Emc IP Holding Company LLC

Dell Products Inc.

Emp IP Holding Company LLC

Amitai Alkalay

Lior Kamran

Zvi Schneider

Vladimir Shveidel

Assaf Natanzon

Boris Glimcher

Vamsi K Vankamamidi

Aric Hadav

Uri Shabi

Steven A Morley

Anton Kucherov

Ronen Gazit

Dmitry Vladimirovich Krivenok

Doron Tal

Ashok Tamilarasan

Shuyu Lee

Kirill Shoikhet

Shaul Dar

Eldad Zinger

Thomas N Dibb

Amihay Azruel

Philippe Armangau

Geng Han

Chun Ma

Yosef Shatsky

Ali Aiouaz

Bar David

Xiaobo Zhang

Yuval Harduf

Oran Asher Baruch

Rongrong Shang

Tal Ben-Moshe

Leonid Ravich

Vasu Subramanian

David Krakov

Vitaly Zharkov

Udi Shemer

Gilad Braunschvig

Liran Loya

Alexander Barabash

System-level garbage collection is performed in an SSD-based data storage system employing log-structured writing of data. Respective reclaim unit sizes of the storage devices are identified, wherein each reclaim unit is a unit of programming and erasure used by device-level garbage collection to generate erased reclaim units for allocation for physical data storage. The data is arranged across the storage devices in first and second data units, each first data unit being of a first size U equal to the product of R and a stripe width W, each second data unit including a respective set of first data units which occupy a maximum-size reclaim unit of a storage device among those storing the first data units. The system-level garbage collection is operated with second-data-unit granularity to regularly generate empty second data units for allocation in the log-structured writing of data, reducing write amplification and device wear.

Log-structured data storage system using flexible data placement for reduced write amplification and device wear

Techniques for reducing power consumption in a storage system that includes a disk array enclosure (DAE). The techniques include selecting a number of active drives for inclusion in an active drive subgroup of the DAE, and designating a number of inactive (OFF or non-operational) drives for inclusion in an inactive drive subgroup of the DAE. The total number of drives included in the DAE equals the sum of the number of active drives and the number of inactive drives. The techniques further include monitoring at least one condition (e.g., storage capacity utilization, drive wear-leveling, system performance) pertaining to a power consumption of the storage system, and reducing the power consumption by dynamically adapting the number of active drives in the active drive subgroup based on the monitored condition. By dynamically adapting the number of active drives based on certain storage system conditions, significant reductions in power consumption can be achieved.

Power consumption reduction in storage system

A method, computer program product, and computing system for providing on-demand high-availability service on a storage cluster. A new single-node appliance is added to the storage cluster, the storage cluster includes one or more original single-node appliances and an internal remote system configured to facilitate intra-cluster orchestration operation. A remote system object representing the new single-node appliance is generated in the internal remote system. An appliance identifier for the remote system object representing the new single-node appliance is determined. In response to determining that the appliance identifier is a non-zero appliance identifier, an internal remote session between the remote system object and the storage cluster is established. The one or more original single-node appliances and the new single-node appliance are presented as a unified system. Protected storage volumes are provisioned on any of the single-node appliances included in the unified system.

System and method for providing on-demand high-availability service on a storage cluster

A technique is directed to providing endurance to solid state device (SSD) storage. The technique involves storing data in an erase block of the SSD storage. The technique further involves detecting that an internal periodic refresh service operating within the SSD storage is currently configured to perform a refresh operation for the erase block at a target refresh time that is within an upcoming amount of time. The technique further involves, in response to detecting that the internal periodic refresh service is currently configured to perform a refresh operation for the erase block at the target refresh time that is within the upcoming amount of time, performing a system-level garbage collection operation on the data stored in the erase block to prevent the internal periodic refresh service from performing a refresh operation for the erase block at the target refresh time.

Providing endurance to solid state device storage

A technique is directed to managing wear leveling between storage devices. The technique includes obtaining a wear level metric of a candidate storage extent that includes storage from multiple storage devices. The technique further includes performing an assessment operation that provides an indication that the candidate storage extent satisfies an access criterion. The access criterion is based on the wear level metric. The technique further includes, in response to the assessment operation providing the indication that the candidate storage extent satisfies the access criterion, performing a set of access operations that accesses the candidate storage extent.

Managing storage extents using wear levels

An apparatus comprises at least one processing device configured to receive unmap requests for freeing up data previously written to one or more storage regions of at least one storage device of a distributed storage system, the unmap requests being received from two or more write cache instances of two or more storage nodes of the distributed storage system. The processing device is also configured to identify at least a subset of the unmap requests which are directed to a given storage region of the at least one storage device. The processing device is further configured to provide the subset of the unmap requests to at least one storage controller associated with the at least one storage device of the distributed storage system responsive to determining that at least one designated unmap condition has been met.

