Emc Corporation

Emc IP Holding Company LLC

Emc International Company

Steven Richard Bromling

Assaf Natanzon

Saar Cohen

Jehuda Shemer

Alex Solan

Bradford B Glade

Victor Salamon

Joshua Baergen

Paul A Shelley

Jeremy J Nickurak

Peter D Cutts

Roel Van Der Goot

Michael Trachtman

Brian Lake

Wayne T Karpoff

Srikanth Venkataraman

Ron Unrau

Sadasivam Shanmugam

Ronald C Unrau

Rajkumar Manicka

A cache coherency protection system provides for data redundancy by sharing a cache coherence memory pool for protection purposes. The system works consistently across all communication protocols, yields improved data availability with potentially less memory waster and makes data availability faster in node/director failure scenarios. According to various embodiments, the cache coherency protection system may include a writer/requester director that receives a write request from host, a protection target director that is a partner of the writer/request director and a directory.

Cache protection through cache

Non-disruptive insertion of a storage appliance provides virtualized storage. A first logical device of a data storage system is exposed to a first host and a second host. A data store of the first logical device is uniquely identified using a signature. After inserting the storage appliance between the first host and the data storage system, the first logical device is presented, through the storage appliance, to the first host as a second logical device. After inserting the storage appliance between the second host and the data storage system, the first logical device is presented, through the storage appliance, to the second host as the second logical device. The first and second hosts identify the second logical device and the first logical device as the same logical device using the signature. The data store may be a virtual machine file system data store used by virtual machines on the hosts.

Non-disruptive insertion of virtualized storage appliance

An apparatus in one embodiment comprises a storage system including a plurality of storage nodes each associated with one or more storage devices. The storage system is configured to provide at least one virtual volume distributed over the storage nodes for utilization by a plurality of host devices. The storage nodes comprise respective input-output sequencers for handling input-output operations directed to the distributed virtual volume by the host devices. The input-output sequencers of the respective storage nodes are configured to interact with one another to collectively form a distributed input-output sequencer that ensures consistency across the storage nodes for the distributed virtual volume when accessed by different ones of the host devices. The storage system may comprise a multi-site storage system, with the plurality of storage nodes comprising at least a first storage node cluster at a first site and a second storage node cluster at a second site.

Storage system with distributed input-output sequencing

An apparatus in one embodiment comprises a storage system including a plurality of storage nodes each associated with one or more storage devices. The storage system is configured to provide at least one virtual volume distributed over the storage nodes for utilization by a plurality of host devices. The storage nodes are configured to support selection between multiple operating modes for handling input-output operations directed to the distributed virtual volume by the host devices. The multiple operating modes comprise at least a cached mode of operation in which consistency across the storage nodes for the distributed virtual volume when accessed by different ones of the host devices is ensured utilizing a distributed cache coherence protocol implemented by cooperative interaction of cache controllers of respective ones of the storage nodes, and a cacheless mode of operation in which consistency is ensured without utilizing the distributed cache coherence protocol and its associated cache controllers.

Storage system with selectable cached and cacheless modes of operation for distributed storage virtualization

A share group for a distributed volume is separated into two non-overlapping, cluster-local SGCs (share group cliques). Each SGC has an independent local meta-directory master hosted by a computing node of the SGC cluster. Each SGC maintains an independent local directory for the distributed volume. The directory may be spread across multiple computing nodes of the SGC cluster. Changes to the distributed volume (writes) are coordinated across the pair of SGCs to provide data consistency. The coordination of these changes is conducted using relatively few inter-SGC round-trips. Read access to the distributed volume is safely conducted without inter-SGC coordination.

Distributed cache coherency protocol for reduced latency across WAN links

A method, system, and program product for enabling a virtual service layer to consume a storage medium of a first site and a storage medium of a second site, enabling the virtual service layer to map the storage mediums of the first and second sites as one or more virtual storage volumes, wherein the one or more storage volumes are mirrored between the first and second site, and enabling the virtual service layer to create a write order fidelity delta set of the virtual storage volumes by writing the delta set to backend storage and notifying a splitter to which delta set the IO belongs.

