International Business Machines Corporation

Cuong Huu Tran

Mark Alan Peloquin

Benedict Michael Rafanello

Cristi Nesbitt Ullmann

Brien H Muschett

Tatchi Placido Lay

Allen Justin Ramlow

Derek Wan Ho

Son Duc Nguyen

Jorge Lazaro Diaz

Dung Huu Tran

Julie Eileen Cornell

A mechanism is provided by which a logical volume manager may allow features to be added and modified without having to modify the logical volume manager code. The present invention provides an logical volume manager engine, which attempts to load feature plug-ins that are stored as dynamic link libraries. The logical volume manager also includes application program interfaces to make it possible for user interfaces and other programs that communicate with the LVM Engine to communicate with features created by third parties. The logical volume manager is also modified to eliminate assumptions about the number and order of features being applied to the volume. Features may be selected and ordered by a user at the time of volume creation.

Method and an apparatus for logical volume manager plug-ins

Logical disks are provided, which are created by device managers. The logical volume manager is modified to use only logical disks. The device managers may be plug-in modules. This allows new device managers to be added to the logical volume manager at any time without changing the code in the logical volume manager. Anything that can be made to appear as a logical disk through the use of a device manager plug-in may then be used with the logical volume manager. A device manager for network attached storage may be written allowing network attached storage devices to be treated as local disk drives by the logical volume manager, thereby allowing all of the capabilities of the logical volume manager to be used with the network attached storage devices.

Method and an apparatus to extend the logic volume manager model to allow device management plug-ins

The invention relates to a computer in which an image of the operating system is maintained in a secondary memory. This memory is either powered from a source independent of the main memory, or is non-volatile in nature. When the computer is reinitialized, the loader software that normally builds the operating system from components instead checks the secondary memory for the presence of an operating system image. If such an image is detected, the loader transfers the image from the secondary memory to the primary memory and transfers control of the computing system to the image of the operating system now in the primary memory. If no image is detected, the loader operates in a standard fashion. Additionally, a complete system image may be stored in the secondary memory. This would include the contents of the primary memory, the contents of the virtual memory, and the system state. As such, a preexisting version of an operational computing system may be directly loaded at boot time.

Method for fast reinitialization wherein a saved system image of an operating system is transferred into a primary memory from a secondary memory

A method and apparatus to dynamically order features and manage features, especially aggregators, during creation of a logical volume is provided. The method and apparatus make use of a partition/aggregate list to identify partitions and/or aggregates that make up a logical volume that is to be created. In addition, the partition/aggregate list identifies features to be applied to the partitions and/or aggregates as well as the order in which these features are to be applied. The order in which these features are to be applied is designated by a current feature indicator (CFI). Based on a current CFI count of an entry in the partition/aggregate list, application of a feature corresponding to the current CFI count is attempted. If successful, the current CFI count is incremented and the process returns to a first entry in the partition/aggregate list. If unsuccessful, the current CFI count is not incremented and the process continues on to the next entry in the partition/aggregate list.

Method and an apparatus for volume creation in the presence of multiple aggregators

A method and apparatus to dynamically order features and resolve conflicts in a logical volume management environment is provided. The method and apparatus classifies features of a logical volume into partition level, aggregate level and volume level classes. Based on these classes and the attributes associated with each feature, ordering of the features in a feature stack is performed and conflicts between features identified for conflict resolution. In addition, the apparatus and method provides a mechanism by which a default ordering of features selected by a user may be generated for a logical volume. The user may accept this default ordering or edit the ordering as long as the user does not generate any conflicts. Any conflicts generated will be reported to the user and the attempted ordering will not be allowed.

Method and an apparatus to dynamically order features and to resolve conflicts in a multiple-layer logical volume management environment

A method and an apparatus for enabling and disabling features in a logical volume management environment is presented. This operation can be performed at boot time or at run time. The user is shown a list of features as well as the current state for each feature. If the feature is currently enabled, the user can select to disable the feature, provided this is a safe operation given the current features for the volume. If the feature is disabled, the user has the following choices: re-enable, disable and retain in the feature stack, disable and remove from the feature stack, and permanently remove the disabled feature from the volume. Disabling or re-enabling features can be very useful to accommodate a changing operating environment. For example, the feature Volume Mirroring allows a replication of the volume at a remote site. If due to network difficulties that remote site becomes inaccessible, then this feature would have to be disabled. At a later time when the site becomes accessible again, the feature can be re-enabled.

