Non-disruptive configuration of a virtualization controller in a data storage system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9262087-B2
Application number	US-201514626818-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 19, 2015
Priority date	Aug 31, 2011
Publication date	Feb 16, 2016
Grant date	Feb 16, 2016

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention relate to configuring a virtualization controller in SAN data storage system without disrupting I/O operations. One aspect of the invention concerns a method that comprises establishing a first data path between a host and a storage controller in the same communication zone wherein the storage controller comprises storage devices for storing data; adding a virtualization controller to the zone wherein the virtualization controller maps the storage devices to virtual volumes and establishes a second data path between the host and the storage devices through the virtual volumes; removing the first data path in response to the host detecting the second data path; and performing I/O operations between the host and the storage devices through the second data path.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for configuring a data storage system, comprising:
establishing a first data path between a host and a storage controller that interfaces with the host and a plurality of storage devices for storing data, wherein the host accesses the storage devices through the storage controller, wherein the host and the storage devices are in a communication zone;
establishing a second data path between the host and the storage devices through virtual volumes established by a virtualization controller, wherein the host recognizes the virtual volumes as an alternate data path to the first data path between the hosts and the storage devices that goes through the virtualization controller;
removing the first data path between the host and the storage controller in response to establishing the second data path;
performing I/O operations between the host and the storage devices through the second data path and the virtualization controller.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the storage devices are coupled to the storage controller, and the storage controller is coupled to the host.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising disabling data caching in the virtualization controller during the configuration.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
enabling data caching in the virtualization controller for caching the virtual volumes.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
creating a mapping of the storage devices to virtual disks, wherein the virtualization controller and the virtual disks are added to the data storage configuration without disrupting Input/Output operations to the storage devices.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtual volumes are mapped one-to-one to the storage devices.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtualization controller and the host are in the same zone.

8. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code that when executed by a processor performs operations, the operations comprising:
establishing a first data path between a host and a storage controller that interfaces with the host and a plurality of storage devices for storing data, wherein the host accesses the storage devices through the storage controller, wherein the host and the storage devices are in a communication zone;
establishing a second data path between the host and the storage devices through virtual volumes established by a virtualization controller, wherein the host recognizes the virtual volumes as an alternate data path to the first data path between the hosts and the storage devices that goes through the virtualization controller;
removing the first data path between the host and the storage controller in response to establishing the second data path;
performing I/O operations between the host and the storage devices through the second data path and the virtualization controller.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the storage devices are coupled to the storage controller, and the storage controller is coupled to the host.

10. The computer program product of claim 8 , further comprising disabling data caching in the virtualization controller during the configuration.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 , further comprising:
enabling data caching in the virtualization controller for caching the virtual volumes.

12. The computer program product of claim 8 , further comprising:
creating a mapping of the storage devices to virtual disks, wherein the virtualization controller and the virtual disks are added to the data storage configuration without disrupting Input/Output operations to the storage devices.

13. The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the virtual volumes are mapped one-to-one to the storage devices.

14. The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the virtualization controller and the host are in the same zone.

15. A system configured to be coupled to a storage area network (SAN), comprising:
a memory;
a processor coupled to the memory and configured to:
establishing a first data path between a host and a storage controller that interfaces with the host and a plurality of storage devices for storing data, wherein the host accesses the storage devices through the storage controller, wherein the host and the storage devices are in a communication zone;
establishing a second data path between the host and the storage devices through virtual volumes established by a virtualization controller, wherein the host recognizes the virtual volumes as an alternate data path to the first data path between the hosts and the storage devices that goes through the virtualization controller;

removing the first data path between the host and the storage controller in response to establishing the second data path;
performing I/O operations between the host and the storage devices through the second data path and the virtualization controller.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the storage devices are coupled to the storage controller, and the storage controller is coupled to the host.

17. The system of claim 15 , further comprising disabling data caching in the virtualization controller during the configuration.

18. The system of claim 17 , further comprising:
enabling data caching in the virtualization controller for caching the virtual volumes.

19. The system of claim 15 , further comprising:
creating a mapping of the storage devices to virtual disks, wherein the virtualization controller and the virtual disks are added to the data storage configuration without disrupting Input/Output operations to the storage devices.

20. The system of claim 15 , wherein the virtualization controller and the host are in the same zone.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Chaurasia Ashish
• Roy Subhojit

Classifications

• G06F3/0617 Primary

  in relation to availability · CPC title

• G06F3/0637

  Permissions · CPC title

• G06F12/0866

  for peripheral storage systems, e.g. disk cache · CPC title

• G06F3/067

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

• G06F3/0632

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