Lsi Logic Corporation

Lsi Corporation

Avago Technologies General IP (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Limited

Basavaraj Gurupadappa Hallyal

Paresh Chatterjee

Gerald Edward Smith

James A Rizzo

Senthil Thangaraj

Parag Ranjan Maharana

Vinu Velayudhan

Chayan Biswas

Stephen Scott Piper

Adam Weiner

Sukha Ghosh

Ragendra Mishra

Marc C Karasek

Sumanesh Samanta

Naveen Krishnamurthy

Sridhar Rao Veerla

Sumant Kumar Patro

Narasimhulu Dharani Kotte

Guolin Huang

Ramya Subramanian

Gurpreet Singh Anand

Embodiments herein provide for dynamic storage system configuration. In one embodiment, a storage controller is operable to configure a storage volume from a plurality of storage devices. The storage controller includes an interface operable to receive a first write I/O request from a host system, and to extract a storage configuration attribute from the first write I/O request. The storage controller also includes a processor communicatively coupled to the interface and operable to identify a storage configuration required by the first write I/O request based on the storage configuration attribute, to determine whether the storage volume comprises the required storage configuration of the first write I/O request, and to configure a portion of the storage volume according to the storage configuration required by the first write I/O request in response to a determination that the storage volume does not comprise the required storage configuration.

Dynamic storage system configuration

Methods and structure for improved shipping of I/O requests among multiple storage controllers of a clustered storage system. Minimal processing of a received I/O request is performed in a first controller to determine whether the I/O request is directed to a logical volume that is owned by the first controller or to a logical volume owned by another controller. For requests to logical volumes owned by another controller, the original I/O request is modified to indicate the target device address of the other controller. The first controller then ships the request to the other controller and configures DMA capabilities of the first controller to exchange data associated with the shipped request between the other controller and memory of the host system.

Methods and structure for improved I/O shipping in a clustered storage system

Methods and systems for using one or more solid-state drives (SSDs) as a shared cache memory for a plurality of storage controllers coupled with the SSDs and coupled with a plurality of storage devices through a common switched fabric communication medium. All controllers share access to the SSDs through the switched fabric and thus can assume control for a failed controller by, in part, accessing cached data of the failed controller in the shared SSDs.

Methods and systems using solid-state drives as storage controller cache memory

Methods and systems for transferring ownership of a logical volume in a storage system comprising multiple storage controllers is provided. According to the method, the storage controllers are coupled for communication with a logical volume, wherein at least one storage device coupled with the storage controllers implements the logical volume. The method comprises identifying, at a first storage controller, a second storage controller to receive the logical volume. The method also comprises initiating a transfer of ownership of the logical volume from the first storage controller to the second storage controller by transferring metadata stored in a memory of the first storage controller to the second storage controller, the metadata existing in a native format that describes the configuration of the logical volume on the at least one storage device.

Methods and structure for transferring ownership of a logical volume by transfer of native-format metadata in a clustered storage environment

Methods and system for implementing a clustered storage solution are provided. One embodiment is a storage controller that communicatively couples a host system with a storage device. The storage controller comprises an interface and a control unit. The interface is operable to communicate with the storage device. The control unit is operable to identify ownership information for a storage device, and to determine if the storage controller is authorized to access the storage device based on the ownership information. The storage controller is operable to indicate the existence of the storage device to the host system if the storage controller is authorized, and operable to hide the existence of the storage device from the host system if the storage controller is not authorized.

Methods and structure for managing visibility of devices in a clustered storage system

The invention relates to a method for computer signal processing data and command transfer over an interface and more particularly to a communication between peripheral firmware and a host processor or Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) on a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. In one embodiment, a device and method for reducing the load on the PCI Bus is described. In yet another embodiment, a device and method is described for constructing a variable length command block comprising message frames and aligning all message frames for a particular command block that are contiguous in memory.

Variable length command pull with contiguous sequential layout

The present invention is a system and method for supporting an alternative peer-to-peer communication over a network in a SAS cluster when a node cannot communicate with another node through a normal I/O bus (Serial SCSI bus). At startup, driver may establish the alternative path for communication but may not use it as long as there is an I/O Path available. In the present invention, two types of P2P calls, such as event notification calls and cluster operation calls may be supported.

