The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 12, 2004
Filed:
Dec. 17, 2001
Apparatus and method of reducing physical storage systems needed for a volume group to remain active
Gerald Francis McBrearty, Austin, TX (US);
Shawn Patrick Mullen, Buda, TX (US);
Johnny Meng-Han Shieh, Austin, TX (US);
Thomas Van Weaver, Dripping Springs, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method, system, apparatus and computer program product for reducing the number of physical storage systems needed for a volume group to remain active are provided. This is accomplished by creating mirroring sets out of the physical storage systems in the volume group and by setting up a policy that so long as one mirror out of each mirror set is available, the volume group should be allowed to remain active. To activate a volume group (i.e., when the computer system is turned or reset), there have to be at least one full mirror set and at least one mirror out of each remaining mirror set available. These two policies guarantee that there will always be valid metadata in the system.