International Business Machines Corporation

Scott Joseph Colbeck

Stephen A Byrd

Kaladhar Voruganti

Eric Kevin Butler

Pi-Wei Chin

Jian J Xu

Madhukar R Korupolu

Sumant Padbidri

Teresa Shen Swingler

Benjamin J Randall

Andres F Holguin

Kristen N Muramoto

Tiffany P Tsai

Vandana Gupta

Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for adjusting synchronization rates of volumes. Volumes and their copies (i.e., mirrored volumes) provide physical or virtual storage on a data storage medium. Depending on the function (i.e., the purpose) of mirrored volumes, a certain synchronization rate is recommended. Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for an automatic dynamic adjustment of individual synchronization rates by adapting to changes in system workloads in order to avoid degradation of user-driven input/output (IO) and to efficiently achieve nearly 100% synchronization for all mirrored volumes.

Adjustment of volume synchronization

Display screen with graphical user interface for network topology display

A method and apparatus are provided for enhancing the impact of data de-duplication by preferential selection of the master copy to be retained based on current loads and performance metrics of the storage media devices. The computer system is configured to take as input the identified duplicate copies of data and evaluating their locations in storage devices to determine the cumulative affects of retaining one of the identified duplicate copies as a master copy and optionally allocating a new location if needed. Once a master copy has been designated, the remaining identified duplicate copies are removed from storage.

Method of enhancing de-duplication impact by preferential selection of master copy to be retained

A mechanism is provided to automatically retrieve zoning best practices from a centralized repository and to ensure that automatically generated zones do not violate these best practices. A user selects a set of hosts and storage controllers. The user also selects a guidance policy for creating the zone, and also selects a set of validation policies that must be enforced on the zone. If the user selects a guidance policy and a validation policy combination that is incompatible, the mechanism allows the user to change either the selected guidance policy or the set of validation policies. If the user has selected consistent-zoning as a guidance policy, then the mechanism automatically selects a guidance policy that does not violate the known validation policies.

Integrated guidance and validation policy based zoning mechanism

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for selecting optimal replica sources in a grid computing environment. As disclosed, the present invention overcomes shortcomings in the art involving location and selection of replica sources. In particular, the present invention selects an optimal replica source based on current and historical network statistics, as well as user-defined policies. The user-defined policies allow for customization of the replica source search, and the option of obtaining multiple ranked sources for parallel data transfer.

Apparatus, system, and method for selecting optimal replica sources in a grid computing environment

Provided is an article of manufacture, system and method for a management system for using host and storage controller port information to configure paths between a host and storage controller in a network. The management system obtains information on ports on at least one host, at least one storage controller, and at least one fabric over which the host and storage controller ports connect. The management system gathers, for at least one host port and storage controller port, a connection metric and a traffic metric. The management system processes the connection and traffic metrics for the host and storage ports to select at least one host port and at least one storage controller port configures the port pair to provide at least one path enabling the access at least one storage volume managed by the selected storage controller.

Management system for using host and storage controller port information to configure paths between a host and storage controller in a network

Provided is a method for using host and storage controller port information to configure paths between a host and storage controller. Information is gathered on ports on at least one host, ports on at least one storage controller managing access to storage volumes, and at least one fabric over which the at least one host and storage controller ports connect. For at least one host port and storage controller port, information is gathered on a connection metric related to a number of paths in which the port is configured and a traffic metric indicating Input/Output (I/O) traffic at the port. A determination is made of available ports for one host and storage controller that are available to provide paths between one host and storage controller. The connection and traffic metrics for the available host ports are processed to select at least one host port. The connection and traffic metrics for the available storage controller ports are processed to select at least one storage controller port. The at least one selected host and storage controller port pair are configured to provide at least one path enabling the host to communicate with the selected storage controller port to access at least one storage volume managed by the selected storage controller.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Scott Joseph Colbeck