System for providing an alternative communication path in a SAS cluster

The present invention is directed to a system and method for supporting an alternative peer-to-peer communication over a network in a SAS cluster when a node cannot communicate with another node through a normal I/O bus (Serial SCSI bus). At startup, driver may establish the alternative path for communication but may not use it as long as there is an I/O Path available. In the present invention, two types of P2P calls, such as event notification calls and cluster operation calls may be supported.

Methods and systems for improved lock processing in a storage controller. Storage controllers that provide storage management features such as RAID storage controllers may concurrently process I/O requests received from attached host systems and I/O requests generated internally by the management processing in the controller. Such concurrent processing is coordinated by lock processing that allows affected storage areas to be locked during processing of an I/O operation. Features and aspects hereof allow such lock processing to lock regions flexibly defined by the controller. The flexible definition of the regions to be locked allows variance in the granularity of the locks required. Smaller granularity permits more concurrent I/O requests to be processed.

Methods and systems for locking in storage controllers

A mechanism is provided for migration between stripe storage and redundant parity striped storage. When a disk is added to a disk array, the mechanism migrates from RAID 0 to RAID 5. For each row, the mechanism calculates parity for the row and, if the parity position is not the new drive, the mechanism writes the data from the parity position to the new drive and writes the parity to the parity stripe position. If a drive fails, the mechanism migrates back from RAID 5 to RAID 0. For each row, if the parity position is not the failed drive, reads the data from remaining drives, XORs the data stripes to get failed drive data, and writes the failed drive data to the parity position. If a read or write is received for the failed drive, the mechanism simply redirects the read or write to the parity position.

Method, apparatus and program for migrating between striped storage and parity striped storage

Methods and structure for initializing a RAID storage volume substantially in parallel with processing of host generated I/O requests. Initialization of a RAID volume may be performed as a background task in one aspect of the invention while host generated I/O requests proceed in parallel with the initialization. The initialization may preferably the performed by zeroing all data including parity for each stripe to thereby make each stripe XOR consistent. Host generated I/O requests to write information on the volume may utilize standard read-modify-write requests where the entire I/O request affects information in a portion of the volume already initialized by background processing. Other host I/O requests use standard techniques for generating parity for all stripes affected by the write requests. These and other features and aspects of the present invention make a newly defined RAID volume available for host processing is quickly as possible.

Methods and structure for rapid background initialization of a RAID logical unit

A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for configuring a set of controllers. The configuration of multiple controllers may be achieved through a combination of a host application and a controller application. A host application and a controller application are employed to configure the set of controllers in which the host application is employed to relay commands from the controller application to other controllers as well as provide other functions, such as, for example, a user interface to receive input for configuring the controllers. A request is sent from the controller application executing on a selected controller within the set of controllers to the host application executing in host memory. The request is for an execution of a command in at least one of the set of controllers in response to a requirement to configure the set of controllers. Execution of the command in one or more controllers in the set of controllers is initiated by the host application in response to receiving the request from the controller application.

Method and apparatus for configuration of RAID controllers

Systems and methods for expanding capacity of a storage system are provided. Data blocks of a capacity increasing disk are pre-configured with a first progress indicator used to determine correctly migrated data blocks. A migrator migrates groups of data blocks among present disk(s) and capacity increasing disk(s). Each group comprises a predetermined number of data blocks. An updater updates a second progress indicator of the second disk in response to completion of migration of each group. The migrator is adapted to generate the first progress indicator such that it may resume migration of groups of data blocks after a migration interruption according to the first and the second progress indicators.

Systems and methods for striped storage migration

The present invention is directed to a system and method for increased data availability. In an aspect of the present invention, a method includes receiving a SMART indication from a data storage device included in a plurality of data storage devices configured as a RAID array. Data from the data storage device which originated the SMART indication is replicated to a second data storage device. The second data storage device was not originally configured in the RAID array with the plurality of data storage devices for data storage. The data storage device which originated the SMART indication from the RAID array is removed, thereby resulting the second data storage device and the plurality of data storage devices configured as a RAID array.

Increased data availability in raid arrays using smart drives

A transportable memory apparatus including cache memory and a backup battery is provided that is capable of being removed from a first computer system and installed within a second computer system. The transportable memory apparatus includes a control bus that provides appropriate signals such that the presence and status of the transportable memory apparatus can be detected in order to permit the computer system that includes the transportable memory apparatus to be appropriately initialized. As such, methods for initializing a computer system that may include a transportable memory apparatus are also provided.

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Basavaraj Gurupadappa Hallyal