Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.p.

Hewlett-Packard Company

Michael B Jacobson

Douglas L Voigt

Marvin D Nelson

Theresa A Burkes

Brian Patterson

George Shin

Bryan M Diamond

Ronald D Rodriguez

Richard Brame

Lee L Nelson

Robert A Rust

James S Jackson

Darrel R Bloomquist

Robert J Lawton

Robert Baird

Joel B Larner

James E Opfer

Douglas L Hagerman

Wade A Dolphin

Christine Grund

Randy Matthews

George A Drennan

Wendell D Martin

Elen S Hunt

Hamid Vazire

John W Fordemwalt

Susan L Larson

Steven D Messinger

David R Eagleton

Embodiments include methods, apparatus, and systems for data transfer in storage systems. One embodiment includes a method that transmits a state of cached write data and mapping metadata associated with a disk group from a first array to a second array and then transfers access to the disk group from the first array to the second array while host applications continue to access data in the disk group.

Data transfer in cluster storage systems

Embodiments of the present invention include array-cluster systems, and methods employed in array-cluster systems, that allow snapshot data to be distributed over multiple arrays within an array cluster. By distributing snapshot data over multiple arrays within an array cluster, the load, generally related to the number of access operations directed to the arrays within an array cluster, may be more evenly distributed among the arrays of an array cluster, preventing increased latencies associated with overloading individual arrays Distributed snapshots may also facilitate high availability and fault tolerance within an array cluster.

Method and system for distributing snapshots across arrays of an array cluster

Embodiments include methods, apparatus, and systems for managing resources in a storage system. One embodiment includes a method that discovers storage resources for arrays in a cluster storage system. A table defines how the resources are divided among the arrays and is provided to the arrays so each array can identify which resources to manage.

Managing resources in cluster storage systems

Systems and methods for implementing communication in a multiprocessor are disclosed. In one exemplary implementation a first processor receives a request to provide a communication resource for an application executing on the first processor to communicate with a remote application. In response to the communication request, the first processor opens a communication resource on a second processor, and manages communication operations between the application executing on the first processor and the remote application using the communication resource on the second processor.

Communication in multiprocessor using proxy sockets

Systems and methods for implementing communication in a multiprocessor are disclosed. In one exemplary implementation a first processor receives a request to provide a communication resource for an application executing on the first processor to communicate with a remote application. In response to the communication request, the first processor opens a communication resource on a second processor, and implements communication operations between the application executing on the first processor and the remote application using the communication resource on the second processor.

Virtual storage systems, virtual storage methods and methods of over committing a virtual RAID storage system are described. According to one aspect, a virtual storage system includes a virtual storage space, a physical storage space, a mapping system configured to associate a plurality of addresses of the virtual storage space with respective addresses of the physical storage space and a controller configured to automatically remove a portion of the mapping system according to a prioritization protocol which specifies removal of portions of the mapping system according to an order.

Virtual storage systems, virtual storage methods and methods of over committing a virtual raid storage system

Various embodiments of the present invention provide fault-tolerant, redundancy-based data-storage systems that rely on disk-controller-implemented error detection and error correction, at the disk-block level, and RAID-controller-implemented data-redundancy methods, at the disk and disk-stripe level, in order to provide comprehensive, efficient, and system-wide error detection and error correction. Embodiments of the present invention use disk-level and stripe-level data redundancy to provide error detection and error correction for stored data objects, obviating the need for certain costly, intermediate levels of error detection and error correction commonly employed in currently available fault-tolerant, redundancy-based data-storage systems.

Detection and correction of block-level data corruption in fault-tolerant data-storage systems

There is provided a system and method of mass storage. The method includes dividing storage units into standard size blocks and upon receiving a write request from an application, generating EDC data for user application data associated with the write request. The method also includes compressing the user application data using a lossless compression technique and storing the user application data and the EDC data together in a single block in a primary data area if the lossless compression technique is successful.

Mass storage system and method

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods, and distributed data-storage systems employing the methods, for recovering redundancy within a distributed data-storage system upon failure of one or more mass-storage devices within a component data-storage system of the distributed data-storage system. In certain embodiments, failure of a mass-storage device within a component data-storage system elicits a redundancy-recovery operation in which segments affected by the mass-storage-device failure or failures are moved, by a process referred to as 'migration,' to other component data-storage systems of the distributed data-storage system, and are recovered as a by-product of migration. Certain embodiments of the present invention more efficiently address redundancy recovery by moving only as many segments from the component data-storage system as needed to provide sufficient free space within the component data-storage system to recover the remaining segments affected by the mass-storage-device failure or failures within the component data-storage system.

Sufficient free space for redundancy recovery within a distributed data-storage system

A storage system includes plural storage units having respective storage controllers and associated caches. A first one of the storage units further includes an internal workload generator to initiate a data operation with respect to at least one destination storage unit, where the data operation is associated with tag information to affect a caching algorithm used by the cache of the at least one destination storage unit. The at least one destination storage unit includes at least one of the plural storage units.

Affecting a caching algorithm used by a cache of storage system

Computer systems, virtual storage systems, and virtual storage system operational methods are described. According to one aspect, a computer system includes a virtual storage system including a physical storage space, a virtual storage space, and a non-guaranteed available capacity utilized to generate a non-guaranteed snapshot volumes of virtual storage volumes of the virtual storage space, wherein the virtual storage system is configured to monitor the non-guaranteed available capacity and to present a report regarding the non-guaranteed available capacity responsive to the monitoring and a host configured to execute an application wherein generation of a non-guaranteed snapshot volume of at least one of the virtual storage volumes is desired, to access the report to determine the non-guaranteed available capacity, and to issue a request to the virtual storage system to generate the at least one non-guaranteed snapshot volume of the at least one virtual storage volume responsive to the accessing.

Computer systems, virtual storage systems and virtual storage system operational methods

A disk controller includes memory that is accessible by both a microprocessor and hardware parity logic. Parity-related operations are identified by scenario, and parity coefficient subsets are stored in a memory table for each different parity-related calculation scenario. To perform a particular parity-related operation, the microprocessor determines the operation's scenario and identifies the corresponding coefficient subset. The hardware parity logic is then instructed to perform the appropriate parity computation, using the identified coefficient subset.

Efficient parity operations

A memory system constructed in accordance with the invention receives data blocks and associated host LBAs from a host processor. The memory subsystem initially associates a check value with each received data block, each check value dependent upon a host LBA that is associated with the respectively received data block. The memory subsystem stores each received data block and associated check value as an 'extended' data block. Thereafter, the memory subsystem, in response to a host processor request to access data corresponding to the associated host LBA, recovers the stored extended data block and determines from the check value stored therewith, if the address of the corresponding data and that provided by the host processor correspond. If the addresses correspond, the data block is transmitted to the host processor. If not, an error message is generated.

Method and apparatus for use of a host address to validate accessed data

The methods concern fully utilizing storage capacity in a heterogenous hierarchic disk array having storage disks of differing capacities. The disks are segmented into multiple regions. One method links non-contiguous regions from individual storage disks to form RAID areas. The RAID areas are mapped into a virtual storage space that provides a view of the physical storage space as a single storage volume. Data is then stored in these RAID areas according to different redundancy criteria, such as RAID Level 1 and RAID Level 5. A second method fully utilizes of storage capacity by configuring the heterogeneous disk array to employ a minimum of two equal-sized storage disks that have larger capacity than other individual storage disks in the disk array. The contiguous regions across the multiple disks are then grouped together to form the RAID areas.

Growing community of inventors

Boise, ID, United States of America

Michael B Jacobson