Data storage resource allocation by performing abbreviated resource checks based on relative chances of failure of the data storage resources to determine whether data storage requests would fail

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9128883-B2
Application number	US-14242308-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 19, 2008
Priority date	Jun 19, 2008
Publication date	Sep 8, 2015
Grant date	Sep 8, 2015

Abstract

A resource allocation system begins with an ordered plan for matching requests to resources that is sorted by priority. The resource allocation system optimizes the plan by determining those requests in the plan that will fail if performed. The resource allocation system removes or defers the determined requests. In addition, when a request that is performed fails, the resource allocation system may remove requests that require similar resources from the plan. Moreover, when resources are released by a request, the resource allocation system may place the resources in a temporary holding area until the resource allocation returns to the top of the ordered plan so that lower priority requests that are lower in the plan do not take resources that are needed by waiting higher priority requests higher in the plan.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of performing abbreviated resource checks to determine whether data storage requests would fail in a data storage system, the method comprising:
receiving a list of data storage requests to be performed by the data storage system,
wherein the data storage requests in the list form part of a data backup operation, and
wherein each data storage request in the list specifies two or more data storage resources that are required to perform the respective data storage request;

for a first data storage request, without having to perform the first data storage request itself, performing one or more abbreviated checks to determine whether the first data storage request will fail,
wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks includes:
(i) determining which of the two or more data storage resources specified by the first data storage request are physical resources,
(ii) selecting the data storage resources determined to be physical resources, and
(iii) performing, in an order based on relative chances of failure of the respective selected physical resources, one or more physical checks of whether the selected physical resources are available to satisfy the first data storage request, the performing the one or more physical checks including determining whether hardware for performing the first data storage request is working,
wherein the one or more physical checks of the selected physical resources are performed before any logical checks of the selected physical resources may be performed; and

when the one or more abbreviated checks indicate that the first data storage request would fail if performed, then:
updating the received list of data storage requests by removing the first data storage request from the received list of data storage requests to indicate that the first data storage request should not be performed,
wherein the updating is performed without attempting to perform the first data storage request and without performing a check of all data storage resources required for performing the first data storage request.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks comprises determining whether two or more of the following data storage resources are available: data storage drives, device streams, data storage media, data streams, data storage resources based on an allocation policy, and access to a data storage library.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks comprises determining a load on data storage hardware.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the updating of the received list of data storage requests by removing the first data storage request further comprises removing from the received list at least one other data storage request that depends from the first data storage request.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks comprises determining whether one or more data storage devices are reserved for other uses.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the list of data storage requests is ordered by a priority assigned to performing each data storage request.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein checking those of the selected physical resources that are deemed to have a higher chance of failure occurs before checking others of the selected physical resources which are deemed to have a relatively lower chance of failure.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the relative chance of failure of a given physical resource is determined based on the scarcity of that type of physical resource in the data storage system.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by at least one data processor in a data storage system, perform a method of performing abbreviated resource checks to determine whether data storage requests would fail, the method comprising:
receiving a list of data storage requests to be performed by the data storage system,
wherein the data storage requests in the list form part of a data backup operation, and
wherein each data storage request in the list specifies two or more data storage resources that are required to perform the respective data storage request;

for a first data storage request, without having to perform the first data storage request itself, performing one or more abbreviated checks to determine whether the first data storage request will fail,
wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks includes:
(i) determining which of the two or more data storage resources specified by the first data storage request are physical resources,
(ii) selecting the data storage resources determined to be physical resources, and
(iii) performing, in an order based on relative chances of failure of the respective selected physical resources, one or more physical checks of whether the selected physical resources are available to satisfy the first data storage request, the performing the one or more physical checks including determining whether hardware for performing the first data storage request is working,
wherein the one or more physical checks of the selected physical resources are performed before any logical checks of the selected physical resources may be performed; and

when the one or more abbreviated checks indicate that the first data storage request would fail if performed, then:
updating the received list of data storage requests by removing the first data storage request from the received list of data storage requests to indicate that the first data storage request should not be performed,
wherein the updating is performed without attempting to perform the first data storage request and without performing a check of all data storage resources required for performing the first data storage request.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks comprises determining whether two or more of the following data storage resources are available: data storage drives, device streams, data storage media, data streams, data storage resources based on an allocation policy, and access to a data storage library.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks comprises determining a load on data storage hardware.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein the updating of the received list of data storage requests by removing the first data storage request further comprises removing from the received list at least one other data storage request that depends from the first data storage request.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks comprises determining whether one or more data storage devices are reserved for other uses.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein the list of data storage requests is ordered by a priority assigned to performing each data storage request.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein those of the selected physical resources that are deemed to have a higher chance of failure are checked before others of the selected physical resources which are deemed to have a relatively lower chance of failure.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein the relative chance of failure of a given physical resource is determined based on the scarcity of that type of physical resource in the data storage system.

Assignees

• Gokhale Parag
• Kottomtharayil Rajiv
• Karandikar Amey
• Wang Yu
• Commvault Systems Inc

Inventors

• Gokhale Parag
• Kottomtharayil Rajiv
• Karandikar Amey
• Wang Yu

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

• H04L47/805

  QOS or priority aware · CPC title

• G06F3/0605 Primary

  by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator · CPC title

• G06F3/0631

  by allocating resources to storage systems · CPC title