System and method for tiering data storage

A computer program product residing on a non-transitory computer readable medium having a plurality of instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

• monitoring temporal usage of a data portion within a storage system over a defined monitoring period, wherein the monitoring period is defined based upon, at least in part, a defined number of cycles of utilization of the data portion, wherein the defined number of cycles provides a temporal usage prediction while minimizing retiering latency, wherein the storage system includes a plurality of data tiers, wherein one data point is generated for each cycle of the defined number of cycles;
• defining a temporal-usage pattern for the data portion for the defined monitoring period based upon at least two data points generated during at least two cycles of utilization;
• wherein the temporal-usage pattern for the data portion of the defined monitoring period is based upon four data points generated during four cycles of utilization;
• predicting at least one of an increase of activity for the data portion and a decrease of activity for the data portion for a future time based, at least in part, upon the temporal-usage pattern;
• automatically retiering the data portion amongst the plurality of data tiers prior to the predicted at least one of the increase of activity and the decrease of activity for the future time based, at least in part, upon the temporal-usage pattern;
• and
• automatically retiering the data portion amongst the plurality of data tiers after expiry of the predicted at least one of the increase of activity and the decrease of activity for the future time;
• and
• automatically offtiering the data portion from the plurality of data tiers to a remote data tier after expiry of the predicted decrease of activity for the future time based, at least in part, upon the temporal-usage pattern, wherein the remote date tier is an archive.

A computing system including at least one processor and at least one memory architecture coupled with the at least one processor, wherein the computing system is configured to perform operations comprising:

• monitoring temporal usage of a data portion within a storage system over a defined monitoring period, wherein the monitoring period is defined based upon, at least in part, a defined number of cycles of utilization of the data portion, wherein the defined number of cycles provides a temporal usage prediction while minimizing retiering latency, wherein the storage system includes a plurality of data tiers, wherein one data point is generated for each cycle of the defined number of cycles;
• defining a temporal-usage pattern for the data portion for the defined monitoring period based upon at least two data points generated during at least two cycles of utilization;
• wherein the temporal-usage pattern for the data portion of the defined monitoring period is based upon four data points generated during four cycles of utilization;
• predicting at least one of an increase of activity for the data portion and a decrease of activity for the data portion for a future time based, at least in part, upon the temporal-usage pattern;
• automatically retiering the data portion amongst the plurality of data tiers prior to the predicted at least one of the increase of activity and the decrease of activity for the future time based, at least in part, upon the temporal-usage pattern;
• and
• automatically retiering the data portion amongst the plurality of data tiers after expiry of the predicted at least one of the increase of activity and the decrease of activity for the future time;
• and
• automatically offtiering the data portion from the plurality of data tiers to a remote data tier after expiry of the predicted decrease of activity for the future time based, at least in part, upon the temporal-usage pattern, wherein the remote data tier is an archive.