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US 2003/0191904 A1Published application
Computer system having plural of storage systems
AssigneeHitachi, Ltd.
InventorsNaoko Iwami, Akira Yamamoto
Life of this patent
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AssigneeHitachi, Ltd.
InventorsNaoko Iwami, Akira Yamamoto
Estimating the term…
In a virtualization system, physical volumes are virtualized between servers and storage systems such that even when high-performance functions including a remote copy are provided, a virtualization unit does not become a bottleneck of processing. For this purpose, a virtualization node to conduct virtualization includes at least one virtualization switch which receives data from a server and converts the data into data for a real volume to send the data to an associated storage and which receives data from a storage and converts the data into data from a virtualized volume to send the data to a server and at least one virtualization server which receives data requiring processing such as a remote copy from the virtualization switch, performs a particular processing for the data, and then transmits the data via the switch to a server or a storage.
A computer system, comprising:
A virtualization apparatus connected to computers and storage systems, comprising:
A control computer connected to a virtualization apparatus connecting computers and storage systems, comprising:
A method of acquiring information in a computer system comprising a first computer, a second computer, storage systems, and a virtualization apparatus for connecting the storage systems to the computers, comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Virtualisation aspects: at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management: by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for…
Improving I/O performance: in relation to response time
Adopting a particular infrastructure: distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
Term end not estimated
The present invention relates to a computer system virtually managing or controlling storage areas of a plurality of storage systems as one logical storage area or a plurality of logical storage areas.
Recently, the amount of data used in an information processing system has been considerably increased and hence storage management expenses imposed on the user have been increased. To cope with this problem, a report “Virtualizing the SAN” published on Jul. 5, 2000, pp. 1-20 from an investigating company called “Morgan Keegan” describes a system including a plurality of storage systems. In the system, storage areas of the storage systems are virtualized into logical storage areas (virtual volumes). By allocating the virtual volumes to users (computers), the storage management expenses of the system users are reduced. The report describes two approaches on a system configuration and a method to implement the virtualization.
In this specification, a storage system is used to indicate a single storage such as a disk device and a set of “just bunch of disks (JBOD)” and a controller thereof as well as a set of a plurality of storages such as redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) and a controller thereof.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of a system according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing programs and tables stored in a memory of a control server.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing programs and tables stored in a memory of a virtualization server.
FIG. 1 shows a configuration of an embodiment of a system according to the present invention. The system includes servers 101, storage systems 106, a virtualization apparatus (virtualization node) 103 connected between the servers 101 and the storages 106, and a control server 102.
The servers 101 are connected via networks 110 to the virtualization node 103. The storage systems 106 are connected via a network 111 to the virtualization node 103. The networks 110 and 111 may be networks of one type of protocols or networks of mutually different types of protocols. For example, it is possible that the networks 110 are networks of transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) and the networks 111 are fiber-channel networks.
Moreover, the networks 110 may be of the same type for each server connected thereto or may be of mutually different types for the respective servers. For example, networks of TCP/IP and networks of the fiber-channel protocol can be used. Additionally, the networks 111 may also be of the same type for each storage system connected thereto or may be of mutually different types for the respective storage systems.