Dell Products Inc.

Emc IP Holding Company LLC

Hewlett-packard Company

Emc Corporation

Daryl Francis Kinney

Michael Ferrari

Nicholas W Von Hein

Shakil Anwar

Jonathan I Krasner

Tao Tao

Philip E Tamer

Michael E Specht

William Alan Hatstat

Douglas Eric LeCrone

Paul A Linstead

Aaron T Twohig

John J Danahy

Peter Yale Kushner

John S Copley

James H Torrey

Michael Kahaiyan

John Manton

Xuedong Jiang

Christopher H Mills

Anthony N Drogaris

Navaneet Kumar

Lawrence J Rose

Gary S Pulsinelli

John Copley

Kenneth Vineleaf

Subramanian Venkatraman

Nagesam Pooni

John D Sullivan

Sean Cronin

A method comprising: receiving, at a management application, a first definition of a control window, the first definition specifying the control window in a local time of a time zone where the management application is being executed, wherein the first definition identifies: (i) a first start time for the control window, (ii) a first end time for the control window, and (iii) one or more days of the week when the control window should be enforced; detecting an applicable time in the time zone, the applicable time being one of standard time or daylight savings time; generating a second definition of the control window that corresponds to the applicable time, the second definition specifying the control window in a standardized time format, the second definition being generated based on the first definition; and causing the control window to be enforced in a storage array in accordance with the second definition.

Method and apparatus for supporting control windows

Generation of new snapshots of a storage object are prompted based on changes to the storage object. An absolute storage change condition is satisfied when the aggregate amount of changed data since the most recent snapshot satisfies a threshold that represents a predefined amount of storage capacity, e.g., N GB. A percentage of used storage change condition is satisfied when the aggregate size of the changes expressed as a percentage of the provisioned storage capacity of snapped storage object satisfies a predetermined threshold, e.g., X % of Y TB. A percentage of provisioned storage change condition is satisfied when the aggregate amount of the changes in terms of percentage of utilized storage capacity of storage object satisfies a predetermined threshold expressed as a percentage of the utilized capacity of the storage object, e.g., P % of Z TB.

Change-based snapshot mechanism

Snapsets containing snapshots from a group of storage volumes are assigned snapset IDs. The same snapset ID is applied to each snapshot of the snapset, and is a globally unique value within the storage system. The snapset ID is assigned to a snapshot upon creation, and remains the same regardless of creation or deletion of other snapshots on the storage volume. By assigning a snapset ID to each snapshot of the snapset, and maintaining the snapset ID as a constant value as long as the snapshot is maintained on the storage system, it is possible to easily determine which snapshots form a given snapset. Control operations on particular storage groups or across storage groups are implemented by specifying particular actions to be taken on snapsets or snapshots, which are identified using the snapset IDs.

Method and apparatus for deterministically identifying sets of snapshots on a storage system

Targetless snapshot schedules are defined by policy objects that include a snap creation interval, maximum snap count, and schedule ID. Multiple schedule IDs can be associated with a single storage object to implement different concurrent targetless snapshot schedules with a single storage object. Multiple storage objects may use the same targetless snapshot schedule independently. Because the targetless snapshot schedules are implemented independently, discard of old snapshots to maintain a snap count for a first storage object does not cause discard of snapshots for a second storage object. Further, discard of old snapshots to maintain a snap count for a first schedule does not cause discard of snapshots for a second schedule applied to the same storage object.

Grouping of multiple concurrent schedules of point-in-time snapshots for consistently defined data image protection

Targetless snapshots that are in use are excluded from discard and exempted from inclusion against a snapshot retention count limit. Snapshots that are linked to a target volume are considered to be in use. Snapshots having a persist attribute set are considered to be in use. Snapshots having an expiration attribute set are considered to be in use until at least the expiration time. Snapshots having an age limit attribute set are considered to be in use until reaching at least the specified age. The snapshot retention count limit can be updated with a command. Other commands discard snapshots created before a specified time or older than a specified age, provided the snapshots are not in use. A terminate all command prompts discard of all snapshots that are not in use.

Compliance recycling algorithm for scheduled targetless snapshots

The described technology is generally directed towards adaptively tuning storage systems. According to an embodiment, a system can comprise a processor and computer executable components that can comprise an interval determiner to determine a polling interval based on an estimate of a workload of a shared data store on a data storage array, based on a change activity detected by the system. Further, a host controller can receive transactions from a host application, wherein the transactions perform one or more of updating the local data store, or querying the local data store for results, and a daemon process that, at the polling interval, performs one or more of, polling the data storage array for updates to the local data store based on the shared data store, or updating the shared data store based on the local data store.