Orchestration of unmap requests received from write cache instances of a distributed storage system

A method, computer program product, and computing system for identifying a change in a capacity of a cloud-deployed storage system. A capacity ratio and a IOPS ratio are determined for the cloud-deployed storage system. A portion of a cloud-deployed storage device is modified based upon, at least in part, one or more of the capacity ratio and the IOPS ratio. The portion of the cloud-deployed storage device is mapped to a portion of a logical storage device.

System and method for hybrid capacity expansion of virtual storage appliances deployed on cloud storage devices

Techniques manage data within storage equipment having a Flexible Data Placement (FDP) drive. The techniques involve configuring the storage equipment to support storing data in reclaim units of the FDP drive according to an initial group of reclaim unit handles. The techniques further involve detecting that a number of currently available reclaim units of the FDP drive has fallen below a first predefined threshold. The techniques further involve, in response to detecting that the number of currently available reclaim units of the FDP drive has fallen below the first predefined threshold, reconfiguring the storage equipment to support storing data in reclaim units of the FDP drive according to a smaller group of reclaim unit handles. The smaller group of reclaim unit handles has fewer reclaim unit handles than the initial group of reclaim unit handles.

Managing reclaim unit handles to control access to a flexible data placement drive

In one embodiment, processing can include: receiving, at a first node, a read I/O to read content C1 of logical address LA, wherein the first node does not own LA; and responsive to determining a hash table of the first node does not include a matching entry for LA, performing processing including: sending a request from the first node to a second node that owns LA; sending, to the first node, a response including an address hint for LA and additional address hints for logical addresses, wherein LA and the additional address hints are included in a logical address subrange associated with a single metadata page used in mapping LA and the logical addresses to physical storage locations that store content of LA and the logical addresses; the first node adding entries to the hash table for the additional address hints; and obtaining C1 using the address hint for LA.

Prefetching by logical address owner in response to peer node mapping request

A method, computer program product, and computing system for determining that one non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) drive of a pair of NVRAM drives of a storage system is offline, thus defining an offline NVRAM drive and an online NVRAM drive. A virtual disk may be generated on a plurality of solid-state disks (SSDs) of the storage system. The contents of the online NVRAM drive may be copied to the virtual disk. The virtual disk may be exposed to the storage system as a representation of the offline NVRAM drive.

Storage management system and method

A technique is directed to providing dynamic redundant array of independent disks (RAID) transformation which involves measuring a set of storage array parameters for an existing RAID configuration residing in a storage array. The technique further involves identifying a new RAID configuration to use in place of the existing RAID configuration based on the measured set of storage array parameters. The technique further involves, after the new RAID configuration is identified, transforming the existing RAID configuration into the new RAID configuration.

Dynamic redundant array of independent disks (RAID) transformation

A technique of managing message between chassis includes forming a first message by a computing node in a first chassis. The first message complies with a first communications protocol and provides an instruction directed to a controller in a second chassis to manage one or more hardware functions of the second chassis. The controller operates in accordance with a second communications protocol that is different from the first communications protocol. The technique further includes transmitting both the first message and a set of I/O requests from the first chassis to the second chassis over a communications link configured to carry messages complying with the first communications protocol. The technique further includes converting, in the second chassis, the first message complying with the first communications protocol into a second message complying with the second communications protocol, the second message including the instruction directed to the controller.

Managing communications between chassis

Caching techniques can include: receiving, from a host, a read I/O operation requesting to read from a logical address; determining whether a mapping cache includes a descriptor corresponding to the logical address; and responsive to determining the mapping cache includes the descriptor corresponding to the logical address, performing read hit mapping cache processing including: obtaining physical location information from the descriptor, wherein the physical location information identifies a physical location on non-volatile storage including first content stored at the logical address; reading, using the physical location information, the first content from the physical location; performing validation processing to validate the first content using a hash value included in the descriptor; and responsive to validation processing successfully validating the first content, returning the first content to the host.

Caching techniques using a mapping cache and maintaining cache coherency using hash values

A technique is directed to managing wear leveling between storage devices. The technique includes generating a wear imbalance level indicating a variance between a first wear level of a first set of storage devices and a second wear level of a second set of storage devices. The technique further includes, after generating the wear imbalance level, performing a comparison operation that compares the wear imbalance level to a predefined imbalance threshold. The technique further includes, in response to the comparison operation indicating that the wear imbalance level is above the predefined imbalance threshold, providing the first set of storage devices as a first storage tier and the second set of storage devices as a second storage tier.

Managing wear levels of storage devices

Techniques for providing a virtual federation approach to increasing efficiency of processing circuitry utilization in storage nodes with a high number of cores. The techniques include, for each of two (2) physical nodes, logically partitioning a plurality of cores into a first domain of cores and a second domain of cores. The techniques include designating the first domain of cores of each physical node as belonging to a first virtual node. The techniques include designating the second domain of cores of each physical node as belonging to a second virtual node. The techniques include operating the first virtual nodes on the two (2) underlying physical nodes as a first virtual appliance, and operating the second virtual nodes on the two (2) underlying physical nodes as a second virtual appliance. In this way, scalability and speedup efficiency can be increased in a multi-core processing environment with a high number of cores.

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Kadima, Israel

Amitai Alkalay