System, method, and computer program for explicitly tunable I/O device controller

A method for tuning operating characteristics of a RAID storage device controller to match attributes of an input/output (I/O) data stream handled by said RAID storage device controller;

• said method comprising:
• collecting data for an I/O data stream;
• constructing an I/O profile for said collected data;
• generating performance measures for the I/O data stream based on said I/O profile and a plurality of different assumed RAID device controller configurations;
• comparing performance of said plurality of different RAID device controller configurations for effectiveness with an I/O data stream having comparable I/O profile;
• and
• selecting RAID device controller characteristics to provide an effective match between said RAID device controller configuration and I/O data streams having said comparable I/O profiles.

A computer program for tuning operating characteristics of a device controller to provide an effective match with expected input/output data stream attributes, said computer program including a program module having instructions for:

• (i) monitoring a data stream and collecting attributes of said monitored data stream;
• (ii) generating performance metrics of the data stream based on said collected attributes and a plurality of different assumed device controller configurations;
• (iii) comparing expected performance of said plurality of different device controller configurations for effectiveness with a future data stream having similar data stream type attributes to said monitored data stream;
• (iv) selecting device controller characteristics to provide an effective match between said data stream type and said device controller configuration;
• and
• (v) configuring said controller according to said selected device controller characteristics.

A computer program product for tuning operating characteristics of a device controller to provide an effective match with expected input/output data stream attributes, the computer program product for use in conjunction with a computer system, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium and a computer program mechanism embedded therein, the computer program mechanism comprising:

• a monitoring component monitoring a data stream and collecting attributes of said monitored data stream;
• an analysis component generating performance metrics of the data stream based on said collected attributes and a plurality of different assumed device controller configurations;
• a comparison component comparing expected performance of said plurality of different device controller configurations for effectiveness with a future data stream having similar data stream type attributes to said monitored data stream;
• a selection component selecting device controller characteristics to provide an effective match between said data stream type and said device controller configuration;
• and
• a controller configuration component configuring said controller according to said selected device controller characteristics.