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US 2003/0195738 A1Published application
Information processing system for sharing internal auxiliary storage device
AssigneeHitachi, Ltd.
InventorTakahiko Shoyama
Life of this patent
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AssigneeHitachi, Ltd.
InventorTakahiko Shoyama
Estimating the term…
An OS executed by a CPU employed in an information processing apparatus prepares a series of CCW commands and data to be transmitted or an area for receiving data in a main storage device, and issues a request to start an operation of an I/O function to an auxiliary-storage-device control unit. Receiving the request to start an operation of the I/O function, the auxiliary-storage-device control unit emulates each command in the series of CCWs to transmit or receive the data to or from another information processing apparatus, generating a command set to request the other information processing apparatus employing an embedded disk unit that information be read out from the disk unit. As requested by this command set, the embedded disk unit outputs a response and the information to the information processing apparatus preparing the series of CCW commands by way of a communication unit employed in the other information processing apparatus and a communication bus before the data is exchanged between the apparatuses. Finally, the data is transmitted to or received from the other information processing apparatus. As a result, the embedded disk unit employed in the other information processing apparatus as an internal auxiliary storage device can be accessed by the information processing apparatus preparing the series of CCW commands at a high speed.
An input/output control system comprising a first information processing apparatus including a central processing unit, a main storage device and an internal auxiliary storage device, and one or a plurality of second information processing apparatuses each including a central processing unit, a main storage device and a communication unit for communicating with another information processing apparatus wherein any of said second information processing apparatuses makes an access to said internal auxiliary storage device of said first information processing apparatus,
A computer system comprising a plurality of information processing apparatuses each including a central processing unit, a main storage device, an auxiliary-storage-device control unit and a communication unit for communicating with other information processing apparatuses, wherein one of said information processing apparatuses has an internal auxiliary storage device and the other information processing apparatuses each make accesses to said internal auxiliary storage device through said auxiliary-storage-device control unit thereof.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Specifically adapted to achieve a particular effect: improving the reliability of storage systems
Vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices: format or protocol…
Disk device: magnetic disk device
Multiuser, multiprocessor or multiprocessing cache systems: cache consistency protocols
Term end not estimated
The present invention relates to an input/output control system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an input/output control system suitable for an application in which accesses to an internal auxiliary storage device such as a disk unit embedded in an information processing apparatus are made by another information processing apparatus.
A general-purpose information processing system or the like normally employs a disk unit as an element of an auxiliary storage sub-system. Thus, the information processing system needs to carry out operations to input and output data from and to the disk unit.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a typical configuration of an information processing system employing a disk unit based on a prior art. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a series of channel commands and FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a typical flow of commands and data between an information processing apparatus and a disc sub-system. An input/output control system based on the prior art is explained by referring to FIGS. 4 to 6. In FIG. 4, reference numerals 20 and 21 denote an information processing apparatus and an input/output (I/O) channel. Reference numeral 22 denotes a central processing unit (CPU) and reference numeral 25 denotes a disc-subsystem. Reference numerals 26 and 27 denote a disk unit and a cache respectively. Reference numeral 28 denotes a disc control unit.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a typical configuration of an information processing system adopting an input/output control system provided by a first embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a typical configuration of an information processing system adopting an input/output control system provided by a second embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the structure of an internal-auxiliary-storage-device control table used for controlling exclusive use of an embedded disk unit shared by information processing apparatuses and assurance of data coherency among caches of the information processing apparatuses for the shared embedded disk unit (internal auxiliary storage device);
Preferred embodiments implementing an input/output control system provided by the present invention are explained in detail by referring to the accompanying diagrams.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a typical configuration of an information processing system adopting an input/output control system provided by a first embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numerals 100 and 200 each denote an information processing apparatus whereas reference numerals 110 and 210 each denote a main storage device. Reference numerals 120 and 220 each denote a central processing unit (CPU) whereas reference numerals 140 and 240 each denote an auxiliary-storage-device control unit. Reference numerals 145 and 245 each denote a communication unit whereas reference numeral 150 denotes an internal auxiliary storage device (an embedded disk unit). Finally, reference numeral 190 denotes a communication bus.
In the information processing system shown in FIG. 1, the information processing apparatus 100 having the embedded disk unit 150 serving as an internal auxiliary storage device is connected to the information processing apparatus 200 having no embedded disk unit by the communication bus 190. The information processing apparatus 100 also has the CPU 120, the main storage device 110, the auxiliary-storage-device control unit 140 including an emulation mechanism for carrying out CKD-FBA format conversion and the communication unit 145 for controlling exchanges of information and data with another information processing system. Similarly, the information processing apparatus 200 also has the CPU 220, the main storage device 210, the auxiliary-storage-device control unit 240 including an emulation mechanism for carrying out CKD-FBA format conversion and the communication unit 245 for controlling exchanges of information and data with another information processing system. In the configuration shown in FIG. 1, the other information processing system of the information processing apparatus 100 is the information processing apparatus 200, and the other information processing system of the information processing apparatus 200 is the information processing apparatus 100.