Techniques for multiple directors concurrently servicing I/Os directed to same physical storage devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11086536-B2
Application number	US-201816048637-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 30, 2018
Priority date	Jul 30, 2018
Publication date	Aug 10, 2021
Grant date	Aug 10, 2021

Abstract

Techniques for performing configuration may include: determining an initial distribution of logical devices among disk adapters, wherein the initial distribution assigns each logical device a designated disk adapter as a primary active disk adapter servicing I/Os directed to the logical device, wherein the logical devices have storage provisioned from a RAID group including physical storage devices, wherein the disk adapters concurrently issue I/Os to each of the physical storage devices; detecting a configuration change; and responsive to detecting a configuration change, performing first processing. The first processing may include determining, in accordance with the configuration change, a redistribution of the logical devices among the disk adapters; and draining pending I/Os. The configuration change may include adding or removing a logical device provisioned from the RAID group. Performing a first operation on a storage device of the RAID group may include synchronous draining of I/Os of the storage device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of performing configuration comprising:
determining an initial distribution of a plurality of logical devices among a plurality of disk adapters, wherein said determining the initial distribution includes assigning each of the plurality of logical devices a designated one of the plurality of disk adapters as a primary active disk adapter and assigning each of the plurality of logical devices another of the plurality of disk adapters as a secondary disk adapter, and wherein the primary active disk adapter of said each logical device is the only one of the plurality of disk adapters that services I/Os directed to said each logical device and wherein the secondary disk adapter for said each logical device does not actively service I/Os directed to said each logical device and wherein the secondary disk adapter assumes a role as the primary active disk adapter for said each logical device upon failure of the designated one of the plurality of disk adapters, wherein the plurality of logical devices have storage provisioned from a RAID group comprising a plurality of physical storage devices, wherein each of the plurality of physical storage devices is configured to be concurrently managed and serviced by the plurality of disk adapters, wherein at least a first disk adapter of the plurality of disk adapters and a second disk adapter of the plurality of disk adapters are concurrently issuing first I/Os to a same one of the plurality of physical storage devices, wherein the plurality of logical devices have a plurality of device types and wherein said determining the initial distribution includes distributing the plurality of logical devices among the plurality of disk adapters in accordance with the plurality of device types each denoting a different data layout indicating a format in which data is stored on a logical device of said each device type;
detecting a configuration change, wherein the configuration change includes adding a second plurality of logical devices of a new device type denoting a new data layout indicating a new format in which data is stored on a logical device of said new device type; and
responsive to detecting a configuration change, performing first processing comprising:
determining, in accordance with the configuration change, a redistribution of the plurality of logical devices among the plurality of disk adapters, wherein said determining the redistribution includes assigning each of the plurality of logical devices a particular designated one of the plurality of disk adapters as the primary active disk adapter that is the only one of the plurality of disk adapters servicing I/Os directed to said each logical device, wherein said determining the redistribution includes distributing the plurality of logical devices and the second plurality of logical devices among the plurality of disk adapters in accordance with the plurality of device types and the new device type.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration change includes adding a new logical device having its storage provisioned from the plurality of physical storage devices of the RAID group, and wherein the redistribution includes assigning one of the plurality of disk adapters as the primary active disk adapter servicing I/Os directed to the new logical device.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration change includes deleting one of the plurality of logical devices having its storage provisioned from the plurality of physical storage devices of the RAID group, and wherein the redistribution includes removing a current assignment of one of the plurality of disk adapters as the primary active disk adapter servicing I/Os directed to said one logical device.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of logical devices has its physical storage provisioned from each of the plurality of physical storage devices of the RAID group.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the initial distribution and the redistribution are performed using a distribution technique that partitions the plurality of logical devices among the plurality of disk adapters in accordance with one or more balancing criteria.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the one or more balancing criteria include evenly distributing the plurality of logical devices among the plurality of disk adapters.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein the plurality of logical devices includes a first portion having a first compression rate or ratio and a second portion have a second compression rate or ratio and the one or more balancing criteria include evenly distributing the first portion of the plurality of logical devices having the first compression ratio among the plurality of disk adapters and evenly distributing the second portion of the plurality of logical device having the second compression ratio among the plurality of disk adapters.

8. The method of claim 5 , wherein the plurality of logical devices includes a first portion having compression enabled and a second portion having compression disabled and the one or more balancing criteria include evenly distributing the first portion of the plurality of logical devices having compression enabled among the plurality of disk adapters and evenly distributing the second portion of the plurality of logical device having compression disabled among the plurality of disk adapters.

9. The method of claim 5 , wherein the one or more balancing criteria include evenly distributing a first portion of the plurality of logical devices having a first device type among the plurality of disk adapters and evenly distributing a second portion of the plurality of logical devices having a second device type among the plurality of disk adapters.

10. The method of claim 5 , wherein the plurality of logical devices includes a first portion having a first property or attribute and a second portion having a second property or attribute, wherein the second property or attribute is different from the first property or attribute, and the one or more balancing criteria include evenly distributing the first portion of the plurality of logical devices having the first property or attribute among the plurality of disk adapters and evenly distributing the second portion of the plurality of logical devices having the second property or attribute among the plurality of disk adapters.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein in the initial distribution, a first of the plurality of logical devices is assigned a third of the plurality of disk adapters as the primary active disk adapter that is the only one of the plurality of disk adapters servicing I/Os directed to said first logical device, and wherein the first processing includes:
assigning a fourth of the plurality of disk adapters as the primary active disk adapter that is the only one of the plurality of disk adapters servicing I/Os directed to said first logical device, wherein, after assigning the fourth disk adapter, the fourth disk adapter, rather than the third disk adapter, is the only one of the plurality of disk adapters that services I/Os directed to the first logical device.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the first processing includes:
draining pending I/Os directed to the first logical device, wherein the pending I/Os are issued and managed by the third disk adapter; and
receiving one or more additional I/Os directed to the first logical device, wherein the one or more additional I/Os are issued and managed by the fourth disk adapter.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein during said draining, no new I/O operations directed to the first logical device are sent to the third disk adapter for servicing an

Assignees

• Emc Ip Holding Co Llc

Inventors

• Yin Peng
• Gao Kunxiu
• Wang Jiahui
• Pai Seema G
• Li Ningdong
• Wang Daohong
• Ives Stephen Richard
• Lang Li

Classifications

• G06F3/0604

  Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management · CPC title

• G06F3/0632 Primary

  by initialisation or re-initialisation of storage systems · CPC title

• G06F3/067

  Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title

• G06F3/061

  Improving I/O performance · CPC title

• G06F3/0664

  at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system · CPC title