I/o request performance improvement using backend as a service

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2025317488-A1
Application number	US-202418627649-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Apr 5, 2024
Priority date	Apr 5, 2024
Publication date	Oct 9, 2025
Grant date	—

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses are provided for utilizing additional and available system resources to cache one or more incoming I/O write requests. A storage processor may implement a policy including a Backend as a Service (BEaaS) to use a node pair backend, a fabric network, and other resources to absorb incoming bursts of I/O write requests from a host and direct the requests temporarily to NVMe storage devices. The policy may further use local and/or remote storage arrays connected over the fabric to alleviate strain on local processing resources. The policy may provide for using cut-through writes, including for example, dual-cast operations over PCIe connections, to send I/O requests directly to the NVMe storage devices.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for use in a storage processor, the method comprising:
receiving an input/output (I/O) request; determining a memory utilization threshold; determining a local memory utilization level; and if the local memory utilization level equals or exceeds the memory utilization threshold, using a backend service to transmit the I/O request over a fabric network to a second memory.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein the backend service executes a remote direct memory access (DMA) operation to transmit the I/O request.

3 . The method of claim 2 wherein the remote DMA operation is executed by a remote processor.

4 . The method of claim 1 wherein the second memory is a RAID-1 array.

5 . The method of claim 1 wherein the I/O request is stored a controller memory buffer (CMB) of the second memory.

6 . The method of claim 1 wherein the local memory utilization level includes a write pending level.

7 . The method of claim 1 further comprising determining the local memory utilization level has decreased below the memory utilization threshold and relocating the I/O request from the second memory to a local cache memory.

8 . The method of claim 1 wherein the memory utilization threshold is determined by a number of memory devices.

9 . The method of claim 1 wherein the fabric network includes an InfiniBand network.

10 . The method of claim 1 wherein the second memory is a non-volatile memory express (NVMe).

11 . A data storage system comprising:
a memory; and at least one processor that is operatively coupled to the memory, the at least one processor being configured to perform the operations of:
receiving an input/output (I/O) request;
determining a memory utilization threshold;
determining a local memory utilization level; and
if the local memory utilization level equals or exceeds the memory utilization threshold, using a backend service to transmit the I/O request over a fabric network to a second memory.

12 . The data storage system of claim 11 wherein the backend service executes a remote direct memory access (DMA) operation to transmit the I/O request.

13 . The data storage system of claim 12 wherein the remote DMA operation is executed by a remote processor.

14 . The data storage system of claim 11 wherein the second memory is a RAID-1 array.

15 . The data storage system of claim 11 wherein the I/O request is stored a controller memory buffer (CMB) of the second memory.

16 . The data storage system of claim 11 wherein the local memory utilization level includes a write pending level.

17 . The data storage system of claim 11 further comprising determining the local memory utilization level has decreased below the memory utilization threshold and relocating the I/O request from the second memory to a local cache memory.

18 . The data storage system of claim 11 wherein the memory utilization threshold is determined by a number of memory devices.

19 . The data storage system of claim 11 wherein the fabric network includes an InfiniBand network.

20 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing one or more processor-executable instructions, which when executed by at least one processor cause the at least one processor to perform the operations of:
receiving an input/output (I/O) request; determining a memory utilization threshold; determining a local memory utilization level; and if the local memory utilization level equals or exceeds the memory utilization threshold, using a backend service to transmit the I/O request over a fabric network to a second memory.

Assignees

• Dell Products Lp

Inventors

• Medeiros Earl
• Doddaiah Ramesh
• Yu Rong
• Pang Lixin
• Wang Jiahui

Classifications

• G06F3/067

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

• G06F3/0659

  Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling · CPC title

• G06F3/0656

  Data buffering arrangements · CPC title

• G06F3/0689

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

• G06F3/061

  Improving I/O performance · CPC title