Consistent replication in a geographically disperse active environment

A method, computer program product, and computing system for defining an IO splitter module within each of a plurality of nodes included within a hyper-converged storage environment. A coherency module is defined on at least one of the plurality of nodes. A data request is received.

Data coherency system and method

A method, system and computer program product for enabling a virtual service layer to consume a storage medium at a first site and map the storage medium as one or more virtual storage volumes, enabling the virtual service layer to present the one or more virtual storage volumes for consumption at the first site, enabling a splitter of the virtual service layer to intercept I/O written to the one or more virtual storage volumes, splitting intercepted I/O to a journal based replication appliance, enabling the virtual storage volumes to be accessible at a second site, wherein the one or more the virtual storage volume are mirrored at the second site by the virtual service layer; and replicating IO from either the first site or the second site to a third site.

Inverse star replication

A system, method, and computer product for enabling a virtual service layer to consume a first storage medium and a second storage medium and map the storage mediums as one or more virtual storage volumes; wherein the one or more virtual volumes are mirrored at a first site and a second site, mirroring of the virtual storage volumes on a distributed mirror, and enabling a distributed replication service to create a continuous data protection image of the data written to one or more virtual storage volumes.

Networked based replication of distributed volumes

A system is provided for continuous protection of data and storage configuration metadata. Content protected by snapshots, for example, in connection with continuous snapshotting and/or continuous data protection, may be extended to include not only user data but further include configuration metadata of the storage management system. In particular, a user may want to rollback a storage management system to a past point due to performance or stability issues attributed to configuration changes. The system described herein enables rollback to prior states based on storage configuration metadata in addition to rollback of user data and provides for synchronization of the data and configuration metadata in connection with a rollback. The system also enables roll forward processing.

Continuous protection of data and storage management configuration

Example embodiments of the present invention provide a method, an apparatus and a computer-program product for bandwidth management in a metro-cluster data replication environment. The method includes receiving an I/O at a first site and replicating the I/O from the first site to a second site by synchronous replication. Load balancing is then determined between the first site and the second site. Respective portions of the I/O then may be replicated from at least one of the first site and the second site to a third site by asynchronous replication according to the load balancing.

Method and apparatus for bandwidth management in a metro cluster environment

A method, system, and computer program product for replication comprising allowing a subset of sites, wherein the sites comprise a first site, a second site and a third site and further wherein each site has a volume, to have active/active VSL replication, which presents two volumes at two different sites as a single volume, and another set of the sites to have a volume which is a replications of the volume presented by the VSL, and enabling the system to transparently shift which subset of the sites are replicated by the VSL and which sites are replications of the volume presented by the VSL; where the replication of the VSL is performed by a second replication technique.

Active replication switch

In one aspect, a method to provide asymmetric active-active access to a first storage volume using a global cache coupled to a first and second virtual storage volumes includes replicating asynchronously the first storage volume at a first site to a second storage volume at a second site, virtualizing the first storage volume with the first virtual storage volume; and virtualizing the second storage volume with the second virtual storage volume. The first storage volume has primary storage functionality.

Asymmetric active-active access of asynchronously-protected data storage

In a first embodiment, a method and computer program product for use in a storage system comprising quiescing IO commands the sites of an ACTIVE/ACTIVE storage system, the active/active storage system having at least two storage sites communicatively coupled via a virtualization layer, creating a change set, unquiescing IO commands by the virtualization layers, transferring data of a change set to the other sites of the active/active storage system by the virtualization layer, and flushing the data by the virtualization layer. In a second embodiment, a method and computer program product for use in a storage system comprising fracturing a cluster of an active/active storage system; wherein the cluster includes at least two sites, stopping IO on a first site of the cluster; and rolling to a point in time on the first site.

Continuous data replication

In one aspect, a method includes synchronizing a second storage volume to a first storage volume by synchronizing extents according to priority based on extent activity. In another aspect, an apparatus includes electronic hardware circuitry configured to synchronize a second storage volume to a first storage volume by synchronizing extents according to priority based on extent activity. In a further aspect, an article includes a non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores computer-executable instructions. The instructions cause a machine to synchronize a second storage volume to a first storage volume by synchronizing extents according to priority based on extent activity.

Growing community of inventors

Edmonton, Canada

Steven Richard Bromling