the first storage volumes is allocated from a first pool by the first storage controller. A second data storing region of another one of the first storage volumes is allocated from a second pool by the first storage controller. A third data storing region of one of the second storage volumes is allocated from the first pool by the second storage controller. A fourth data storing region of another one of the second storage volumes is allocated from the second pool by the second storage controller. | 02-23-2012 |
20120179864 | METRICS AND MANAGEMENT FOR FLASH MEMORY STORAGE LIFE - According to one aspect of the invention, a method of evaluating reliability of flash memory media comprises managing a flash memory remaining life for each disk of a plurality of flash memory media disks provided in one or more flash memory media groups each of which has a configuration and a relationship between said each flash memory media group and the flash memory media disks in said each flash memory media group, wherein each flash memory media group is one of a RAID group or a thin provisioning pool; and calculating to obtain information of each flash memory media group based on the measured flash memory remaining life for each disk in said each flash memory media group, the configuration of said each flash memory media group, and the relationship between said each flash memory media group and the flash memory media disks in said each flash memory media group. | 07-12-2012 |
20120226672 | Method and Apparatus to Align and Deduplicate Objects - In deduplicating data including objects, the system obtains information of the location of the objects and uses the information in calculating the hash value. The hash value calculation program divides data from the boundary location to chunks to match the boundary location of the objects subject to deduplication and the hash value is calculated from each chunk. | 09-06-2012 |
20120226876 | NETWORK EFFICIENCY FOR CONTINUOUS REMOTE COPY - A method for controlling data for a storage system comprises: receiving a write input/output (I/O) command of a data from a host computer, the write I/O command including an application ID identifying an application operating on the host computer which sends the write I/O request; maintaining a record of a relation between the application ID in the write I/O command and a storage location of the data to be written in a first volume of the storage system; determining, based on the application ID, whether a data transfer function between the first volume and a second storage volume is to be performed on the data beyond writing the data to the storage location in the first volume; and if the data transfer function is to be performed on the data, then performing the data transfer function on the data to the second volume. | 09-06-2012 |
20120290750 | Systems and Methods For Eliminating Single Points of Failure For Storage Subsystems - Systems and methods directed to preventing a single point of failure by utilizing N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV). During some procedures used by storage subsystems, such as migration, there is oftentimes only a single path from a host to a storage subsystem, which causes a potential single point of failure for the entire system. By utilizing NPIV, this problem may be mitigated. | 11-15-2012 |
20120304006 | LOW TRAFFIC FAILBACK REMOTE COPY - The local storage performs remote copy to the remote storage. For low traffic failback remote copy, the remote storage performs a delta copy to the local storage, the delta being the difference between the remote storage and local storage. The local storage backs up snapshot data. The remote storage resolves the difference of the snapshot of the local storage and the remote storage. The difference resolution method can take one of several approaches. First, the system informs the timing of snapshot of the local storage to the remote storage and records the accessed area of the data. Second, the system informs the timing of snapshot of the local storage to the remote storage, and the remote storage makes a snapshot and compares the snapshot and remote copied data. Third, the system compares the local data and remote copy data with hashed data. | 11-29-2012 |
20120324162 | STORAGE SYSTEM COMPRISING FUNCTION FOR REDUCING POWER CONSUMPTION - For at least one of storage unit, processor and cache memory which are I/O process-participating devices related to I/O command process, when a load of one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is a low load equal to or less than a predetermined threshold value, a processing related to a state of one or more of the I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is redirected to another one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof, and the state of the one or more I/O process-participating devices or a part thereof is shifted to a power-saving state. | 12-20-2012 |
20130054891 | DISTRIBUTION DESIGN FOR FAST RAID REBUILD ARCHITECTURE - Exemplary embodiments of the invention provide a distribution design for fast RAID rebuild architecture that avoids the deterioration of the availability/reliability in the distribution architecture. According to one aspect of the invention, a storage system comprises: a data storage unit including a plurality of storage devices; a storage controller including a processor, a memory, and a controller for controlling data transfer between the memory and corresponding storage devices in the data storage unit; and an internal network coupled between the storage controller and the storage devices. Based on loads of the processor of the storage controller and the internal network, the storage controller controls to limit a number of redundant storage devices over which to distribute a write data. | 02-28-2013 |
20130054894 | INCREASE IN DEDUPLICATION EFFICIENCY FOR HIERARCHICAL STORAGE SYSTEM - Exemplary embodiments provide improvement of deduplication efficiency for hierarchical storage systems. In one embodiment, a storage system comprises a storage controller; and a plurality of first volumes and a plurality of external volumes which are configured to be mounted to external devices. The storage controller controls to store related data which are derived from one of the plurality of first volumes in a first external volume of the plurality of external volumes. In another embodiment, the storage controller receives object data from a server and allocates the object data to the plurality of pool volumes. The plurality of pool volumes include a plurality of external volumes which are configured to be mounted to external devices. The storage controller controls to store the object data to the plurality of pool volumes based on object allocation information received from a backup server. | 02-28-2013 |
