International Business Machines Corporation

Amalia Avraham

Ran Harel

Ohad Atia

Alon Marx

Shay Berman

Rivka Mayraz Matosevich

Erez Alexander Theodorou

Lior Tamary

Isaac Beckman

Ariel Kass

Olga Shtivelman

Samuel Krikler

Eran Tzabari

Miron Aloni

A method according to one embodiment includes sending, from a first system to a second system, a request for a clock value associated with a third system; receiving, from the second system, a clock value associated with the third system and a query clock value determined at the second system; comparing, at the first system, the clock value associated with the third system to the query clock value determined at the second system; determining an amount of time since the third system contacted the second system, in response to determining that the query clock value is greater than the clock value associated with the third system; comparing the difference to a threshold time; determining that the third system is unavailable when the difference exceeds the predetermined threshold time value; and performing one or more predetermined actions at the first system in response to determining that the third system is unavailable.

Identifying an availability of a system

Embodiments herein describe providing a certificate signed by a local CA to an unauthenticated server rather than obtaining a certificated signed by a third-party CA. A server that already has a certificate that was signed by a third-party CA may want to establish secure connection with an unauthenticated server which does not have a signed certificate. The unauthenticated server needs a certificate signed by a CA trusted by the server that already has a signed certificate (referred to herein as the authenticated server). To do so, the unauthenticated server sends login credentials to the authenticated server so that this server knows it can trust the unauthenticated server. In turn, the authenticated server can send its signed certificate to the unauthenticated server so it can verify the authenticated server. Once verified, the authenticated server generates a signed certificate for the unauthenticated server using a local CA.

Server/server certificates exchange flow

Connectivity type detection for a data storage system in accordance with the present description includes, in one aspect of the present description, automated host-target discovery logic which is configured to automatically discover the connectivity type for a connection path between a host and a storage system, and select and initiate target discovery procedures which are appropriate for the discovered connectivity type. As a result, mapping a target volume of the target storage system which is connected to the host, may be facilitated, reducing or eliminating delays which may have otherwise resulted from the change in connectivity type. In this manner, efficiency of the computing system may be improved. Other aspects and advantages may be realized, depending upon the particular application.

Connectivity type detection using a transport protocol and command protocol of the data storage system

Embodiments for volume management in a data storage environment. A network sniffing operation between virtual machines is performed to detect relationships between the virtual machines and thereby identify candidates for subsequent storage volume affiliation operations. The network sniffing operation detects the relationships based on network traffic or alternative similarity attributes of an existing placement of the virtual machines thereby deducing affiliations of storage volumes between the virtual machines such that, during the storage volume affiliation operations, the existing placement of the virtual machines is not modified. The identified candidates to be added to a new or existing storage volume affiliation operation are recommended to a user via a prompt.

Volume management by virtual machine affiliation auto-detection

Embodiments of the present invention provide methods and systems for calculating capacity allocation in storage systems. Embodiments of the present invention can be used to calculate a capabilities score for all storage systems, resulting in a list of storage systems, prioritized, so that a storage administrator may select automatically or manually, the best system to provision for the requesting application, based on the calculated capabilities score of each storage system.

Provisioning storage allocation using prioritized storage system capabilities

Methods, computing systems and computer program products implement embodiments of the present invention that include defining multiple capabilities for a set of resources, the resources comprising storage space. A plurality of services are defined, each of the services including one or more of the capabilities for a subset of the resources, and a software defined storage (SDS) system is configured including the defined services. Upon the SDS system receiving a request to forecast an amount of the storage space including one or more of the capabilities that will be available at a specified future time, one or more of the services including the one or more capabilities are identified, and a predicted amount of the storage space for the identified one or more services is computed for specified future time. In some embodiments, a given identified given service includes one or more additional capabilities not required by the request.

Storage capacity forecasting by capability sets

A computer-implemented method according to one embodiment includes identifying a host within a container environment, and mapping a volume of a container to the host within the container environment, utilizing small computer system interface (SCSI) second level addressing.

Scale and performance for persistent containers using SCSI second level addressing to map storage volume to host of container environment, wherein said storage volume is scanned at said SCSI second level addressing without rescanning at OS level virtualization

A computer-implemented method according to one embodiment includes receiving, at a storage system, a request to allocate persistent data storage for use by a container within an orchestration system, where the request includes an orchestration system identifier, selecting a storage volume within the storage system for use by the container within the orchestration system, determining a storage identifier for the storage volume within the storage system, and storing, within the storage system, an association between the orchestration system identifier and the storage identifier.

Maintaining container to storage volume relations

Embodiments for managing volume replication and disaster recovery in a containerized storage environment. A mapping is established between a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) having a correlated Persistent Volume (PV), and a source storage World Wide Name (WWN) and a target storage WWN. The mapping is replicated as part of a replication operation between the source storage and the target storage thereby maintaining consistency of the PV associated with one or more application containers among the source storage and the target storage.

Container replication and failover orchestration in distributed computing environments

A computer-implemented method according to one embodiment includes sending, from a first system to a second system, a request for a clock value associated with a third system, receiving, from the second system, a clock value associated with the third system and a query clock value determined at the second system, comparing, at the first system, the clock value associated with the third system to the query clock value determined at the second system to determine whether the third system is unavailable, and performing one or more predetermined actions at the first system in response to determining that the third system is unavailable.

Embodiments for performance management in a computing storage environment. At least one of a plurality of performance characteristics associated with a quality of service (QoS) between a storage system and a host is dynamically controlled by uploading code of a QoS logic, from the host to the storage system, for determining and specifying the at least one of the plurality of performance characteristics, thereby reducing overhead of QoS management data required to be stored within or communicated to the storage system.

Quality of service (QoS) stored procedures

Embodiments for volume management in a data storage environment. A network sniffing operation between virtual machines is performed to detect relationships between the virtual machines and thereby identify candidates for subsequent storage volume affiliation operations.

Methods, computing systems and computer program products implement embodiments of the present invention that include receiving a request including a specified number of logical volumes, and identifying, in a storage system including multiple storage pools having storage space, respective first amounts of the storage space that are available in the multiple storage pools. Based on the specified number of logical volumes and the first amounts of the storage space, a set of volume sizes indicating second amounts of the storage space are defined, and a given volume size indicating a maximum size for the specified number of logical volumes is identified. Upon conveying the maximum size to a user, and receiving, from the user, a specified size less than or equal to the maximum size, the specified number of the volumes having the specified size can be provisioned, wherein each of the volumes is stored in a given storage pool.

Determining maximum volume size

Embodiments for performance management in a computing storage environment. In a storage system having a predetermined number of available quality of service (QoS) values associated with a performance of the storage system, the predetermined number of available QoS values are spread over a range such that a user requested QoS value is matched with one of the available QoS values within an optimal deviation value to a given precision.

Spreading quality of service values over a given range with minimal deviation

Embodiments for volume management in a data storage environment. A storage pool of a plurality of storage pools is selected to provision at least one storage volume by calculating, for each of the plurality of storage pools, a forecast factor representing an expected usage according to an overall size of the at least one storage volume. The selected storage pool is the storage pool of the plurality of storage pools having a smallest forecast factor.

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Petach Tikva, Israel

Amalia Avraham