Hitachi, Ltd.

Akio Nakajima

Akira Deguchi

Ikuya Yagisawa

Masayuki Sakata

Akira Yamamoto

Masayuki Yamamoto

Akira Fujibayashi

Yasunori Kaneda

Shuji Nakamura

Kentaro Shimada

Nagamasa Mizushima

Yoshihiro Oikawa

A computer system is coupled to a first storage system in a first site and a second storage system in a second site. The computer system comprises: a memory configured to store information which indicates that data in each segment of a plurality of segments of a logical unit is stored in the first storage system or the second storage system; and a processor configured to: receive an instruction to deploy an application, the instruction including access characteristic of the application; and determine if a snapshot of the logical volume is to be created either in the first storage system or the second storage system based on the access characteristic of the application and the information stored in the memory.

Method and apparatus of shared storage between multiple cloud environments

Exemplary embodiments provide a way to manage data recovery in a distributed system having multiple data store nodes. A storage system comprises: a first node including a first processor; and a plurality of second nodes coupled to the first node, each of the plurality of second nodes including a second processor and one or more second storage devices. The first processor is configured to control to store data and replication of the data in the second storage devices of two or more second nodes. If at least one of the second nodes has failed and a storage capacity of the plurality of second nodes is below a given threshold, one of the second nodes is configured to receive a first data, which is replication of data stored in a failed second node, from another of the second nodes, and create parity data based on the received first data.

Method and apparatus for managing data recovery of distributed storage system

According to one embodiment, a storage system comprises a controller being configured to: receive a write data of an application from a computer; manage the write data as a plurality of data sets, each of the plurality of data sets having a size of a deduplication unit; and apply a deduplication function to each of the plurality of data sets. When a data set of the plurality of data sets has an application metadata portion containing application metadata, the controller separates the application metadata from the data set and fills the application metadata portion by a padding data and applies the deduplication function to the data set including the padding data.

Method and apparatus of data deduplication storage system

Exemplary embodiments provide subsidiary volume management. In one embodiment, a storage system comprises: a memory being operable to store information of a plurality of logical unit groups, each of the plurality of logical unit groups including information of an administrative logical unit (LU) and information of one or more subsidiary LUs to be accessed from a virtual machine on a computer; and a controller being operable to create or select an administrative LU and to inform the computer of the created or selected administrative LU according to evaluation of a subsidiary LU which relates to another administrative LU, when the controller receives a command from the computer to said another administrative LU.

Method and apparatus of subsidiary volume management

Systems and methods directed to the automation of Storage Area Network (SAN) configuration when storage volume migration or server virtual machine migration is conducted. Systems and methods described herein may involve the takeover of a SAN network attribute for the migration, and may involve translation of zone object formats to facilitate the migration and ensure compatibility when the takeover is conducted.

Method and apparatus of storage volume migration in cooperation with takeover of storage area network configuration

In one embodiment, a storage system comprises: a first type interface being operable to communicate with a server using a remote memory access; a second type interface being operable to communicate with the server using a block I/O (Input/Output) access; a memory; and a controller being operable to manage (1) a first portion of storage areas of the memory to allocate for storing data, which is to be stored in a physical address space managed by an operating system on the server and which is sent from the server via the first type interface, and (2) a second portion of the storage areas of the memory to allocate for caching data, which is sent from the server to a logical volume of the storage system via the second type interface and which is to be stored in a storage device of the storage system corresponding to the logical volume.

Hierarchy memory management

Systems and methods described herein involve a virtual storage utilized to virtualize the storage of storage systems across multiple sites. The virtual storage is associated with a virtual multipath control. The virtual multipath control manages the virtual path state of the inter-physical storage, the remote copy volume state which has primary volume or secondary volume state, and the volume copy operation mode such as synchronous copy mode journal copy mode, or bitmap resync mode. The virtual multipath control of the virtual storage facilitates choices from the host for a preferred site, path, state, and volume by utilizing a virtual multipath state from a get virtual multipath information command.

Method and apparatus of disaster recovery virtualization

A virtual LU astride a plurality of storage devices is a virtual volume composed of a plurality of partial volumes. Functions of the storage system, Zoning information of a SAN and a host group information of the virtual volume are inherited to a partial volume created for each physical device. When a page granularity data migration is executed, volume or data are migrated to other storage devices without depending on the relationship between a physical port and the physical device. When a host IO request is received when migration is on-going, response processing is performed by synchronizing storage devices within the range of migration data. The host IO request related to the page being migrated sends a partial complete response including information for re-routing the request to a path of the appropriate data migration destination device capable of issuing the IO.

Storage system with virtual volume having data arranged astride storage devices, and volume management method

A computer system in which one or more host computershaving a FC (Fibre Channel) node port and one or more storage apparatuseshaving a FC node port are coupled via a FC fabric. The storage apparatus acquires first information related to access control for controlling access to a relevant storage apparatus by the host computer. The storage apparatus, based on the first information, creates second information for defining the host computer that is able to access the relevant storage apparatus, and registers this second information in the fabric.

Computer system and computer system management method

An aspect of the invention is directed to a storage management computer for managing offloading of storage workload between a storage controller of a storage system and one or more host computers. The storage management computer comprises: a memory; and a controller operable to request a virtual machine management computer to register the storage controller as a host computer, and to send, to the virtual machine management computer, storage processes information of storage processes in the storage system which can be offloaded as virtual machines in order for the virtual machine management computer to register the storage processes as virtual machines.

Method and apparatus for offloading storage workload

An administrator instructs creation of a volume to a virtual storage device and registration of a host port for providing access permission to the volume. The virtual storage device searches a candidate of a physical storage device capable of reaching the host port and a candidate of the target port based on the access permission information, and creates a distributed volume astride the candidate physical storage device. The distributed volume is composed of a plurality of partial volumes, and the partial volumes inherit the functions of the storage device and the access permission information set for the distributed volume. The virtual storage device distributes an access permission to the physical storage device, constitutes the access permission information of the host port and the volume with respect to the candidate target port, and registers the access permission information of the host port and the target port to the SAN switch.

Storage management method and storage system in virtual volume having data arranged astride storage devices

Exemplary embodiments provide a technique to offload storage workload. In one aspect, a computer comprises: a memory; and a controller operable to manage a relationship among port information of an initiator port, information of a logical volume storing data from the initiator port, and port information of a target port to be used for storing data from the initiator port to the logical volume, and to cause another computer to process a storage function of a storage system including the logical volume and the target port by creating a virtual machine for executing the storage function and by configuring the relationship on said another computer, said another computer sending the data to the logical volume of the storage system after executing the storage function. In specific embodiments, by executing the storage function on said another computer, the workload of executing the storage function on the storage system is eliminated.

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Akio Nakajima