US 7,181,578 B1 · Method and apparatus for efficient scalable storage management

Abstract

A hybrid centralized and distributed processing system includes a switching device that connects a storage processor to one or more servers through a host channel processor. The switching device also connects the storage processor to one or more storage devices such as disk drive arrays, and to a metadata cache and a block data cache memory. The storage processor processes access request from one or more servers in the form of a logical volume or logical block address and accesses the metadata cache to determine the physical data address. The storage processor monitors the performance of the storage system and performs automatic tuning by reallocating the logical volume, load balancing, hot spot removal, and dynamic expansion of storage volume. The storage processor also provides fault-tolerant access and provides parallel high performance data paths for fail over. The storage processor also provides faster access by providing parallel data paths for, making local copies and providing remote data copies, and by selecting data from a storage device that retrieves the data the earliest.

Claims39

Dependent claims

A storage controller for controlling a storage system for exchanging data between at least one host device and at least one storage device, the storage-controller comprising:

a metadata cache memory operable to store virtualization tables to determine the memory address of stored information based on a virtual address of the stored information;
a block cache memory controlled by said storage processor and operable to store a predetermined set of information for rapid access to a host device through said switching device;
a switching device coupled to a host device, a storage device, the metadata cache and the block cache memory;
a first storage processor coupled to the switching device for controlling a transfer of data from the metadata cache and the block cache memory via the switching device;
and
a second storage processor coupled to the switching device for controlling a transfer of data from the metadata cache and the block cache memory via the switching device, wherein the second storage processor is controlling a transfer of data from the metadata cache via the switching device at the same time as the first storage processor is controlling a transfer of data from the block cache memory via the switching device.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and apparatus for efficient scalable storage management

Life of this patent

Method and apparatus for efficient scalable storage management

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims39