Fibre channel scale-out with physical path discovery and volume move

Abstract

Methods, storage arrays and computer readable media for path discovery to ports of a Fibre Channel storage system that includes a multi-array pool and is part of a group of arrays are provided. One example method includes executing a pull operation via a group leader array of the group of arrays. The pull operation is configured to gather port status of each one of the arrays in the group of arrays. The method further executes a push operation via the group leader array of the group of arrays. The push operation is configured to populate a local cache of each array in the group of arrays with the port status of each one of the arrays in the group of arrays. The method executes the pull operation and the push operation on a periodic schedule, such that changes that occur at particular ones of the arrays of the group of arrays are pushed to each one of the arrays in the group of arrays. Configurations for enabling volume moves, striping data across arrays and pools, pool creation, pool deletes, pool adds, group merge and other processes are also provided.