US 7,003,780 B2 · Method and an apparatus to extend the logic volume manager model to allow device management plug-ins

Abstract

Logical disks are provided, which are created by device managers. The logical volume manager is modified to use only logical disks. The device managers may be plug-in modules. This allows new device managers to be added to the logical volume manager at any time without changing the code in the logical volume manager. Anything that can be made to appear as a logical disk through the use of a device manager plug-in may then be used with the logical volume manager. A device manager for network attached storage may be written allowing network attached storage devices to be treated as local disk drives by the logical volume manager, thereby allowing all of the capabilities of the logical volume manager to be used with the network attached storage devices.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A method for providing device management in a logical volume management system, comprising:

receiving device information from a device driver for a device;
transforming the device into a logical disk based on the device information from the device driver, wherein the device is transformed into the logical disk prior to creating any logical partitions for the device;
modifying the logical volume management system to create the logical partitions for the device from the logical disk;
transforming the logical disk into a logical partition;
and
constructing a volume group from the logical partition, wherein the volume group is constructed by a volume group emulator plug-in module.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and an apparatus to extend the logic volume manager model to allow device management plug-ins

Life of this patent

Method and an apparatus to extend the logic volume manager model to allow device management plug-ins

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims14