Pure Storage, Inc.

Portworx, Inc.

Ganesh Sangle

Vinod Jayaraman

Goutham Rao

Prabir Paul

Harsh Desai

Vijayan Satyamoorthy Srinivasa

Chia-Chun Lin

A virtual storage volume may be implemented as one or more chunks stored on a set of storage nodes. The virtual storage volume may be dynamically adjusted by adjusting the one or more chunks that make up the virtual storage volume, without taking the virtual storage volume offline. Such dynamic volume adjustment may allow for increasing volume size without moving data unnecessarily. In addition or alternatively, such dynamic volume adjustment may free up storage space in a node with minimum movement of data.

Dynamic volume adjustment

A single application may rely on data storage provided by a plurality of virtual data storage volumes mounted on one or more compute nodes. A crash-consistent snapshot of the state of the application may be generated. Each of the virtual data storage volumes may be quiesced prior to the capture of a plurality of volume-level snapshots, after which each volume is unquiesced. The crash-consistent snapshot may be used to restore the application to the state at the time the snapshot was captured.

Snapshotting a containerized application

An illustrative method includes determining that a first application instance of an application is terminated, instantiating, in response to the determining that the first application instance of the application is terminated, a second application instance of the application, identifying one or more particular storage volumes based on the first application instance, and attaching the one or more particular storage volumes to the second application instance.

Systems and methods for regenerating a terminated application instance of a containerized application

An example method for optimizing data deletion in a storage system comprises: detecting a command to delete data from a storage volume using a file system, the data stored on one or more blocks within a storage device associated with the storage volume; monitoring a load metric associated with the storage volume, the load metric indicative of a dynamically changing operational load of the storage volume; and initiating, based on the detecting the command and on the monitored load metric, a discard request for the storage device, the discard request commanding the storage device to indicate that the one or more blocks are free for use by the file system to store additional data.

Optimizing data deletion in a storage system

An illustrative method includes receiving a request to create a storage volume; identifying, based on the request and on a configuration file propagated among a plurality of storage nodes in a cluster, status indicators of the storage nodes; identifying, based on the request, a size of the storage volume; identifying, based on the request, a replication factor representing a number of storage nodes that are to be replicated within a cluster for the storage volume; identifying, based on one or more characteristics associated with the storage volume, a traffic priority for the storage volume, the traffic priority representing a hierarchy that determines and prioritizes which traffic is allocated to available hardware and network resources in a particular order; creating, based on the status indicators, the size, the replication factor, and the traffic priority, the storage volume on one or more of the plurality of storage nodes.

Traffic priority based creation of a storage volume within a cluster of storage nodes

An example method includes transferring, for each of a plurality of snapshots of a source virtual storage volume mounted at a first compute node, at least a portion of a plurality of data blocks for each of the snapshots to a target virtual storage volume at a second compute node; and after the data blocks are transferred, resynchronizing the target virtual storage volume with the source virtual storage volume.

Transferring of snapshot data blocks to a virtual storage volume

A virtual storage volume that includes storage space on potentially many different physical disks may be implemented as one or more chunks. This allows for dynamic volume storage adjustment. Dynamic volume storage adjustment allows for increasing volume size without moving data unnecessarily. In addition, dynamic volume storage adjustment also allows freeing up storage space in a node with minimum movement of data.

Dynamic volume storage adjustment

Distributed storage systems are implemented with rule based rebalancing mechanisms. Methods includes steps for creating a set of rules for rebalancing data storage space in a storage node cluster, as well as steps for performing a rebalance operation across the storage node cluster using the set of rules. The distributed storage systems include one or more labels for storage pools and storage volumes.

Cluster rebalance using user defined rules

An example method includes identifying, based on a request to write data to a volume provided by storage nodes in a storage node cluster, a cluster hierarchy associated with the storage node cluster, the cluster hierarchy identifying storage characteristics of the storage nodes, wherein the cluster hierarchy is based on data characterizing performance and storage capabilities of the storage nodes; based on the request, selecting a storage node for storing the data in the volume, the selecting being based, at least in part, on the storage characteristics identified by the cluster hierarchy and on one or more data distribution parameters associated with the storage volume; and transmitting the data to the storage node.

Cluster hierarchy-based transmission of data to a storage node included in a storage node cluster

Systems, devices, and methods are disclosed herein for containerized scalable storage applications. Methods may include instantiating an application instance based on a plurality of application instance parameters, the application instance being configured to utilize a plurality of storage volumes implemented in a storage cluster. Methods may also include enumerating a plurality of unattached storage volumes included in the cluster associated with the application instance, the plurality of unattached storage volumes having a plurality of underlying physical storage devices, and the plurality of unattached storage volumes being identified based on a plurality of application instance parameters. The methods may further include attaching at least some of the plurality of unattached storage volumes to the application instance, wherein the attaching enables the application instance to access data stored in the attached storage volumes.

Node regeneration in distributed storage systems

Clustered containerized applications are implemented with scalable provisioning. Methods include receiving a data storage request to store one or more data values in a storage volume implemented across a storage node cluster, the storage node cluster including a plurality of storage nodes including one or more storage devices having storage space allocated for storing data associated with the storage volume. Methods may further include identifying a cluster hierarchy associated with the storage node cluster, the cluster hierarchy identifying storage characteristics of the plurality of storage nodes, the cluster hierarchy also identifying physical location information for the plurality of storage nodes, the physical location information indicating node-to-node proximity on a network graph. Methods may also include selecting a storage node on which to store the data, the selecting being based, at least in part, on the identified storage characteristics and one or more data distribution parameters associated with the storage volume.

Provisioning of clustered containerized applications

Application snapshot for highly available and distributed volumes

A virtual storage volume that includes storage space on potentially many different physical disks may be mounted at a compute node. In order to replicate the virtual storage volume to a target compute node, a sequence of snapshots may be created that capture the state of the virtual storage volume at a sequence of points in time. The data associated with these snapshots may be transferred to the target compute node. When the difference between the snapshots is sufficiently small, the target virtual storage volume may be resynchronized.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Ganesh Sangle