Emc IP Holding Company LLC

Dell Products Inc.

Amit Pundalik Anchi

Rimpesh Patel

Sanjib Mallick

Vinay G Rao

Arieh Don

Srinivas Kangyampeta

Peniel Charles

Madhu Tarikere

Venkatesh Doddamane Nagaraj

Rivka Mayraz Matosevich

David Lionel Black

Gopinath Marappan

Jaeyoo Jung

Owen Crowley

Ziv Dor

Arnab Tah

Ashwin Ramkrishna Tidke

Ramprasad Shetty

Santoshkumar Konnur

Ankur Dixit

Saurabh Tripathi

Poonam Garg

Hanish Kandangattu Hariharan

Vinay Rao G

Noufal Muhammed

An apparatus in one embodiment includes at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory. The at least one processing device is configured to maintain in a host device a data structure characterizing an ordered arrangement of available initiator-target pairs corresponding to respective paths between the host device and a storage system, to obtain a data copy offload command to offload a data copy operation from the host device to the storage system, to select a particular path for delivery of the data copy offload command from the host device to the storage system based at least in part on the ordered arrangement of available initiator-target pairs characterized by the data structure, and to send the data copy offload command from the host device to the storage system using the selected path.

Comprehensive load balancing in a host device through consistent path selection for data copy offload

An apparatus in one embodiment comprises at least one processing device configured to store a mapping for each of a plurality of logical storage devices of a storage system, the mapping for a given one of the logical storage devices assigning different ranges of logical block addresses of that logical storage device to respective different cache entities of the storage system. The at least one processing device is further configured to receive at least one mapping-related communication from at least one of first and second host devices that have shared access to the given logical storage device, to modify the stored mapping for the given logical storage device based at least in part on the at least one received mapping-related communication, and to send at least one mapping-related communication to at least one of the first and second host devices based at least in part on the modified stored mapping.

Synchronized mapping for cache-aware load balancing across multiple host devices

An apparatus in an illustrative embodiment comprises at least one processing device that includes a processor coupled to a memory. The at least one processing device is configured to associate a logical storage volume with at least one path between a host and at least a given one of a plurality of storage nodes of a distributed storage system, and to associate a proxy volume with respective sets of one or more paths from the host to each of the plurality of storage nodes of the distributed storage system. The at least one processing device is further configured to obtain an input-output operation directed to the logical storage volume, and to redirect the input-output operation to the proxy volume over a selected one of the paths associated with the proxy volume. Such an arrangement can avoid one or more host-side restrictions, thereby enhancing scalability of the distributed storage system.

Host multi-path layer with proxy volume redirection for enhanced scalability of distributed storage systems

An apparatus in one embodiment comprises at least one processing device configured to detect a plurality of asynchronous events in a storage system, wherein the storage system is configured to provide respective individual asynchronous event notifications for the detected asynchronous events to a host device in response to receipt of corresponding asynchronous event requests from the host device. The at least one processing device is further configured to determine that multiple ones of the asynchronous events have been detected in the storage system without receipt of respective ones of the corresponding asynchronous event requests from the host device, and to provide to the host device in response to a particular one of the asynchronous event requests received from the host device a summary notification comprising information indicative of the multiple detected asynchronous events. The at least one processing device illustratively comprises at least one storage controller of the storage system.

Concurrent handling of multiple asynchronous events in a storage system

An apparatus includes at least one processing device configured to identify one or more logical storage devices each accessible in at least first and second storage systems, to detect one or more input-output (IO) operations associated with an offload application programming interface (API) of at least one of the first and second storage systems, to clone each such detected IO operation, and to send resulting respective first and second instances of each cloned IO operation to respective ones of the first and second storage systems. The first and second instances of each cloned IO operation are tagged prior to being sent to respective ones of the first and second storage systems so as to allow each of the first and second storage systems to separately determine that the other one of the first and second storage systems has been sent a corresponding instance of the cloned IO operation.

Host device configured for efficient delivery of offload API commands to multiple storage systems

An apparatus in one embodiment includes at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory. The at least one processing device is configured to obtain in a host device asymmetric access state information for one or more logical storage devices each accessible in at least first and second storage systems, and to determine, based at least in part on the asymmetric access state information obtained for the one or more logical storage devices, local-remote designations of respective ones of the first and second storage systems. The asymmetric access state information for a given one of the logical storage devices illustratively comprises, for each of two or more storage controllers of each of the first and second storage systems, information indicating whether a corresponding set of paths is in an active-optimized (AO) state or an active-non-optimized (ANO) state.

Host device configured for automatic detection of storage system local-remote designations

An apparatus in one embodiment includes at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory. The at least one processing device is configured to obtain in a host device information characterizing local-remote designations of respective first and second storage systems, one of which is designated as local and one of which is designated as remote, and to adjust path selection in a multi-path layer of the host device based at least in part on the obtained information characterizing the local-remote designations of the respective first and second storage systems. In some embodiments, a given logical storage device is accessible to the multi-path layer of the host device via a first set of paths to the first storage system and a second set of paths to the second storage system, and adjusting path selection in the multi-path layer comprises adjusting weights assigned to respective ones of the paths.

