Utilization of a thin provision grid storage array

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10140038-B2
Application number	US-201615357179-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 21, 2016
Priority date	Nov 21, 2016
Publication date	Nov 27, 2018
Grant date	Nov 27, 2018

Abstract

Provided are a computer program product, computer system, and method for utilization of a thin provision grid storage array. Storage devices are divided into a plurality of slices, wherein each of the slices has a same number of partitions. Volumes in a pool are configured, wherein the pool is associated with physical capacity of a slice, wherein a volume size is unlimited, and wherein a cumulative size of all volumes in the pool is unlimited. While data is being written to the volumes in the pool, partitions of a first slice of the plurality of slices are allocated to the volumes in the pool and, in response to determining that the first slice needs additional physical capacity, allocating a partition of a second slice to the first slice by updating a mapping table.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therein that executes to perform operations, the operations comprising:
providing a plurality of slices, wherein each of the plurality of slices has partitions accessed with physical addresses;
providing a pool, wherein the pool has volumes accessed with logical addresses;
providing a mapping table that includes columns for a slice identifier, a partition identifier, and a volume identifier; and
while data is being written to the volumes in the pool,
allocating partitions of a first slice of the plurality of slices to the volumes in the pool; and
in response to determining that the first slice needs additional physical capacity, allocating an unused partition of a second slice to the first slice by:
identifying a row of the mapping table for the unused partition of the second slice; and
updating the row of the mapping table by changing the slice identifier to an identifier of the first slice and changing the partition identifier to a new partition identifier for the first slice.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the computer readable program code embodied therein executes to perform operations, the operations comprising:
allocating an amount of physical capacity to the pool; and
provisioning one or more additional storage devices to allocate additional physical capacity to the pool.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the computer readable program code embodied therein executes to perform operations, the operations comprising:
tracking an amount of physical capacity used by the pool; and
providing a User Interface (UI) to receive requests to display the amount of physical capacity used by the pool.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein garbage collection is not needed.

5. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of slices are on storage devices, and wherein a data structure is used to store indicators about which physical storage blocks of the storage devices have been updated.

6. A computer system, comprising:
one or more processors, one or more computer-readable memories and one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices; and
program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable, tangible storage devices for execution by at least one of the one or more processors via at least one of the one or more memories, to perform operations comprising:
providing a plurality of slices, wherein each of the plurality of slices has partitions accessed with physical addresses;
providing a pool, wherein the pool has volumes accessed with logical addresses;
providing a mapping table that includes columns for a slice identifier, a partition identifier, and a volume identifier; and
while data is being written to the volumes in the pool,
allocating partitions of a first slice of the plurality of slices to the volumes in the pool; and
in response to determining that the first slice needs additional physical capacity, allocating an unused partition of a second slice to the first slice by:
identifying a row of the mapping table for the unused partition of the second slice; and
updating the row of the mapping table by changing the slice identifier to an identifier of the first slice and changing the partition identifier to a new partition identifier for the first slice.

7. The computer system of claim 6 , wherein the operations further comprise:
allocating an amount of physical capacity to the pool; and
provisioning one or more additional storage devices to allocate additional physical capacity to the pool.

8. The computer system of claim 6 , wherein the operations further comprise:
tracking an amount of physical capacity used by the pool; and
providing a User Interface (UI) to receive requests to display the amount of physical capacity used by the pool.

9. The computer system of claim 6 , wherein garbage collection is not needed.

10. The computer system of claim 6 , wherein the plurality of slices are on storage devices, and wherein a data structure is used to store indicators about which physical storage blocks of the storage devices have been updated.

11. A method, comprising:
providing a plurality of slices, wherein each of the plurality of slices has partitions accessed with physical addresses;
providing a pool, wherein the pool has volumes accessed with logical addresses;
providing a mapping table that includes columns for a slice identifier, a partition identifier, and a volume identifier; and
while data is being written to the volumes in the pool,
allocating partitions of a first slice of the plurality of slices to the volumes in the pool; and
in response to determining that the first slice needs additional physical capacity, allocating an unused partition of a second slice to the first slice by:
identifying a row of the mapping table for the unused partition of the second slice; and
updating the row of the mapping table by changing the slice identifier to an identifier of the first slice and changing the partition identifier to a new partition identifier for the first slice.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
allocating an amount of physical capacity to the pool; and
provisioning one or more additional storage devices to allocate additional physical capacity to the pool.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
tracking an amount of physical capacity used by the pool; and
providing a User Interface (UI) to receive requests to display the amount of physical capacity used by the pool.

14. The method of claim 11 , wherein garbage collection is not needed.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the plurality of slices are on storage devices, and wherein a data structure is used to store indicators about which physical storage blocks of the storage devices have been updated.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• BEN-HORIN Yuval
• Garmiza Ehood
• Goldberg Itzhack
• Keller Michael
• Matosevich Rivka M

Classifications

• G06F3/0665

  at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes · CPC title

• G06F3/0644

  Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools · CPC title

• G06F3/0689

  Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD · CPC title

• G06F3/0619 Primary

  in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors · CPC title

• G06F3/0608

  Saving storage space on storage systems · CPC title