Mailbox for controlling storage subsystem reconfigurations
AssigneeEMC Corporation
InventorsAvinoam Zakai, David Wayne DesRoches, Victoria Dubrovsky, Shai Bar-Nefy, Ruben Michel
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method balances workloads of storage devices of a storage subsystem. The method includes reading a mailbox to obtain control parameters and collecting historical data on numbers of accesses to storage volumes of the storage devices. The control parameters are written in the mailbox by host devices. The method also includes selecting data swaps that lead to better balanced workloads for storage devices based on the historical data. The act of selecting and/or the act of collecting being initialized by the control parameters.
Claims11
A method of balancing workloads of storage devices of a storage subsystem, comprising:
- reading a mailbox to obtain control parameters written therein and rewritable by one or more host devices;
- collecting historical data on numbers of accesses to a plurality of storage volumes of the storage devices, and
- updating a table having entries for numbers of accesses to physical storage volumes during a set of time slices;
- and
- selecting one or more data swaps that lead to better balanced workloads of storage devices based on the historical data, one of the act of selecting and the act of collecting being defined by the control parameters, wherein the control parameters determine one of a maximum number of time slices represented in the table and a frequency of collecting historical data for new time slices.
A storage subsystem for providing data storage to a plurality of host devices, comprising:
- a plurality of data storage devices accessible to host devices;
- a data storage medium storing a mailbox, the mailbox storing control parameters rewritable by the host devices;
- and
- a computer coupled to read the mailbox and storing an executable program of instructions for a method of data swapping between storage volumes of the storage subsystem, the computer reading the control parameters for initializing the program from the mailbox,
- wherein the program includes instructions for a method of collecting data on numbers of accesses to storage volumes of the storage devices during a sequence of time slices. and
- wherein the control parameters initialize the method of collecting data.
A storage medium storing an executable program of instructions for balancing workloads of storage devices of a storage subsystem, the instructions to cause a computer to:
- read a mailbox to obtain control parameters written therein and rewritable by one or more host devices;
- collect historical data on numbers of accesses to a plurality of storage volumes of the storage devices, causing the computer to
- update a table with entries for numbers of accesses to physical storage volumes during a set of time slices, wherein the control parameters determine one of the maximum number of time slices represented in the table and a frequency of collecting the historical data for a new time slice;
- and
- select one or more data swaps that lead to better balanced workloads of storage devices based on the historical data, one of the instructions to cause the computer to collect historical data and select one or more data swaps being initialized by the control parameters.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.