Storage system coupled to a host computer and a management device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9250813-B2
Application number	US-201213640770-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 18, 2012
Priority date	Jul 18, 2012
Publication date	Feb 2, 2016
Grant date	Feb 2, 2016

Abstract

When a plurality of applications operating in a host computer or a storage system uses a same pool, actual data constantly allocated to an upper tier drive satisfying the required response performance will continue to increase. Therefore, when data is migrated by IOPS in page units, the access performance such as the response speed may not be satisfied. Therefore, according to the present invention, multiple virtual volumes used in applications are subjected to grouping. Relocation conditions corresponding to performances required for each group are set in advance, and reallocation of tiers according to the relocation conditions is performed.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A storage system coupled to a host computer and a management device,
the storage system comprising;
a plurality of storage devices constituting a plurality of volumes, each of the volumes having a plurality of pool pages and belonging to one of a plurality of tiers based on a response performance; and
a storage control unit for controlling the storage system configured to provide a plurality of virtual volumes having a plurality of virtual pages to the host computer, and to allocate the pool page to the virtual page when the virtual page is first used,
wherein the storage control unit
constructs one or more tiering groups, each of the tiering groups including one or more of the virtual volumes,
sets a relocation condition to each of the tiering groups, the relocation condition including a minimum amount of use of each of the tiers, and
for each of the tiering groups, migrates the virtual pages in the virtual volumes belonging to the tiering group to an uppermost tier of the plurality of tiers until an amount of the pool pages of the uppermost tier allocated to the virtual volumes belonging to the tiering group reaches the minimum amount of use of the uppermost tier.

2. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the storage control unit, for each of the tiering groups, migrates the virtual pages in the virtual volumes belonging to the tiering group to a lowermost tier of the plurality of tiers until an amount of the pool pages of the lowermost tier allocated to the virtual volumes belonging to the tiering group reaches the minimum amount of use of the lowermost tier.

3. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the relocation condition further includes a maximum amount of use of the uppermost tier; and wherein
when an amount of the virtual pages allocated to the pool pages of the uppermost tier exceeds the maximum amount of use of the uppermost tier, the storage control unit changes the allocation of the virtual pages so that the amount of the pool pages of the uppermost tier allocated to the virtual volumes belonging to the tiering group does not exceed the maximum amount of use of the uppermost tier.

4. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the setting of relocation conditions is executed by the management device.

5. The storage system according to claim 4 , wherein the relocation conditions being set is output to the management device.

6. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the virtual volumes required to have a high speed response and the virtual volumes not required to have a high speed response are registered with the different tiering groups respectively.

7. The storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the virtual volumes used by an application software operating in the host computer and the virtual volumes used by an application software operating in the storage system are registered with the different tiering groups respectively.

8. A storage system coupled to a host computer and a management device, the storage system comprising:
a plurality of storage devices constituting a plurality of volumes, each of the volumes having a plurality of pool pages and belonging to one of a plurality of tiers based on a response performance; and
a storage control unit for controlling the storage system configured to provide a plurality of virtual volumes having a plurality of virtual pages to the host computer, to allocate the pool page to the virtual page when the virtual page is first used, and to maintain I/O count information in each of the virtual pages, the I/O count information managing the number of I/Os generated in the virtual page;
wherein the storage control unit
constructs one or more tiering groups, each of the tiering groups including one or more of the virtual volumes,
sets a relocation condition to each of the tiering groups, the relocation condition including a weighting condition including weight and range for performing weighing,
for each of the tiering groups, performs weighting to the I/O count information of the virtual pages specified with the range by multiplying the I/O count information of the virtual pages by the weight, and
migrates the virtual pages to an uppermost tier of the plurality of tiers sequentially from the virtual pages having higher I/O count information until tier capacity or drive performance is satisfied.

9. The storage system according to claim 8 ,
wherein when the drive performance is exceeded, the storage control unit migrates the virtual pages to a next tier.

10. A storage system coupled to a host computer and a management device, the storage system comprising:
a plurality of storage devices constituting a plurality of volumes, each of the volumes having a plurality of pool pages and belonging to one of a plurality of tiers based on a response performance; and
a storage control unit for controlling the storage system configured to provide a plurality of virtual volumes having a plurality of virtual pages to the host computer, and to allocate the pool page to the virtual page when the virtual page is first used,
wherein the storage control unit
constructs one or more tiering groups, each of the tiering groups including one or more of the virtual volumes,
sets a relocation condition to each of the tiering groups, the relocation condition including a target average response time,
computes an average response time of each of the tiering groups, and
if the computed average response does not satisfy the target average response time, for each of the tiering groups, migrates the virtual page not belonging to an uppermost tier of the plurality of tiers into the uppermost tier repeatedly until the computed average response satisfies the target average response time.

Assignees

• Oshima Yutaka
• Takata Yutaka
• Ohira Yoshinori
• Hitachi Ltd

Inventors

• Oshima Yutaka
• Takata Yutaka
• Ohira Yoshinori

Classifications

• G06F3/0665

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

• G06F3/0647

  Migration mechanisms · CPC title

• G06F3/064

  Management of blocks · CPC title

• G06F3/0611 Primary

  in relation to response time · CPC title

• G06F3/0685

  Hybrid storage combining heterogeneous device types, e.g. hierarchical storage, hybrid arrays · CPC title