Controlling a storage system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9626105-B2
Application number	US-201213647451-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 9, 2012
Priority date	Dec 12, 2011
Publication date	Apr 18, 2017
Grant date	Apr 18, 2017

Abstract

A method, computer-readable storage medium and computer system for controlling a storage system, the storage system comprising a plurality of logical storage volumes, the method comprising: monitoring, for each of the logical storage volumes, one or more load parameters; receiving, for each of the logical storage volumes, one or more load parameter threshold values; comparing, for each of the logical storage volumes, the first load parameter values of said logical storage volume with the corresponding one or more load parameter threshold values; in case at least one of the first load parameter values of one of the logical storage volumes violates the load parameter threshold value it is compared with, automatically executing a corrective action.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer system comprising:
a storage system comprising a plurality of logical storage volumes that provide storage space on one or more of said logical storage volumes to one or more clients;
a server system comprising a monitoring and control unit coupled to the storage system and the one or more clients via a network and being adapted for:
monitoring, for each of the logical storage volumes, one or more load parameters being indicative of a current I/O load of said logical storage volume for obtaining first load parameter values;
receiving, for each of the logical storage volumes, one or more load parameter threshold values;
comparing, for each of the logical storage volumes, the monitored first parameter values with the corresponding one or more load parameter threshold values received for said logical storage volume; and
in case at least one of the first load parameter values of one of the logical storage volumes violates the load parameter threshold value it is compared with, automatically executing a corrective action while avoiding a full volume migration, wherein the corrective action comprises at least two of:
modifying a ratio of high-performing physical storage volumes and low-performing physical storage volumes constituting said one logical storage volume;
disabling or enabling a data compression functionality of said logical storage volume, the data compression functionality automatically compressing any data stored to said one logical storage volume;
modifying a physical-to-logical mapping of storage blocks of one or more physical storage volumes constituting said logical storage volumes, thereby increasing the number of physical storage volumes constituting said logical storage volume by adding additional physical storage volumes to the mapping or decreasing the number of physical storage volumes constituting said logical storage volume by removing one or more of said mapped physical storage volumes from said mapping;
modifying a size of a cache memory associated with said one logical storage volume; and
modifying a grouping, said grouping assigning each of a plurality of controller nodes a disjunct group of the physical storage volumes to be controlled by said controller node, the modification increasing or decreasing the number of physical storage volumes controlled by one of said controller nodes, said one controller node currently controlling at least one of the physical storage volumes mapped to memory blocks of said one logical storage volume.

2. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein executing the corrective action comprises sending a command to the storage system for modifying a configuration of the storage system to automatically execute the determined corrective action.

3. A computer system comprising:
a storage system comprising a plurality of logical storage volumes that provide storage space on one or more of said logical storage volumes to one or more clients;
a server system comprising a monitoring and control unit coupled to the storage system and the one or more clients via a network and being adapted for:
monitoring, for each of the logical storage volumes, one or more load parameters being indicative of a current I/O load of said logical storage volume for obtaining first load parameter values;
receiving, for each of the logical storage volumes, one or more load parameter threshold values;
comparing, for each of the logical storage volumes, the monitored first parameter values with the corresponding one or more load parameter threshold values received for said logical storage volume; and

in case at least one of the first load parameter values of one of the logical storage volumes violates the load parameter threshold value it is compared with, automatically executing a corrective action while avoiding a full volume migration, further comprising:
determining one or more corrective actions from a group of corrective actions to be executed by automatically determining if the storage system is supportive of multiple different types of physical storage volumes, wherein the storage system is supportive in case it is operable to map storage blocks of a first physical storage volume and of a second physical storage volume in a way to provide a single logical storage volume, the first and the second physical storage volume being of different type, and if it is supportive of multiple different types of physical storage volumes, automatically move data stored in the first physical storage volume to the second physical storage volume;
in case the storage system is determined to be supportive of multiple different types of physical storage volumes, executing a modification of a ratio of high-performing physical storage volumes and low-performing physical storage volumes constituting said one logical storage volume;
monitoring said one or more load parameters being indicative of the current I/O load of said logical storage volume for obtaining second load parameter values;
comparing, for said logical storage volume, said second load parameter values with the corresponding one or more load parameter threshold values received for said logical storage volume; and
in case at least one of the second load parameter values violates the load parameter threshold value it is compared with, automatically executing another one of the corrective actions.

4. The computer system of claim 3 , wherein executing another one of the corrective actions comprises:
automatically determining if the storage system is operable to enable and disable real-time compression of all the data stored in the logical storage volume;
in case the storage system was determined to be operable to enable and disable the real-time compression, executing the disabling or the enabling of the data compression functionality for said logical storage volume;
monitoring said one or more load parameters being indicative of the current I/O load of said logical storage volume for obtaining third load parameter values;
comparing, for said logical storage volume, said third load parameter values with the corresponding one or more load parameter threshold values received for said logical storage volume; and
in case at least one of the third load parameter values violates the load parameter threshold value it is compared with, automatically executing one of the other corrective actions.

5. A computer system comprising:
a storage system comprising a plurality of logical storage volumes that provide storage space on one or more of said logical storage volumes to one or more clients;
a server system comprising a monitoring and control unit coupled to the storage system and the one or more clients via a network and being adapted for:
monitoring, for each of the logical storage volumes, one or more load parameters being indicative of a current I/O load of said logical storage volume for obtaining first load parameter values;
receiving, for each of the logical storage volumes, one or more load parameter threshold values;
comparing, for each of the logical storage volumes, the monitored first parameter values with the corresponding one or more load parameter threshold values received for said logical storage volume; and

in case at least one of the first load parameter values of one of the logical storage volumes violates the load parameter threshold value it is compared with, automatically executing a corrective action while avoiding a full volume migration, further comprising:
repeating said method automatically for dynamically optimizing at least two of:
the ratio of high-performing physical storage volumes and low-performing physical storage volumes constituting said logical storage volume;
a degree of data compression of data stored in said logical storage volume;
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Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Bolik Christian
• Fiebrich-Kandler Uwe
• Noll Dietmar

Classifications

• G06F11/3433

  for load management (allocation of a server based on load conditions G06F9/505; load rebalancing G06F9/5083; redistributing the load in a network by a load balancer H04L67/1029) · CPC title

• G06F2201/81

  Threshold · CPC title

• G06F3/0683

  Plurality of storage devices · CPC title

• G06F11/3485 Primary

  for I/O devices · CPC title

• G06F3/0604 Primary

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