# US 2012/0084522 A1 · Virtualization control apparatus and storage system

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- Number: US 2012/0084522 A1
- Document ID: US20120084522A1
- Status: Published application
- Kind: A1
- Application number: 13/239,812
- Filed: 2011-09-22
- Published: 2012-04-05
- Earliest claimed: 2010-10-04
- Assignees: Fujitsu Limited
- Inventors: Hiroshi Shiomi; Koutarou Sasage; Akira Satou; Ryosuke Suzuki; Yasuhito Kikuchi; Kenichi Fujita
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20120084522A1

## CPC

- G06F 3/067: {Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]}
- G06F 3/061: {Improving I/O performance}
- G06F 3/065: {Replication mechanisms}
- G06F 3/0665: {at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes}
- G06F 11/2089: {Redundant storage control functionality}
- G06F: ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING (computer systems based on specific computational models G06N)

## Abstract

A virtualization control apparatus includes a selection unit that, when receiving a copy request, conducting an access test corresponding to the copy request on each of the virtualization switch units and selects one of the virtualization switch units of the highest performance among the plurality of the virtual switch units, and a sending unit that sends the copy request to the selected virtualization switch unit.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A virtualization control apparatus of a storage system, the storage system including a plurality of storage controllers controlling a plurality of storage units connected thereto and a plurality of virtualization switch units being connected to one of the storage controllers, each of the virtualization switch units converting a copy source logical volume address and a copy destination logical volume address contained in a received copy request into addresses of the storage units and making a request to the storage controllers on the basis of the converted addresses, the virtualization control apparatus comprising:
a selection unit that, when receiving a copy request, conducting an access test corresponding to the copy request on each of the virtualization switch units and selects one of the virtualization switch units of the highest performance among the plurality of the virtual switch units; and
a sending unit that sends the copy request to the selected virtualization switch unit.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The virtualization controller according to claim 1, wherein
the selection unit sends requests for reading a copy source address and a copy destination address contained in a received copy request to the virtualization switch units, then conducts an access test, the access test being a test where the lower of response performance to the copy source read request and response performance to the copy destination read request sent by each virtualization switch unit is compared with each other, and selects a virtualization switch unit exhibiting the highest response performance among the virtualization switch units in the access test.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The virtualization controller according to claim 1, wherein,
when any of the virtualization switch units is performing no copy process when the selection unit receives the copy request, the selection unit selects the virtualization switch unit performing no copy process, without conducting the access test.

### Claim 4

A virtualization control apparatus of a storage system, the storage system including a plurality of storage controllers that controls a plurality of storage units connected thereto and a plurality of virtualization switch units being connected to one of the storage controllers, each of the virtualization switch units converting a copy source logical volume address and a copy destination logical volume address contained in a received copy request into addresses of the storage units and making a request to the storage controllers on the basis of the converted addresses, the virtualization control apparatus comprising:
a monitoring unit that monitors unevenness in copy performance of copy processes which process by each of the virtualization switches;
a selection unit when detecting unevenness in the copy performance, suspending a copy process exhibiting copy performance lower than predetermined copy performance among the copy processes the virtualization switch units are performing, conducting an access test corresponding to the suspended copy process on each of the virtualization switch units, and selecting one of the virtualization switch units of the highest performance among the plurality of the virtual switch units; and
a processing unit that resumes the suspended copy process using the selected virtualization switch unit.

### Claim 5 (depends on 4)

The virtualization controller according to claim 4, wherein
the selection unit sends requests for reading a copy source address and a copy destination address of the suspended copy process to the virtualization switch units, then conducts an access test, the access test being a test where the lower of response performance to the copy source read request and response performance to the copy destination read request sent by each virtualization switch unit is compared with each other, and selects a virtualization switch unit exhibiting the highest response performance among the virtualization switch units in the access test.

### Claim 6 (depends on 4)

The virtualization controller according to claim 4, wherein,
if any of the virtualization switch units is performing no copy process when the selection unit suspends the copy request, the selection unit selects the virtualization switch unit performing no copy process, without conducting the access test.

### Claim 7

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program applied for a virtualization control apparatus of a storage system, the storage system including a plurality of storage controllers controlling a plurality of storage units connected thereto and a plurality of virtualization switch units being connected to one of the storage controllers, each of the virtualization switch units converting a copy source logical volume address and a copy destination logical volume address contained in a received copy request into addresses of the storage units and making a request to the storage controllers on the basis of the converted addresses, the program causing the virtualization control apparatus to execute:
conducting, when receiving a copy request, an access test corresponding to the copy request on each of the virtualization switch units, and selecting one of the virtualization switch units of the highest performance among the plurality of the virtual switch units; and
sending the copy request to the selected virtualization switch unit.