Hitachi, Ltd.

Taro Ishizaki

Katsuyoshi Suzuki

Hideki Nagasaki

Takeshi Nishikawa

Kenichi Miki

Toshihiko Shinozaki

Hirokazu Ogasawara

Kenzo Tabata

Daisuke Komaki

Satoshi Saito

Kenji Ozoe

Shinichiro Yoshioka

The present invention makes it possible for a virtual higher-level device disposed on a virtual platform to use prescribed data related to an application. A virtual higher-level deviceis disposed on a virtual platform. A storage systemcomprises logical volumesfor storing prescribed data related to an application program. A management computerprepares prescribed logical volumesin the storage systemso that the virtual higher-level deviceis able to use the prescribed data related to the application program, couples a communication interface part of the virtual platformto a communication port part of the storage systemso as to make it possible to access the prepared prescribed logical volumesvia the virtual platform, and further transparently allocates the prescribed logical volumesto the virtual higher-level device

Computer system and application program execution environment migration method

The present invention relates to migrating volumes among computers in a computer system. According to the migration method of the present invention, a setting of a storage apparatus is changed so that the volume having been used by the migration source host is accessible by the migration destination host, and then a volume recognition process is performed in the migration destination host. As a result of the volume recognition process, if it is detected in the migration destination host that multiple device files are created in a duplicated manner with respect to a single volume provided by the storage apparatus, the migration destination host deletes the device files created in a duplicated manner leaving one device file.

Computer system and method for migrating volume in computer system

In tiered storage subsystems in which pages are automatically allocated to appropriate storage media based on the access frequency in page units, since the number of storage media is not simply proportional to the performance, it was difficult to design in advance a tier configuration satisfying the required performance. According to the present invention, a cumulative curve of I/O distribution is created based on a result of measurement of I/O accesses performed to the storage subsystem, and RAID groups (RG) are allocated sequentially in order from RGs belonging to tiers having higher performances to the cumulative curve of I/O distribution. When either a performance limitation value or a capacity of the RG exceeds the cumulative curve of I/O distribution, a subsequent RG is allocated, and the process is repeated so as to compute the optimum tier configuration.

Storage system, storage control method and storage control program

A suitable Tier ratio is determined according to the I/O performance and I/O characteristic of a virtual volume. A storage apparatus which is connected via a network to a host computer which requests data writing comprises storage devices of a plurality of types of varying performance; and a controller which manages storage areas provided by each of the storage devices of a plurality of types by means of storage tiers of a plurality of different types, and which assigns the storage areas in page units to virtual volumes from any of the storage tiers among the storage tiers of the plurality of types according to the data write request from the host computer, wherein the controller monitors performance information which includes I/O characteristic information for each of the virtual volumes and determines the storage tiers corresponding to the performance information thus monitored, and assigns the storage areas in page units to the virtual volumes from the determined storage tiers.

Storage apparatus and data management method

With a RAID group not configured from a plurality of storage devices, a storage area of a storage device is provided directly to a virtual volume instead of providing a logical volume inside the RAID group to the virtual volume. That is, the storage system, upon receiving a write request with respect to a virtual storage area, first, specifies a data redundancy configuration (the number of data partitions and the number of created parities) and a RAID level set to a virtual volume including this virtual storage area. The storage system selects storage devices in the numbers in accordance with the specified RAID level and redundancy configuration for this virtual storage area. The storage system selects, from among the selected storage devices, a storage area that is not allocated to any virtual storage area, and allocates this storage area to this virtual storage area. The storage system partitions the data and writes this data together with the parity to this allocated storage area.

Storage system

The storage system is coupled to a host apparatus and includes a plurality of storage devices, each of which includes a plurality of real pages, and a controller. The controller is configured to: manage the plurality of storage devices as a pool; provide a virtual volume to the host apparatus, the virtual volume including a plurality of virtual pages to each of which a portion of the pool is allocated in accordance with a write command; distribute data written in a first virtual page to a first group of real pages, the first group of real pages making up a redundant array and being selected from different storage devices; and migrate data stored in a first real page, which is a real page of the first group and belongs to a first storage device, to another storage device without migrating data stored in another real page of the first group.

In order to prevent the degradation of performance of a storage apparatus caused by dynamic reallocation, the storage apparatus performs reassigning to a logical page the first physical page which is the physical page provided by the physical drive in Tier 1 which is the higher hierarchy than Tier 2 which is the hierarchy of the physical drive which provides the second physical page which is the physical page currently assigned to the logical page and, at the same time, by making the contents of the second physical page identical to the contents of the first physical page, performs the first migration for the logical page, associating and managing the second physical page and the first physical page and, when performing the second migration by reassigning the physical page provided by the physical drive in Tier 2 to the logical page to which the first physical page is assigned, and performs the second migration by reassigning the relevant second physical page to the logical page again when the second physical page is associated with the first physical page.

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Odawara, Japan

Taro Ishizaki