Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090024814 | PROVIDING AN ADMINISTRATIVE PATH FOR ACCESSING A WRITEABLE MASTER STORAGE VOLUME IN A MIRRORED STORAGE ENVIRONMENT - A technique provides an administrative path for accessing a writeable master storage volume in a mirrored storage environment. Illustratively, a writeable master storage volume stores a master set of data addressable by a corresponding pathname, and zero or more read-only (e.g., load-balancing) mirrored storage volumes are configured to store a mirrored set of the master set of data, the mirrored set also addressable by the corresponding pathname. Clients may read data from either the master storage volume or one of the mirrored storage volumes (e.g., according to a configured access location, such as a local mirrored volume if one exists) by issuing read requests having the corresponding pathnames. Also, each client may specifically access the master set of data from the master storage volume by issuing an access (e.g., read/write) request having a specified master storage volume pathname prefix prepended to the corresponding pathname. | 01-22-2009 |
20100050015 | TRIPLE PARITY TECHNIQUE FOR ENABLING EFFICIENT RECOVERY FROM TRIPLE FAILURES IN A STORAGE ARRAY - A method for recovering from three failed data storage devices is disclosed. A plurality of data storage devices hold data, and a row parity storage device holds row parity for them. The data storage devices and the row parity storage device form a set of storage devices. A diagonal parity storage device and an anti-diagonal parity storage device hold parity computed diagonally over the set of storage devices. In the event of a failure of three data storage devices of the set of storage devices, a first failed storage device is chosen for first restoration. A missing block of the first failed storage device is computed by using the remaining set of storage devices, and the diagonal parity storage device, and the anti-diagonal parity storage device. The remaining two failed storage devices are restored by a diagonal parity restoration technique. | 02-25-2010 |
20110010599 | N-WAY PARITY TECHNIQUE FOR ENABLING RECOVERY FROM UP TO N STORAGE DEVICE FAILURES - An n-way parity protection technique enables recovery of up to n storage device (e.g., disk) failures in a parity group of a storage array encoded to protect against n-way disk failures. The storage array is created by first configuring the array with m data disks, where m=p−1 and p is a prime number and a row parity disk. n−1 diagonal parity disks are then added to the array. Each diagonal parity set (i.e., diagonal) is associated with a slope that defines the data and row parity blocks of the array that are included in the diagonal. All diagonals having a common slope within a parity group are organized as a diagonal parity class. For each diagonal parity class, a diagonal parity storage disk is provided to store the diagonal parity. | 01-13-2011 |
20120179891 | EXTENSION OF WRITE ANYWHERE FILE SYSTEM LAYOUT - A file system layout apportions an underlying physical volume into one or more virtual volumes (vvols) of a storage system. The underlying physical volume is an aggregate comprising one or more groups of disks, such as RAID groups, of the storage system. The aggregate has its own physical volume block number (pvbn) space and maintains metadata, such as block allocation structures, within that pvbn space. Each vvol has its own virtual volume block number (vvbn) space and maintains metadata, such as block allocation structures, within that vvbn space. Notably, the block allocation structures of a vvol are sized to the vvol, and not to the underlying aggregate, to thereby allow operations that manage data served by the storage system (e.g., snapshot operations) to efficiently work over the vvols. | 07-12-2012 |
20120324284 | TRIPLE PARITY TECHNIQUE FOR ENABLING EFFICIENT RECOVERY FROM TRIPLE FAILURES IN A STORAGE ARRAY - A triple parity (TP) technique reduces overhead of computing diagonal and anti-diagonal parity for a storage array adapted to enable efficient recovery from the concurrent failure of three storage devices in the array. The diagonal parity is computed along diagonal parity sets that collectively span all data disks and a row parity disk of the array. The parity for all of the diagonal parity sets except one is stored on the diagonal parity disk. Similarly, the anti-diagonal parity is computed along anti-diagonal parity sets that collectively span all data disks and a row parity disk of the array. The parity for all of the anti-diagonal parity sets except one is stored on the anti-diagonal parity disk. The TP technique provides a uniform stripe depth and an optimal amount of parity information. | 12-20-2012 |
20140082281 | EXTENSION OF WRITE ANYWHERE FILE SYSTEM LAYOUT - A file system layout apportions an underlying physical volume into one or more virtual volumes (vvols) of a storage system. The underlying physical volume is an aggregate comprising one or more groups of disks, such as RAID groups, of the storage system. The aggregate has its own physical volume block number (pvbn) space and maintains metadata, such as block allocation structures, within that pvbn space. Each vvol has its own virtual volume block number (vvbn) space and maintains metadata, such as block allocation structures, within that vvbn space. Notably, the block allocation structures of a vvol are sized to the vvol, and not to the underlying aggregate, to thereby allow operations that manage data served by the storage system (e.g., snapshot operations) to efficiently work over the vvols. The file system layout extends the file system layout of a conventional write anywhere file layout system implementation, yet maintains performance properties of the conventional implementation. | 03-20-2014 |
20140122892 | INSURING INTEGRITY OF REMOTE PROCEDURE CALLS USED IN A CLIENT AND SERVER STORAGE SYSTEM - A system and method generates a message integrity check. The message integrity check value is computed by hashing one or more block checksums from procedure specific parameters of an RPC and then encrypting the resulting hash value. The computed message integrity check is appended to the RPC to thereby provide a level of security approaching or equal to the level of Integrity defined by the RPCSEC_GSS protocol specification. | 05-01-2014 |
20140304359 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SPECIFYING BATCH EXECUTION ORDERING OF REQUESTS IN A STORAGE SYSTEM CLUSTER - A method for operating a computer data storage system is described. A plurality of requests are received from a client, each request of the plurality of requests having assigned a unique sequence number, each request being an input/output request to a data storage device. The plurality of requests is divided into a plurality of subsets of requests. A unique batch number is assigned to each subset of requests so that each subset of requests is assigned a unique batch number. A first subset of requests having a first batch number is executed in arbitrary order with respect to the sequence number of each request. A second subset of requests is executed in response to a second batch number after execution of all of the first subset of requests has completed. | 10-09-2014 |