Pivot3, Inc.

Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc.

Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.P.

Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.p.

Other

William C Galloway

Ryan A Callison

Choon-Seng Tan

Greg John Pellegrino

George J Scholhamer, Iii

George J Scholhamer

Michael S Zandy

Robert C Elliott

Jeffrey S Autor

John M Hemphill

James H Singer

Dennis J Alexander

Michael E McGowen

Alexander C Ekrot

Jeff M Carlson

Steven J Clohset

Thomas W Grieff

Mark R Potter

Albert H Chang

Gregory T Chandler

James F McCarty

Christopher Garza

James P Sauer

Richard D Gunlock

Gary F Chard

Matthew E Curley

Benjamin Wayne Goodwyn

Embodiments of the systems and methods disclosed provide a distributed RAID system comprising a set of data banks. More particularly, in certain embodiments of a distributed RAID system each data bank has a set of associated storage media and executes a similar distributed RAID application. The distributed RAID applications on each of the data banks coordinate among themselves to distribute and control data flow associated with implementing a level of RAID in conjunction with data stored on the associated storage media of the data banks.

Method and system for distributed raid implementation

Embodiments of the systems and methods disclosed provide a distributed RAID system comprising a set of data banks. More particularly, in certain embodiments of a distributed RAID system each data bank has a set of associated storage media and executes a similar distributed RAID application. The distributed RAID applications on each of the data banks coordinate among themselves to distribute and control data flow associated with implementing a level of RAID in conjunction with a volume stored on the associated storage media of the data banks. Migration of this volume, or a portion thereof, from one configuration to another configuration may be accomplished such that the volume, or the portion thereof, and corresponding redundancy data may be stored according to this second configuration.

Method and system for data migration in a distributed RAID implementation

Method and system for distributed RAID implementation

Systems and methods are disclosed which allow various applications which may utilize a RAID system (or other types of applications) to be executed on the same set of computing devices which implement that RAID system. More particularly, in certain embodiments a virtualization layer may be executed on a data bank. A set of desired application programs may be executed using this virtualization layer, where the context for each instance of the applications executing on the virtualization layer may be stored in a volume kept utilizing the RAID system.

Method and system for execution of applications in conjunction with raid

Embodiments of the systems and methods disclosed provide a distributed RAID system comprising a set of data banks. More particularly, in certain embodiments of a distributed RAID system each data bank has a set of associated storage media and executes a similar distributed RAID application. Each data bank may have a high speed memory where a write cache is stored. In certain embodiments, a virtualization layer may be executed on a data bank and the distributed RAID application may execute on the virtualization layer. The distributed RAID application may control access to the high speed memory on which the write cache is stored.

Systems and methods are disclosed which allow various applications which may utilize a RAID system (or other types of applications) to be executed on the same set of computing devices which implement that RAID system. More particularly, in certain embodiments a virtualization layer may be executed on a data bank. A set of desired application programs may be executed using this virtualization layer, where the context for each instance of the applications, executing on the virtualization layer may be stored in a volume kept utilizing the RAID system.

Embodiments of methods of protecting RAID systems from multiple failures and such protected RAID systems are disclosed. More particularly, in certain embodiments of a distributed RAID system each data bank has a set of associated storage media and executes a similar distributed RAID application. The distributed RAID applications on each of the data banks coordinate among themselves to distribute and control data flow associated with implementing a level of RAID in conjunction with data stored on the associated storage media of the data banks. Furthermore, one or more levels of RAID may be implemented within one or more of the data banks comprising the distributed RAID system.

Method and system for protecting against multiple failures in a raid system

Embodiments of systems and methods for a storage system are disclosed. More particularly, in certain embodiments desired locations of storage devices may be zeroed out during operation of the storage system and areas that have been zeroed out allocated to store data when commands pertaining to that data are received. Specifically, in one embodiment a distributed RAID system comprising a set of data banks may be provided where each data bank in the set of data banks may execute a background process which zeroes areas of the storage devices of the data bank. When a command pertaining to a logical location is received a zeroed area of the physical storage devices on the data bank may be allocated to store data associated with that logical location.

Method and system for initializing storage in a storage system

Embodiments of the systems and methods disclosed provide a distributed RAID system comprising a set of data banks. More particularly, in certain embodiments of a distributed RAID system each data bank has a set of associated storage media and executes a similar distributed RAID application. The distributed RAID applications on each of the data banks coordinate among themselves to distribute and control data flow associated with implementing a level of RAID in conjunction with a volume stored on the associated storage media of the data banks. Migration of volumes, or portions thereof, from one configuration to another configuration may be accomplished according to a priority associated with the volume.

Method and system for rebuilding data in a distributed RAID system

Embodiments of systems and methods for routing commands to a distributed RAID system are disclosed. Specifically, embodiments may route a command to an appropriate data bank in a distributed RAID system, where each data bank has a set of associated storage media and executes a similar distributed RAID application. The distributed RAID applications on each of the data banks coordinate among themselves to distribute and control data flow associated with implementing a level of RAID in conjunction with data stored on the associated storage media of the data banks.

Method and system for distributing commands to targets

Embodiments of systems and methods for a storage system are disclosed. More particularly, in certain embodiments locations of storage devices may be allocated to store data when commands pertaining to that data are received. Specifically, in one embodiment a distributed RAID system comprising a set of data banks may be provided where the different performance characteristics associated with different areas of disks in the data bank may be taken into account when allocating physical segments to corresponding logical segments of a volume by allocating certain physical segments to a particular logical segment based upon a location of the physical segment or criteria associated with the logical segment.

Method and system for placement of data on a storage device

Systems and methods are disclosed which allow various applications which may utilize a distributed RAID system (or other types of applications) to be executed on the same set of computing devices which implement that distributed RAID system. More particularly, in certain embodiments a virtualization layer may be executed on a data bank. A set of desired application programs may be executed using this virtualization layer, where the context for each instance of the applications executing on the virtualization layer may be stored in a volume kept utilizing the distributed RAID system.

Growing community of inventors

Magnolia, TX, United States of America

William C Galloway