System and method for selectively enabling and disabling plug-ins features in a logical volume management enviornment

A system and method for control of data and boot records associated with multi-layer logical volumes allows the logical volume data area containing the fake EBR to be deterministically and efficiently accessed by using a &ldquo;top down&rdquo; control methodology. Control of the logical volume manager (&ldquo;LVM&rdquo;) data area is distributed. An LVM data area is placed on each aggregate as well as on each partition, and the fake EBR is placed in the LVM data area of the topmost aggregate. The topmost aggregator controls access to the fake EBR, and only this aggregator must provide API functionality to access the fake EBR. This allows the fake EBR to be found and accessed only by new software applications which are &ldquo;aware&rdquo; of the fake EBR, while allowing legacy aggregators to continue to function correctly and allowing legacy software applications to continue to interwork with legacy aggregators through their unchanged APIs.

Top-down control of multiple layer aggregation logical volume management data and boot record

A system and method for a multi-layer logical volume management (&ldquo;LVM&rdquo;) system which extends the single-layer logical volume model of current technology to handle multiple levels of aggregation more efficiently. Multiple levels of aggregation allows multiple types of aggregators, such as drive linking, mirroring, and software RAID, to be used together to bypass the limitations inherent in each individual aggregation technology. An LVM data area which stores information about the organization of the multi-layer logical volume is stored within the last partition of the logical volume. A fake EBR, which describes the logical volume as if it were a single disk drive, is located in the LVM data area of one of the partitions in the logical volume. A &ldquo;bottom-to-top&rdquo; control methodology is used to locate the LVM data area containing the fake EBR, including setting a special flag in the LVM data area containing the fake EBR. Aggregators search for this flag when creating aggregates, and set a flag in the LVM data area of the aggregate being created if any of the items being aggregated has this flag set. Thus, a path is built from the topmost aggregate to the partition containing the fake EBR. This path allows I/O requests to the EBR to be intercepted and easily redirected to the fake EBR, thereby improving the efficiency with which this is executed in comparison to previous methods.

Control of multiple layer aggregation logical volume management data and boot record

A data processing system and method are disclosed for storing logical volume information used by a logical volume manager to create and manage a logical volume. The data processing system includes a plurality of storage devices. A plurality of physical partitions within the plurality of storage devices are specified. Each one of the physical partitions includes a plurality of sectors. The specified physical partitions are logically combined to create the logical volume. A first plurality of the sectors are reserved in each of the physical partitions for the logical volume information. The first plurality of sectors are located at the top of each of the physical partitions. The logical volume information is stored in the first plurality of sectors in each of the physical partitions. In this manner, the logical volume information is stored at the top of each of the physical partitions.

Data processing system and method including a logical volume manager for storing logical volume data

An enhancement to existing logical volume managers which provides the functionality to expand logical volumes employing multiple levels of aggregation. It includes functionality to determine if a logical volume employing multiple levels of aggregation can be expanded. If it can be expanded, the aggregator or feature which will perform the expansion is determined. Once this has been done, the features and aggregators that need to be applied to the partitions being added to the volume are determined. These features and aggregators are then applied to the partitions being added to the volume, with user input as required. Finally, the aggregator which will perform the actual expansion is called, the volume is expanded, and all of the remaining features and aggregators on the volume are given the opportunity to update their respective data as appropriate to accommodate the new size of the volume

System and method for volume expansion in the presence of multiple plug-in features

A method of generating a boot image and using the boot image to restore a computer system having a processor, an operating system, physical memory, virtual memory and disk storage. The method may be initiated from any particular software application, or at multiple execution points within a particular application. One or more boot images may be stored in association with an initiating application. By providing full virtual memory support in the boot image, the computer system may be restored to any predetermined operating state.

Software-enabled fast boot

A method for testing programming interfaces including application program interfaces and command line utilities. Each interface may be called from a loop instruction in a test instruction a number of times corresponding to a number of parameter sets which are needed to test each interface. The parameter sets are maintained in a separate data file and are retrieved for each call being made to an interface. One or more return value are included in the parameter set. The operating system generates one or more return values which are compared with the stored return value. A judgment is made based on the comparison of the stored return values and the programming interface-generated return value. When this comparison is not as expected, the return values are written to a file along with the parameter set which produced the unexpected comparison.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Cuong Huu Tran