Emc Corporation

Paul F Hale

Adnan Sahin

Sachin More

William J Glynn

Kenneth Goguen

Maureen Lally

Erez Ofer

William Z Zahavi

Yeshayahu Hass

Andrew M Shooman

Peter C Lauterbach

Kenneth R Coguen

John N Lefferts

This invention is a system and method for preparing workload data that may be accessed in a data storage environment and then replayed for testing or other reasons. The invention has the capability to prepare a trace of I/Os to a data storage system for an extended period of time for replaying these I/Os back to that or another system. Variables may also be manipulated through a preparation process and is particularly useful for customizing benchmarking tests, or consolidation, or trouble-shooting, or capacity planning.

System and method for preparation of workload data for replaying in a data storage environment

A method for measuring mass storage system performance in which the mass storage system has a plurality of disk drive storage elements controlled by a disk drive controller, the controller typically having a cache memory, and the controller receiving commands and data from and returning at least data to a plurality of host computers, provides the flexibility of issuing commands to the controller in a variety of different configurations from a plurality of hosts in a time synchronized and organized fashion. Some significant data reduction techniques control and organize the data for later analysis according to the invention. Effective presentation of collected data can be effected using a novel trends analysis presentation approach.

Output performance trends of a mass storage system

A method for measuring mass storage system performance in which the mass storage system has a plurality of disk drive storage elements controlled by a disk drive controller, the controller typically having a cache memory, and the controller receiving commands and data from and returning at least data to a plurality of host computers, provides the flexibility of issuing commands to the controller in a variety of different configurations from a plurality of hosts in a time synchronized and organized fashion. Some significant post processing techniques for validation and correction of the data are enabled according to the invention.

Post test data processing of a mass storage system

This invention is a system and method for replaying workload data that may be accessed in a data storage environment and then replayed for testing or other reasons. The invention has the capability to extract a trace of all I/Os to a data storage system for an extended period of time and then replay these I/Os back to that or another system. Variables may also be manipulated though the play back system to increase testing flexibility at a lower cost than actually introducing new physical variables.

System and method for replaying workload data in a data storage environment

A method for measuring mass storage system performance in which the mass storage system has a plurality of disk drive storage elements controlled by a disk drive controller, the controller typically having a cache memory, and the controller receiving commands and data from and returning at least data to a plurality of host computers, provides the flexibility of issuing commands to the controller in a variety of different configurations from a plurality of hosts in a time synchronized and organized fashion. The method features the steps of synchronizing, to a clock time of one of the host computers, designated the master host computer, the clock times of each other of the host computers, designated the client host computers. The method further features sending test requests, for the mass storage system, from the master host computer to each of the client host computers, executing at each host computer a test request sequence by sending commands to the mass storage system, accumulating at each host computer data regarding performance of the mass storage system, the data being in response to the requests or commands sent by each particular host computer, and sending, from each client host computer to the master host computer, data regarding the performance of the mass storage system in response to the host generated commands. Some significant data reduction techniques control and organize the data for later analysis. Time delays and different configurations of both host and storage elements can be effected with a time delay inserted after each command sent from a host.

Benchmark tool for a mass storage system

A method and apparatus for simulating the input/output operations of a memory unit, such as a disk drive array, provide for determining over a predetermined time period, a profile which includes the number of read and write operations for the memory unit and the number of blocks of data read or written during each such operation. The resulting data of the profile is sorted in accordance with the cumulative likelihood of occurrence of the operations, and the read and write operations are then recreated, in a random statistical fashion, in accordance with the sorted resulting data to simulate the frequency of occurrence of the read and write operations at a remote site for the original memory device. The validity of the simulation can be ascertained by repeating the read/write operation collection process during the simulation process and comparing the resulting data with the original data. The simulation can thus take place without adversely affecting operation at the customer's site.

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Hudson, MA, United States of America

Paul F Hale