20130103778 | METHOD AND APPARATUS TO CHANGE TIERS - Systems and methods directed to changing tiers for a storage area that utilizes thin provisioning. Systems and methods check the area subject to a tier change command and change the tier based on the tier specified in the tier change command, and the tier presently associated with the targeted storage area. The pages of the systems and methods may be further restricted to one file per page. | 04-25-2013 |
20130132668 | VOLUME COPY MANAGEMENT METHOD ON THIN PROVISIONING POOL OF STORAGE SUBSYSTEM - Exemplary embodiments provide integrated thin provisioning pool for primary logical volume and secondary logical volume in a storage subsystem. A storage system comprises a processor; a memory; and a storage controller. In one embodiment, the storage controller is configured to allocate storage area from a first pool in response to a write request, and to control allocation of storage areas for a plurality of related data, which are to be allocated from the first pool, from different specified RAID groups in the first pool. In another embodiment, the storage controller is configured to allocate storage area from a first pool in response to a write request, and to control allocation of storage areas for a plurality of related data, which are to be allocated from the first pool, from different RAID groups in the first pool. | 05-23-2013 |
20130179737 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING ERROR CODES FOR STORAGE SYSTEMS COUPLED WITH EXTERNAL STORAGE SYSTEMS - A system comprising a plurality of storage systems, which uses storage devices of multiple levels of reliability. The reliability as a whole system is increased by keeping the error code for the relatively low reliability storage disks in the relatively high reliability storage system. The error code is calculated using hash functions and the value is used to compare with the hash value of the data read from the relatively low reliability storage disks. | 07-11-2013 |
20130238852 | MANAGEMENT INTERFACE FOR MULTIPLE STORAGE SUBSYSTEMS VIRTUALIZATION - A storage system comprises: storage subsystems having storage controllers managing virtual volumes, each storage controller managing a plurality of logical volumes and controlling to store data for a virtual volume of the virtual volumes to a logical volume of the logical volumes; and a control module operable, in response to receiving a command commanding a registration of a storage function for a virtual volume, to translate the received command into a translated command commanding a registration of the storage function for a target logical volume of the logical volumes, based on a mapping between the virtual volumes, the logical volumes, and the storage controllers. The storage controller which manages the target logical volume processes the translated command commanding the registration of the storage function for the target logical volume. The control module is provided in at least one of the storage controllers or another computer in the storage system. | 09-12-2013 |
20130297899 | TRAFFIC REDUCING ON DATA MIGRATION - Exemplary embodiments provide a technique to reduce the traffic between storage devices during data migration. In one embodiment, a system comprises a plurality of storage systems which are operable to migrate a set of primary and secondary volumes between the storage systems by managing and copying, between the storage systems, a plurality of same data and a plurality of difference data between the primary and secondary volumes and location information of each of the plurality of difference data, the location information identifying a location of the difference data in the primary or secondary volume associated with the difference data. Each secondary volume which corresponds to a primary volume, if said each source secondary volume contains data, has a same data as the primary volume and, if said each secondary volume is not synchronized with the primary volume, further has a difference data with respect to the primary volume. | 11-07-2013 |
20140115384 | FAST DATA RECOVERY FROM HDD FAILURE - A storage system comprises a first storage device having a first plurality of hard disk drives and a first controller. The first controller stores data in the first plurality of hard disk drives by stripes. Each stripe includes M data and N parity data allocated to M+N hard disk drives of the first plurality of hard disk drives. A first hard disk drive includes data or parity data of both a first stripe of the stripes and a second stripe of the stripes, while a second hard disk drive includes data or parity data of only one of the first stripe or the second stripe. During data recovery involving failure of one of the first plurality of hard disk drives, the data in the failed hard disk drive is recovered for each stripe by calculation using data and parity data in other hard disk drives for each stripe. | 04-24-2014 |
20140173390 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING ERROR CODES FOR STORAGE SYSTEMS COUPLED WITH EXTERNAL STORAGE SYSTEMS - A system comprising a plurality of storage systems, which uses storage devices of multiple levels of reliability. The reliability as a whole system is increased by keeping the error code for the relatively low reliability storage disks in the relatively high reliability storage system. The error code is calculated using hash functions and the value is used to compare with the hash value of the data read from the relatively low reliability storage disks. | 06-19-2014 |
20150067257 | FAST ACCESSIBLE COMPRESSED THIN PROVISIONING VOLUME - A computerized data storage system includes at least one storage device including a nonvolatile writable medium; a cache memory and a data management controller and a storage port. The storage port is operable to receive a request to read data, and, in response to the request to read data, to send the data stored in the data storing area of the cache memory. The storage port is further operable to receive a request to write data, and, in response to the request to write data, to send the write data to the data storing area of the cache memory. The storage system further includes a thin provisioning controller operable to provide a virtual volume, and a capacity pool. The storage system further includes a data compression controller and a data decompression controller. | 03-05-2015 |