Hitachi, Ltd.

Atsushi Murase

Yasunori Kaneda

Toshiaki Hirata

Toshio Otani

Yusuke Izumida

Tomohiro Kawaguchi

Akira Yamamoto

Yoshiki Kano

Yukinori Sakashita

Takaki Kuroda

Masahide Sato

Shigeru Miyake

Takahiro Fujita

Tetsuya Masuishi

Taro Inoue

Kenichi Kihara

Masanori Honda

Takanori Mitsuno

Hiromichi Ota

A management server is provided in a computer system having one or more hosts, one or more storage systems and one or more switches, the hosts having a plurality of virtual machines, each virtual machine being defined according to a service level agreement. The management server is operable to manage the virtual machines and resources associated with the virtual machines; receive a notification of an event from a node in the computer system; determine if the event affects a service level agreement for any of the virtual machines defined in the computer system, the service level agreements listing required attributes for the corresponding virtual machines; allocate a new resource for a virtual machine whose service level agreement is affected by the event; and move the virtual machine whose service level agreement is affected by the event to the newly allocated resource.

Method and apparatus for maintaining a workload service level on a converged platform

A user interface includes a graphical topological representation of an information system. Information is collected regarding connections between switches, storage nodes and computer nodes in the information system. Any sub networks in the system are identified based on the collected information and classified as LANs or SANs. Connections between the various components are determined, and a layout of any identified LANs, computer nodes, SANs, and storage nodes is established for generating the topological representation in the user interface. The graphical topological representation of the information system is displayed in the user interface with the LAN icons, computer node icons, SAN icons and storage node icons laid out in a matrix-like arrangement of columns and rows, such that for LANs, computer nodes, SANs and/or storage nodes that are connected to each other, the corresponding icons are located on or near a same row in the graphical topological representation.

User interface providing information system topology presentation

To create one pool by using a plurality of storage apparatuses and to provide virtual volumes common to each of the storage apparatuses to the server. The respective logical volumeswhich the plurality of storage apparatuses(i) to () comprise are mutually connected. The respective logical volumes are managed in the one pool. The virtual volumesare created by utilizing the storage area in the pool. Each of the storage apparatuses shares at least part of the management information related to the page assignment for the virtual volumes with the other storage apparatuses.

Computer system with storage apparatuses including physical and virtual logical storage areas and control method of the computer system

Embodiments of the invention provide a solution to optimize/minimize the total capacity of Gold Image within the entire datacenter which utilizes a scale-out type of storage systems. A method of server image provisioning comprises checking whether a gold image exists in a first storage system, the gold image being one of a real gold image or a virtual gold image; if no gold image exists in the first storage system, searching a remainder of the storage systems until a real gold image is found in a second storage system; after finding the real gold image in the second storage system, creating a virtual gold image in the first storage system, the virtual gold image in the first storage system being associated with the real gold image in the second storage system; and creating a snapshot volume in the first storage system based on the virtual gold image.

Server image capacity optimization

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.

Application and tier configuration management in dynamic page reallocation storage system

A system includes a first site having a first server and a first storage system, a second site including a second server and a second storage system, and a third site coupled to the first and second sites, the third site having gold images. A method of migrating a virtual server image comprises storing a first gold image at the first site; storing a second gold image at the second site; creating a first snapshot volume at the first site based on the first gold image; sending the first gold image ID, update data of the first gold image, and address information for the update data, from the first site to the second site; creating a second snapshot volume at the second site based on the second gold image corresponding to the first gold image ID; allocating storage for storing the update data at the second site with reference to the address information; and storing the update data in the allocated storage.

Server image migration

Systems and methods for dissolving the bottleneck issue of management task requested from management client to the storage virtualizer which consolidates externally attached storage arrays while providing a single management point of the entire system to the management client. Specifically, by utilizing the storage virtualizer to distribute received management tasks to respective external attached arrays, it can off load tasks, thus reducing the workload on the storage virtualizer itself. Because of the task distribution, the storage virtualizer consequently does not need to copy and hold detailed information of each storage volume in the respective attached storage arrays, thereby avoiding any inconsistent information between the arrays and the virtualizer when the configuration change has been done on the external array.

