Emc Corporation

Emc IP Holding Company LLC

Other

Thomas Earl Linnell

John T Fitzgerald

William R Tuccio

John S Harwood

Walter A O'Brien, Iii

Christopher J Mulvey

Xiangping Chen

Dennis Thomas Duprey

Jack Harwood

Daniel E Cummins

Brian William Gallagher

Gilad Sade

Jeffrey Teachout

Miles Aram De Forest

Adi Ofer

Amnon Izhar

Khang Can

Qin Tao

Bernard Warnakulasooriya

Robert W Griffin

Charles E Arsenault

Steven Touch

Xinlei Xu

Vamsi K Vankamamidi

Adnan Sahin

Roy E Clark

William Duane

David W Harvey

Gregory William Lazar

Sachin More

Xiongcheng Li

Ron Arnan

Steven A Morley

Erik C Nelson

Phillip John Roux

Mark K Ku

Kevin S Labonte

Edward J Claprood

Preston F Crow

Charles H Hopkins

Lawrence G Pignolet

Joshua A Rosenthol

David C Bisbee

Feng Zhou

Peter Shajenko, Jr

Scot C Tata

Yongjun Wu

Michael S Gadarowski

Ryan Gadsby

Thomas Delucia

Enrico DiFabio

There is disclosed a technique for use in managing data storage in a data storage system. A first metric indicative of a specified wear rate for a flash drive is determined where the flash drive has a first portion allocated as logical space and a second portion allocated as over-provisioning space. An allocation ratio indicative of the ratio between the first portion and the second portion is determined. The allocation ration is dynamically adjusted to cause the current wear rate to change.

Managing data storage caching and tiering

A method is used in managing data placement in storage systems. A portion of an allocated storage space is identified in a data storage system for managing data placement. The allocated storage space includes first and second set of slices. The first set of slices associated with the portion of the allocated storage space in the data storage system is identified. Data of the first set of slices is transferred to the second set of slices of the allocated storage space in the data storage system. The first set of slice is removed from the allocated storage space in the data storage system.

Managing data placement in storage systems

A technique for managing spare disk drives in a data storage system includes transferring segments of data from disk drives of an operating RAID group to spare regions on a set of spare disk drives to create unused space in the disk drives of the RAID group, thus using the spare regions to overprovision storage in the RAID group. Upon a failure of one of the disk drives in the RAID group, data of the failing disk drive are rebuilt based on the segments of data as well as on data from still-functioning disk drives in the RAID group. Thus, the spare disk drives act not only to overprovision storage for the RAID group prior to disk drive failure, but also to fulfill their role as spares in the event of a disk drive failure.

Using spare disk drives to overprovision raid groups

A technique for managing a cache in a data storage system includes creating metadata that associates cache pages with respective data objects and storing the metadata in a location accessible to a manager of the cache. Upon a failure in the cache, the cache manager checks the metadata to identify any data objects for which the cache stores dirty pages. The cache manager then coordinates with other system resources to take the identified data objects offline.

Managing cache for improved data availability by associating cache pages with respective data objects

A method, computer program product, and computing system for initiating a relocation process to move local data from an SMR-based storage tier within an auto-tiering data system to a different storage tier within the auto-tiering data system. The local data is located within one or more sectors of the SMR-based storage tier. The local data is copied from the SMR-based storage tier to the different storage tier. The one or more sectors of the SMR-based storage tier are unmapped.

SMR auto-tiering

Source and replica data in a storage area network is tracked during management of data encryption keys. Association of source and replica data allows for all copies of customer information in an enterprise to be managed as a single entity for deletion or tracked for management purposes by using referenced data encryption keys upon creation of replicas. Any replica from a source storage object can be created using the source storage object data encryption key or an associated key and tracked by these keys as a subset of the number of replicas created. Management of the data encryption keys can control the lifetime of data on a storage array and in the storage area network without managing every replicated instance for the lifetime of the data.

Tracking replica data using key management

A method is used in managing data in a data storage system. A tiered storage pool is identified wherein the storage pool includes multiple tiers having multiple storage units. A wear indicator for each of the multiple storage units is monitored. A first storage unit having a wear indicator greater than a second storage unit is identified. High activity data on the first storage unit is also identified. The identified high activity data is migrated from the first storage unit to the second storage unit.

Managing data placement based on flash drive wear level

Described are techniques that select a physical storage device for storing data. Device weights for physical storage devices are determined in accordance with factor(s) including a storage capacity each physical storage device and an amount of remaining write capacity of each physical storage device representing an amount of remaining writes for an expected lifetime of each physical storage device. A replica set is determined for each physical storage device in accordance with a device weight. Hash value sets are determined for the physical storage devices using a hash function. A first hash value for a first data item is determined using the hash function. The first hash value is mapped to a second hash value included in one of hash value sets associated with a corresponding one of the physical storage devices. The corresponding one of the physical storage devices is selected to store the first data item.

Weighted-value consistent hashing for balancing device wear

A data processing system stores encrypted data. Object identifiers are assigned to storage objects, and data encryption keys are assigned to the storage objects. When performing an operation upon a storage object, data encryption key failure may occur due to a corrupt or incorrect key. In this case, a copy of the data encryption key is fetched from a key server. It is possible for the association of the object identifiers with the data encryption keys to become lost or confused, so that the key server may fail to provide the correct key for a specified object identifier. Therefore, an absolute key identifier that is unique across the key server namespace also is stored in association with the object identifier in the storage system and in the key store of the key server, and the absolute key identifier is used as a failsafe for recovery of encrypted data.

Encryption key recovery in the event of storage management failure

A method, computer program product, and computing system for comparing at least one performance benchmark to at least one performance indicator for a front end LUN. If the at least one performance indicator exceeds the at least one performance benchmark, the failure domain of the front end LUN is reduced. If the at least one performance indicator does not exceed the performance benchmark, the failure domain of the front end LUN is increased.

System and method for LUN adjustment

A method is used in sizing volatile memory (VM) cache based on flash-based cache usage. A user selection for a flash-based cache is received. Based on the selection, configuration and sizing factors are provided, by a flash based cache driver, to VM cache size determination logic. Based on the configuration and sizing factors and a sizing formula and rules, a requested VM cache size is produced by the VM cache size determination logic. Based on the requested VM cache size, the VM cache is caused, via VM cache resizing logic, to be resized to the requested VM cache size.

Sizing volatile memory cache based on flash-based cache usage

There is disclosed herein techniques for use in managing data storage in a data storage system comprising a cache and data storage devices. In one embodiment, the technique comprises setting a hot spare capacity value for a virtual hot spare device in a data storage system. The technique also comprises detecting the state of data storage devices in a RAID configuration in the data storage system. The technique further comprises determining if a cache in the data storage system has free capacity corresponding to the hot spare capacity value in response to detecting a failure state in connection with at least one of the data storage devices in the RAID configuration. The technique still further comprises provisioning at least a portion of the cache as the virtual hot spare device with a capacity corresponding to the hot spare capacity value in response to determining the cache has free capacity corresponding to the hot spare capacity value.

Managing data storage by provisioning cache as a virtual device

A method, computer program product, and computing system for identifying at least one misassigned slice that is associated with a first data tier and is located in a first front end LUN. The at least one misassigned slice is being accessed contrary to the first data tier. The failure domain of the first front end LUN is determined. At least one replacement slice that is associated with a second data tier and is located in a second front end LUN is identified based, at least in part, upon the failure domain of the first front end LUN. The at least one misassigned slice is moved to the second front end LUN. The at least one replacement slice is moved to the first front end LUN.

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Northborough, MA, United States of America

Thomas Earl Linnell