Host device with multi-path layer configured for alignment to storage system local-remote designations

A host device is configured to communicate over a network with a storage system comprising a plurality of storage devices. The host device comprises a multi-path input-output (MPIO) driver configured to control delivery of input-output (IO) operations from the host device to ports of the storage system over selected ones of a plurality of paths through the network. The MPIO driver of the host device is further configured, for each of at least a subset of the ports, to obtain from the storage system information characterizing a current number of host devices connected to the port and a current available capacity measure of the port, and to limit an amount of the IO operations that are delivered over one or more of the paths to the port based at least in part on the obtained information.

Host device with multi-path layer configured for IO control using detected storage port resource availability

An apparatus comprises at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory. The at least one processing device is configured to receive in a storage system, from a host device, mapping information associating a key identifier of a datastore-level key with a corresponding datastore comprising multiple logical storage devices of the storage system, to store the mapping information in a datastore-level key data structure of the storage system, to utilize the key identifier to obtain in the storage system the datastore-level key from a key management server external to the storage system, and responsive to receipt of at least one IO operation from the host device relating to at least one of reading or writing encrypted data of at least one of the logical storage devices of the datastore, to utilize the obtained datastore-level key to access the encrypted data in unencrypted form in the storage system.

Logical storage device access using datastore-level keys in an encrypted storage environment

An apparatus in one embodiment comprises at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory. The at least one processing device is configured to receive in a storage system, from a host device, an identifier of an encryption-enabled logical storage device of the storage system, to utilize the identifier to obtain in the storage system a device-specific key from a key management server external to the storage system, and to utilize the obtained device-specific key to process input-output operations directed to the encryption-enabled logical storage device from the host device. The host device in some embodiments comprises at least one virtual machine and the encryption-enabled logical storage device comprises a virtual storage volume of the at least one virtual machine. Metadata associated with the virtual storage volume illustratively comprises an encryption status indicator specifying whether or not encryption is enabled for the virtual storage volume.

Logical storage device access using device-specific keys in an encrypted storage environment

An apparatus comprises at least one processing device. The at least one processing device is configured to obtain storage-side performance information maintained by a storage system in conjunction with processing of input-output operations directed to the storage system by a host device over a network, to dynamically select a particular one of a plurality of distinct load balancing policies available in the host device based at least in part on the obtained storage-side performance information, and to apply the selected load balancing policy in directing additional input-output operations from the host device to the storage system. At least one of the load balancing policies comprises a storage cache aware load balancing policy that causes different ones of the input-output operations to be directed to different cache entities of the storage system based at least in part on cache-related performance metrics of the obtained storage-side performance information.

Multi-path layer configured to access storage-side performance metrics for load balancing policy control

A method in one embodiment comprises separating logical block addresses of one or more storage devices of a storage system into a plurality of ranges of logical block addresses using a designated chunk size, the chunk size denoting a particular number of logical block addresses. The method further comprises assigning different ones of the ranges of logical block addresses to different ones of a plurality of cache entities of the storage system, to select paths for delivery of respective input-output operations from a host device to the storage system based at least in part on the assigning, detecting particular ones of the input-output operations that each overlap with two or more adjacent ranges of the plurality of ranges, and responsive to the detected input-output operations exceeding a threshold, modifying the chunk size and repeating at least portions of the separating, assigning, selecting and detecting utilizing the modified chunk size.

Dynamic chunk size adjustment for cache-aware load balancing

An apparatus in one embodiment includes at least one processing device, with the at least one processing device comprising a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The at least one processing device is configured to monitor performance of respective ones of a plurality of paths for accessing a logical storage device, and responsive to detection of at least one specified condition in the monitored performance relating to at least a subset of the paths, to switch the logical storage device from utilization of a first access protocol to utilization of a second access protocol different than the first access protocol. For example, in some embodiments, the at least one processing device is configured to switch the logical storage device from a SCSI access protocol to an NVMe access protocol, and vice versa, responsive to congestion, errors or other detected performance conditions currently impacting one of the access protocols.

Performance-driven access protocol switching for a logical storage device

An apparatus in an illustrative embodiment comprises at least one processing device comprising a processor and a memory, with the processor coupled to the memory. The at least one processing device is configured to receive in a storage system, from a host device, information that identifies (i) a particular virtual machine implemented by the host device and (ii) a key specific to the virtual machine, to utilize at least a portion of the received information to obtain in the storage system the key specific to the virtual machine from a key management server external to the storage system, to store the obtained key in the storage system in association with one or more parts of the received information, and to utilize the obtained key to process input-output operations that are received in the storage system from the host device and that are identified as being associated with the virtual machine.

Logical storage device access using per-VM keys in an encrypted storage environment

An apparatus comprises a processing device configured to control delivery of input-output operations from a host device to a storage system over selected ones of a plurality of paths through a network. The processing device is further configured to receive first and second data outputs corresponding to a plurality of groups of the storage system, to compute first and second pluralities of checksums for respective ones of the groups based on the first and second data outputs, and to determine for the respective ones of the groups whether given ones of the second plurality of checksums differ from given ones of the first plurality of checksums. The control of delivery of the input-output operations is based at least in part on the determination. The plurality of groups each correspond to a plurality of storage devices and the second data output is received after the first data output.

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Bengaluru, India

Amit Pundalik Anchi