Netapp, Inc.

Network Appliance, Inc.

Peter Logan Smoot

Sahn Lam

Konstantinos Roussos

Nagender Somavarapu

Brian M Hackworth

Benjamin Swartzlander

James Hartwell Holl, Ii

Hemanth Pannem

Barry Schwartz

John Charles Tyrrell

Anawat Chankhunthod

Dave Kohr

Jim Holl

Anawat Chanhunthod

A network storage server implements a method to perform transactional failover of data sets. Multiple storage objects are organized into primary and secondary data sets, and a disaster recovery policy is configured for failing-over a primary data set to a secondary data set. A failover operation is defined for the disaster recovery policy. The failover operation includes multiple failover actions. During a failover situation, the failover operation is invoked to fail-over the primary data set. The failover operation is transactionally processed to ensure that all failover actions of the failover operation are performed in a single transaction.

Transactional failover of data sets

A method and an apparatus to increase conformance of a storage implementation of a data set to a storage policy are presented. In one embodiment, the method includes performing a conformance check of a data set state and an associated data management policy. The method includes identifying a set of tasks that can be performed to increase conformance of the data set state to the associated policy, and generating a task list using tasks from the set of tasks. The method further includes outputting an indication of the task list to a user and accepting from the user an approval of the task list before generating and executing a second task list.

Request processing for stateless conformance engine

A system and method for implementing storage management with threshold control is provided. A flexible storage manager associates storage devices having a similar performance characteristic into logical constructs called storage groups. Storage groups having the same performance characteristic from a plurality of storage systems are organized into storage pools. The flexible storage manager automatically provisions storage on a storage pool basis. Should a low threshold utilization be exceeded, the flexible storage manager performs a set of management policies to lower the utilization of a storage pool to the low threshold.

System and method for implementing a flexible storage manager with threshold control

An apparatus and a method to make data sets conform to data management policies are presented. In one embodiment, the apparatus includes a conformance checker and a conformance engine. The conformance checker may be operable to compare a state of a data set against a data management policy associated with the data set to determine if the data set currently conforms to the data management policy. The conformance engine may then make the data set conform to the data management policy if the conformance checker determines that the data set currently violates the data management policy.

Apparatus and a method to make data sets conform to data management policies

A monitoring server remotely communicates with a storage server in order to monitor utilization of storage space of a write out-of-place file system on the storage server, the file system including a persistent point-in-time image (PPI) of its active file system, the PPI including at least part of the active file system, but does not duplicate said part of the active file system.

Method and system of automatically monitoring a storage server

According to an embodiment of the invention, a physical server is migrated to a virtual server, which may then be adopted by a new physical server. When the physical server is migrated, the physical server contacts a multi-appliance management application to determine a location on a storage network for replacement storage. The physical server copies its data volumes to the replacement storage. The migration process also converts the operating system of the physical server into a virtual server. The virtual server is a software incarnation of the physical server, and can be run using a generic hardware server. The data of the physical server stored in the replacement storage is linked to the virtual server. In this way, a physical server is migrated to a virtual server.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Peter Logan Smoot