Migration of newly allocated data to a storage tier

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9639293-B2
Application number	US-201615151529-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 11, 2016
Priority date	Jul 9, 2014
Publication date	May 2, 2017
Grant date	May 2, 2017

Abstract

A method, for migrating newly allocated data into a second storage tier, includes receiving a request to store a data item. The method includes allocating an extent to a first storage tier to store the new data item. The method includes determining whether an extent is newly allocated on the first storage tier. The method includes migrating, by avoiding a learning phase, the newly allocated extent to the second storage tier from the first storage tier.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for migrating newly allocated data into a second storage tier comprising:
writing data to a first physical extent in the hard-disk-drive (HDD) storage tier;
attaching, in response to writing the data, a metadata flag to a logical extent in a set of logical extents on a thin provisioning volume, wherein the logical extent corresponds to the first physical extent and the metadata flag indicates that the first logical extent is allocated;
monitoring the set of logical extents on the thin provisioning volume for a metadata flag;
detecting, by the monitoring, the metadata flag attached to the logical extent;
migrating, in response to the detecting, the first physical extent to the solid-state-drive (SSD) storage tier;
monitoring for performance degradation in the SDD storage tier, wherein performance degradation comprises an increase in read time of a second physical extent in the SSD storage tier; and
demoting cold data from the SDD storage tier to the HDD storage tier in response to performance degradation in the SDD storage, wherein the cold data is data that is not accessed frequently.

2. A computer system for migrating newly allocated data into a second storage tier comprising one or more computer processor circuits configured to perform a method comprising:
receiving a request to store a data item, wherein the data item is a delivery status of a package related to a customer order;
allocating a physical extent on a first storage tier to store the data item;
monitoring a set of logical extents for a logical extent that is newly allocated;
detecting a logical extent in the set of logical extents that is newly allocated on the first storage tier and that points to the physical extent; and
migrating, in response to the logical extent being newly allocated, the physical extent to the second storage tier from the first storage tier, wherein the second storage tier exhibits a higher performance than the first storage tier.

3. A computer program product for migrating newly allocated data into a second storage tier from a first storage tier from a plurality of storage devices comprising a computer readable storage device having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to:
receive a request to store a data item;
allocate a physical extent on a first storage tier to store the data item;
determine whether a logical extent associated with the physical extent is newly allocated on the first storage tier by receiving a notification that the logical extent is newly allocated; and
migrate, by avoiding a learning phase and in response to the logical extent being newly allocated, the physical extent to the second storage tier from the first storage tier.

4. The computer program product of claim 3 , wherein the allocating the physical extent includes:
allocating the physical extent to a reserved unallocated space on a thin provision volume of the first storage tier.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Guo Yong
• Mcnutt Bruce
• Tang Tao
• Xu Yan

Classifications

• G06F3/0689

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

• G06F3/0647 Primary

  Migration mechanisms · CPC title

• G06F3/0685

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

• G06F3/0665

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

• G06F3/0619

  in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors · CPC title