Adaptively tuning polling intervals of control hosts in distributed storage systems

A storage array for providing data storage services includes persistent storage and a storage array manager. The persistent storage stores data. The storage array manager obtains a request for solicited data using a request queue corresponding to a requesting host; responds, based on the solicited data, to the request using a response queue corresponding to the requesting host; makes a determination that the request implicates multiple hosts; and in response to the determination: distributes unsolicited data, based on the request, to the multiple hosts using the data stored in the persistent storage.

System and method for event based storage management

A storage array for providing data storage services includes persistent storage that stores approved preferences and a storage array manager that obtains event-response preferences for hosts receiving the data storage services; predicts, based on the event-response preferences, a set of additional event-response preferences for a host of the hosts; predicts an additional event-response preference for a host of the hosts based on a request associated with a second host of the hosts; generates a heat map for the host based on: the event-response preferences, the set of additional event-response preferences, the additional event-response preference, and global event-response preferences that associate events with responses for all of the hosts; identifies a final set of event-response preferences for the host using the heat map; updates the approved preferences based on the final set of event-response preferences; and provides unsolicited data to the host based on the updated approved preferences.

System and method for event driven storage management

Described are techniques used in defining and maintaining group data used by multiple host systems. Group data is stored in a distributed fashion on one or more data storage systems. If a device of a data storage system belongs to a group, group data for that group is stored on that data storage system. Group data changes made by one host are communicated to the other hosts by accessing a common data area on each data storage system using a daemon executing on each host. Remotely mirrored groups may be defined on a remote data storage system. A remote mirror of a group includes group data modified in accordance with a point of view of the remote data storage system and a remote host.

Remote mirroring of group name services

Described are techniques for simulation of a data storage system configuration. The simulation state reflects the data storage system configuration in accordance with an application programming interface (API) model. API calls result in reading existing data storage system configuration data and/or modifying the configuration data by execution of one or more low level calls. A daemon may operate in a simulation mode in which the low level calls are simulated rather than resulting in communications with a data storage system when operating in a non-simulation mode. A low level cache is used to store simulated values returned from the data storage system microcode. A high level cache is used to store API call return data. A seed file is used to initialize the simulation state.

Application programming interface simulator for a data storage system

A distributed computer system service monitor provides information to a user regarding the status of services available on the computer system. The computer system includes plural host computers which act as servers and clients in connection with the services. The computer system is logically segregated into functional entities and sub-entities which define service regions and system layers. At least one host computer serves as the service monitor and includes a discovery function for passing a set of queries to other host computers and for using the responses (i) to identify functional entities and sub-entities served by each host computer and (ii) to determine whether each host computer acts as a server or a client or both and (iii) to determine the service or services performed or consumed by each host computer. The service monitor constructs a database which stores service information for each functional entity. The service information includes at least a list of host computers within the functional entity; services available in the functional entity; and whether each host computer acts as a server or a client for each service. The service monitor periodically interrogates each host computer in the functional entity with a set of queries; records responses thereto and employs the responses to determine if a change in status of any of the services has occurred. If a change in status is determined, the change is indicated to the user. In addition, status changes are calculated for further system layers of functionality so as to determine the effect thereon of the status change.

Service-centric monitoring system and method for monitoring of

Method and apparatus for sequentially executing a plurality of pipelined instruction words of a program in which each instruction has independently selectable execution cycle count latencies. After the occurrence of an exception, instructions are identified which began after the instruction that caused the exception, and which have completed execution before execution of the exception provoking instruction was inhibited. Detection of an exception causes the processor to inhibit further execution of the exception provoking instruction. Pending instructions, which have yet to complete their execution prior to the inhibition of the exception provoking instruction, are similarly inhibited from further execution. Subsequently, the exception is serviced and the exception inducing instruction is restarted for re-execution in the processor. Pending instructions are subsequently re-executed in the sequence of their occurrence at the time the exception provoking instruction caused the processor to inhibit further instruction execution. Completed instructions are not re-executed. Applicable to computing systems having a plurality of processors, of either the same or different type such as floating point and integer processors, the method and apparatus inhibits all such further execution of plural processors upon the detection of an exception in one of the processors. In processors other than the processors serving the exception, no-op instructions are executed until the processor servicing the exception causes pending instructions to be re-executed, at which time the other processors also re-execute instructions which were pending at the time further execution of the instructions was inhibited.

Growing community of inventors

Hopkinton, MA, United States of America

Daryl Francis Kinney