US 2003/0149770 A1 · Storage area network methods and apparatus with file system extension

Abstract

The invention provides a storage area network (SAN) of type having one or more digital data processors coupled to one or more storage devices. At least a selected one of the hosts includes a file system that effects access by the host to assigned storage devices. This can be, for example, a conventional AIX or other host platform file system that oversees file and other data accesses between the host and those assigned devices. That host can be associated, according to these aspects of the invention, with lower and upper capacity bounds for purposes of file system extension. In response to a request by (or on behalf of) the selected digital data processor for extension of the file system, the manager assigns one of more further storage devices to that digital data processor.

Claims24

Dependent claims

In a storage area network (SAN) of the type having one or more digital data processors and having a plurality of storage devices, the improvement comprising:

at least a first one of the digital data processors in communication access with at least a first one of the storage devices, the first digital data processor having a file system that effects access to that storage device,
the first digital data processor being associated with a lower capacity bound and an upper capacity bound for storage devices added to extend the file system,
a manager, in communication with the first digital data processor, that responds to a request on behalf of the first digital data processor for extension of the file system by assigning one or more further storage devices to the first digital data processor.

A storage area network (SAN), comprising

one or more storage units,
one or more host digital data processors coupled to the one or more storage units via an interconnect,
one or more agents, each executing on an associated host digital data processor and each in communication with a manager digital data processor,
the one or more agents each identifying attributes of any of (i) the host digital data processor with which that agent is associated, (ii) the interconnect to which that host digital data processor is coupled, and (iii) storage units to which that host digital data processor is coupled, and communicating those attributes to the host digital data processor,
the one or more agents each responding to assignment, by the manager digital data processor, of a storage unit to the associated host digital data processor(s) by preventing access by that host digital data processor to others of said storage units in the SAN,
at least a selected one or the host digital data processors having a file system that effects access to that storage device and being associated with a lower capacity bound divided by (s) and an upper capacity bound divided by (s) for storage devices added to extend the file system, where (s) is one if the file system is not a striped RAID file system and, otherwise, is a number of stripes in that file system,
the manager responds to a request from the agent associated with the selected host digital data processor for extension of the file system by assigning one or more further storage devices to the first digital data processor.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Storage area network methods and apparatus with file system extension

Life of this patent

Storage area network methods and apparatus with file system extension

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims24