Multi-class heterogeneous clients in a filesystem

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10289338-B2
Application number	US-201715428004-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 8, 2017
Priority date	Jun 5, 2001
Publication date	May 14, 2019
Grant date	May 14, 2019

Abstract

A cluster of computer system nodes connected by a storage area network include two classes of nodes. The first class of nodes can act as clients or servers, while the other nodes can only be clients. The client-only nodes require much less functionality and can be more easily supported by different operating systems. To minimize the amount of data transmitted during normal operation, the server responsible for maintaining a cluster configuration database repeatedly multicasts the IP address, its incarnation number and the most recent database generation number. Each node stores this information and when a change is detected, each node can request an update of the data needed by that node. A client-only node uses the IP address of the server to connect to the server, to download the information from the cluster database required by the client-only node and to upload local disk connectivity information.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for managing cluster membership for a cluster of nodes in a storage area network (SAN), the method comprising:
sending a request, from a candidate client node, to receive internet protocol (IP) addresses associated with one or more electronic devices to a client integration services (CIS) server containing a cluster configuration database (CDB) associated with an incarnation number of the CIS server and a generation number to identify a version of the CDB;
receiving, at the candidate node, the IP addresses of the one or more electronic devices from the CIS server;
receiving information, at the candidate node, from the one or more electronic devices that identifies at least one port number at each of the one or more electronic devices connected to a host bus adapter (HBA);
sending, the at least one port number and identification of the HBA connected thereto contained in the received information, from the candidate node to the CIS server and a request for the candidate node to join a cluster of nodes associated with the CIS server; and
receiving, at the candidate node, cluster configuration information from the CIS server, wherein the candidate node is a computing device and the computing device loins the cluster of nodes according to the received cluster configuration information.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cluster configuration information includes IP addresses for each node of the cluster of nodes and at least some of the one or more electronic devices are switches.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cluster configuration information includes at least one of a file system mount point.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the file system mount point is associated with one or more mount options identified in the cluster configuration information.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the CIS server is sent a subsequent request to receive the IP addresses associated with the one or more electronic devices,
updated cluster configuration information is received at an existing node of the cluster of nodes, and
the updated cluster information includes information regarding the computing device that joined the cluster of nodes.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the CIS server stores information relating to resetting one or more nodes in the cluster.

7. The method of claim 5 , further comprising configuring a kernel according to the updated cluster configuration information.

8. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, executable by a processor, for performing a method for managing cluster membership for a cluster of nodes in a storage area network (SAN), the method comprising:
sending a request to receive internet protocol (IP) addresses associated with one or more electronic devices to a client integration services (CIS) server containing a cluster configuration database (CDB) associated with an incarnation number of the CIS server and a generation number to identify a version of the CDB;
receiving the IP addresses of the one or more electronic devices from the CIS server;
receiving information from the one or more electronic devices that identifies at least one port number at each of the one or more electronic devices connected to a host bus adaptor (HBA);
sending the at least one port number at each of the one or more electronic devices connected to the HBA and identification of the HBA connected thereto to the CIS server with a request to join a cluster of nodes associated with the CIS server; and
receiving cluster configuration information from the CIS server, wherein a computing device containing the processor joins the cluster of nodes according to the received cluster configuration information.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the cluster configuration information includes IP addresses for each node in the cluster of nodes and at least some of the one or more electronic devices are switches.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the cluster configuration includes a file system mount point.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the file system mount point is associated with one or more mount options identified in the cluster configuration information.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein:
the CIS server is sent a subsequent request to receive the IP addresses associated with the one or more electronic devices;
updated cluster configuration information is received; and
the updated cluster information includes information regarding an additional computing device that subsequently joined the cluster of nodes.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the CIS server stores information relating to resetting one or more nodes in the cluster.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein a kernel is configured according to the updated cluster configuration information.

15. A system for managing cluster membership, the system comprising:
one or more nodes that are currently associated with a cluster of nodes;
a client integration services (CIS) server containing a cluster configuration database (CDB) containing information associated with the cluster of nodes, the CDB associated with an incarnation number of the CIS server and a generation number to identify a version of the CDB; and
a client-only node, wherein the client-only node supports less functionality than a server node within the cluster of nodes and supports functionality to:
send a request to receive internet protocol (IP) addresses associated with one or more electronic devices to the CIS server;
receive the IP addresses of the one or more electronic devices from the CIS server;
receive information from the one or more electronic devices that identifies at least one port number at each of the one or more electronic devices connected to a host bus adapter (HBA);
send the at least one port number and identification information of the HBA connected thereto contained in the received information to the CIS server;
send a request to join the cluster of nodes;
receive cluster configuration information for the cluster of nodes from the CIS server; and
join the cluster of nodes according to the received cluster configuration information.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the cluster configuration information includes IP addresses for each node in the cluster of nodes.

17. The system of claim 15 , wherein the cluster configuration information includes at least one of a file system mount point.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the file system mount point is associated with one or more mount options identified in the cluster configuration information.

19. The system of claim 15 , wherein:
the CIS server is sent a subsequent request to receive the IP addresses associated with the one or more electronic devices;
updated cluster configuration information is received; and
the updated cluster information includes information regarding an additional computing device that subsequently joined the cluster of nodes.

20. The system of claim 15 , further comprising one or more switches, wherein the one or more switches are included in the one or more electronic devices.

Assignees

• Hewlett Packard Entpr Dev Lp

Inventors

• Moore Daniel
• Gildfind Andrew

Classifications

• G06F3/0617

  in relation to availability · CPC title

• G06F11/1464

  for networked environments · CPC title

• H04L41/0813

  characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings · CPC title

• G06F3/065 Primary

  Replication mechanisms · CPC title

• G06F17/30088

  Physics · mapped topic