Storage management task distribution method and system on storage virtualizer

Systems for backing up the data of an IT system by utilizing server or storage virtualization technology to create and move logical IT infrastructures dynamically. A virtualized IT system provides a server resource pool and a storage resource pool composed from multiple physical devices either within a datacenter or a globally located plurality of datacenters. The virtual server and the storage volume provisioned from those pools will be paired to form the virtual infrastructure. In other words, the virtual infrastructure becomes a logical IT environment build with the required computing and storage resources needed in order to execute specific applications. The virtual infrastructure can also be migrated within/among datacenter sites.

Data backup system and method for virtual infrastructure

A storage system includes a first de-duplication scope comprising a first volume, a first table of hash values corresponding to first chunks of data stored on the first volume, and a first table of logical block addresses of where the chunks of data are stored on the first volume. A second de-duplication scope includes similar information for a second volume. The first scope is used for de-duplicating and storing first data from a first data source and the second scope is used for de-duplicating and storing second data from a second data source. First storage mediums that make up the first volume remain powered off while de-duplication and storage of the second data on the second volume takes place, and second storage mediums that make up the second volume remain powered off while de-duplication and storage of the first data takes place, thereby enabling data de-duplication while saving power.

Power efficient data storage with data de-duplication

System and method for reducing costs of moving data between two or more of multi-tiered storage devices. Specifically, the system operates by moving only high tier portion of data and merely remapping the low tier data to migration target device, which eliminates a large amount of data movement (low tier) while maintaining the SLA of high tier data. Specifically, when a command to migrate a thin provisioned volume is received from a source primary storage device to another target primary storage device, the system doesn't copy all of the tierand tierchunk data that the source thin provisioned volume holds, but copies only tierchunk data to the target storage device. The copy operation is performed after the storage system prepared the target thin provisioned volume on the target side. After that, tierchunks are remapped from the primary storage device to another target primary storage device without copying.

System and method for chunk based tiered storage volume migration

Embodiments of the invention include first storage mediums having first storage characteristics for making up a first pool of capacity of a first tier of storage, and second storage mediums having second storage characteristics for making up a second pool of capacity of a second tier of storage. Free capacity of the first and second pools is shared between the first and second tiers of storage. When the first pool has an amount of free capacity available over a reserved amount of free capacity reserved for first tier data, a first quantity of second tier data is moved from the second tier to the first tier. In exemplary embodiments of the invention, the first and second storage mediums are contained within one or more thin provisioning storage systems, and data is moved between the first and second tiers by allocating thin provisioning chunks to the data being moved.

Free space utilization in tiered storage systems

Physical storage space in a storage system is not allocated to a segment of a targeted volume until the segment of the volume is first targeted for storing write data. When write data is received, the storage system determines whether the targeted volume is designated for storing a first data type that is accessed frequently by I/O operations or designated for storing a second data type that is accessed less frequently than the first data type. Physical storage space for storing the write data is allocated from a first logical partition of the physical storage designated for storing the first data type when the targeted volume is of the first data type and from a second logical partition of the physical storage designated for storing the second data type when the targeted volume is of the second data type. Allocation of frequently accessed data is controlled and performance bottlenecking avoided.

Method and apparatus for chunk allocation in a thin provisioning storage system

A thin provisioning storage system is able to present a thin provisioned volume to a computer, such that the computer stores data to the volume as if storage space on disk drives was already allocated for the volume. Upon receiving a write request from the computer, in which the write request is directed to an area of the volume for which storage space on the disk drives has not yet been allocated, the storage system allocates new space on the disk drives. When allocating the new space, the storage system obtains a designated performance level for the volume, and determines a number of storage extents to be allocated to the volume based upon the determined performance level. The storage system also is able to take into account performance metrics for the disk drives and/or array groups when selecting locations from which to allocate the storage extents.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Atsushi Murase