Determining an availability score based on available resources of different resource types in a storage system to determine whether to perform a failure operation for the storage system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9703619-B2
Application number	US-201414289320-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 28, 2014
Priority date	May 28, 2014
Publication date	Jul 11, 2017
Grant date	Jul 11, 2017

Abstract

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for determining an availability score based on available resources of different resource types in a storage system to determine whether to perform a failure operation for the storage system. Information is maintained indicating availability of a plurality of storage system resources for a plurality of resource types. An availability score is calculated as a function of a number of available resources of the resource types. Information on the availability score is transmitted to a failure manager. The failure manager uses the transmitted availability information to determine whether to initiate a storage system failure mode for the storage system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer program product for determining a health status of a storage system, wherein the computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therein, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause operations, the operations comprising:
maintaining information indicating availability of a plurality of storage system resources for a plurality of resource types;
calculating an availability score for the storage system as a function that performs an operation on a plurality of ratios for the resource types, wherein each ratio for one of the resource types is of the storage system resources that are available for the resource type and a total number of the storage system resources of the resource type;
transmitting information on the availability score to a failure manager; and
using, by the failure manager, the transmitted information on the availability score to determine whether to initiate a storage system failure mode for the storage system to failover to another storage system.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving an error with respect to one of the storage system resources of one of the resource types; and
indicating the storage system resource for which the error is detected as unavailable, wherein the availability score is calculated in response to determining that the storage system resource is unavailable.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
maintaining an association of ranges of availability scores to a plurality of severity levels; and
determining, from the calculated availability score, the severity level associated with the calculated availability score, wherein the transmitted information on the availability score comprises the determined severity level, and wherein the storage system failure mode is initiated in response to the transmitted severity level comprising a highest severity level.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
determining whether the calculated availability score is equal to a previously calculated availability score, wherein the information on the availability score is transmitted in response to determining that the calculated availability score is not equal to the previously calculated availability score; and
setting the previously calculated availability score to the calculated availability score.

5. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the storage system comprises a primary storage system, wherein data from the primary storage system is mirrored to a secondary storage system, wherein in the storage system failure mode, the failure manager performs a failover operation to the secondary storage system in response to the information on the availability score indicating that the primary storage system is unavailable to make the data available on the primary storage system available on the secondary storage system.

6. The computer program product of claim 5 , wherein the failure manager further performs:
receiving, by the failure manager, subsequent availability information for the primary storage system after the failover operation; and
failing back from the secondary storage system to the primary storage system in response to the subsequent availability information indicating that the primary storage system is available.

7. A computer program product for determining a health status of a storage system, wherein the computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therein, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause operations, the operations comprising:
maintaining information indicating availability of a plurality of storage system resources for a plurality of resource types;
calculating an availability score by considering for each of the resource types a number of the storage system resources that are available and a total number of the storage system resources for the resource type and by multiplying a percentage of the number of the available storage system resources to total number of the storage system resources for each of the resource types;
transmitting information on the availability score to a failure manager; and
using, by the failure manager, the transmitted information on the availability score to determine whether to initiate a storage system failure mode for the storage system.

8. A computer program product for determining a health status of a storage system, wherein the computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therein, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause operations, the operations comprising:
maintaining information indicating availability of a plurality of storage system resources for a plurality of resource types;
calculating an availability score as a function of a number of available storage system resources of the resource types and a number of recovery events resulting from Input/Output (I/O) requests and a total number of allowed recovery events;
transmitting information on the availability score to a failure manager; and
using, by the failure manager, the transmitted information on the availability score to determine whether to initiate a storage system failure mode for the storage system.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the function calculates the availability score by multiplying a percentage of the number of the available storage system resources to a total number of the storage system resources for each of the resource types times one minus a percentage of the number of recovery events divided by the total number of allowed recovery events.

10. A system, comprising:
a failure manager;
a processor; and
a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therein that when executed by the processor perform operations, the operations comprising:
maintaining information indicating availability of a plurality of storage system resources for a plurality of resource types;
calculating an availability score for a storage system as a function that performs an operation on a plurality of ratios for the resource types, wherein each ratio for one of the resource types is of the storage system resources that are available for the resource type and a total number of the storage system resources of the resource type; and
transmitting information on the availability score to the failure manager;
wherein the failure manager uses the transmitted information on the availability score to determine whether to initiate a storage system failure mode for the storage system to failover to another storage system.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving an error with respect to one of the storage system resources of one of the resource types; and
indicating the storage system resource for which the error is detected as unavailable, wherein the availability score is calculated in response to determining that the storage system resource is unavailable.

12. The system of claim 10 , wherein the storage system comprises a primary storage system, wherein data from the primary storage system is mirrored to a secondary storage system, wherein in the storage system failure mode, the failure manager performs a failover operation to the secondary storage system in response to the information on the availability score indicating that the primary storage system is unavailable to make the data available on the primary storage

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Andre Herve G P
• Carson Matthew D
• Chandra Rashmi
• Hardy Clint A
• Juarez Larry
• Leung Tony
• Sorenson Todd C

Classifications

• G06F11/2069

  Management of state, configuration or failover · CPC title

• G06F11/2082

  Data synchronisation · CPC title

• G06F11/008 Primary

  Reliability or availability analysis · CPC title

• G06F11/2071

  using a plurality of controllers · CPC title