US 5,960,451 A · System and method for reporting available capacity in a data storage system with variable consumption characteristics

Abstract

A data storage system has an administrator tool that presents an existing LUN arrangement composed of one or more types of LUNs and an available capacity for the existing LUN arrangement. The administrator tool provides a graphical user interface (UI) that allows the administrator to propose different configurations with one or more additional hypothetical LUNs, without in fact creating them. The UI provides a set of controls representative of the different LUN types. The administrator can graphically manipulate the controls to vary characteristics of the hypothetical LUNs. As the administrator manipulates the controls, the system dynamically computes available capacity assuming a LUN arrangement that includes both the existing LUNs and the hypothetical LUNs. The graphical UI reports the changing available capacity as a response to the administrator's manipulation so that the administrator can gain an appreciation of how the hypothetical LUNs might affect available capacity. Assuming there is sufficient available capacity, the administrator can direct the system to create new LUNs having the same characteristics of the hypothetical LUNs.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A storage management system for a data storage system, comprising:

a data storage manager to store data in an existing logical unit arrangement comprising multiple different types of logical units and to compute, for a given arrangement of logical units, an available capacity that represents storage capacity on the data storage system that can be utilized to store additional data;
and
an administrative tool interfaced with the data storage manager to enable an administrator to propose a hypothetical logical unit arrangement that is different from the existing logical unit arrangement, the administrative tool reporting to the administrator how the hypothetical logical unit arrangement, if implemented, would affect available capacity.

A data storage system, comprising:

a disk array having a number of disks that defines a physical storage space;
a RAID management system to map a RAID-level storage space onto the physical storage space of the storage disks, the RAID-level virtual storage space presenting the physical storage space as multiple RAID areas including mirror RAID areas that store data according to mirror redundancy and parity RAID areas that store data according to parity redundancy, the RAID management system being operable to migrate data between the parity and mirror RAID areas;
a cache memory;
an administrator module interfaced with the RAID management system to enable an administrator to create one of three types of logical units (LUNs):
a cache-type LUN that stores data in the cache memory, a RAID1-type LUN that stores data in the mirror RAID areas, and an AutoRAID-type LUN that stores and migrates data among the mirror and parity RAID areas;
and
the administrator module being configured to enable the administrator to propose various hypothetical LUN arrangements with different types of LUNs and to report to the administrator how the hypothetical logical unit arrangements, if implemented, would affect available capacity in the disk array and cache memory.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for reporting available capacity in a data storage system with variable consumption characteristics

Life of this patent

System and method for reporting available capacity in a data storage system with variable consumption characteristics

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20