Management of foreground and background processes in a storage controller

• US 10,379,943 B2
• Filed: 12/06/2016
• Issued: 08/13/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Borlick, Matthew G., Gupta, Lokesh M., Nguyen, Trung N., Nielsen, Karl A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wang, Albert
• Application Number:
  US15/370,511
• Publication Number:
  US 20180157498A1
• Time in Patent Office: 980 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/106 Correcting systematically all correctable errors, i.e. scrubbing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4401 Bootstrapping security arrangements therefor G06F21/57

Abstract

A background process is configured to periodically scrub a boot storage of a storage controller to ensure operational correctness of the boot storage. One or more foreground processes store a system configuration data of the storage controller in the boot storage of the storage controller. The background process and the one or more foreground processes are executed to meet predetermined performance requirements for the background process and the one or more foreground processes.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

configuring a background process to periodically scrub a boot storage of a storage controller to ensure operational correctness of the boot storage;

storing, via one or more foreground processes, a system configuration data of the storage controller in the boot storage of the storage controller; and

executing the background process and the one or more foreground processes to meet predetermined performance requirements for the background process and the one or more foreground processes, wherein the predetermined performance requirements include executing the background process at least once in a predetermined interval of time, and completing execution of each of the one or more foreground processes within a predetermined amount of time.

2. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

starting execution of the background process;

in response to completion of the execution of the background process, reducing a priority of the background process; and

in response to determining that the execution of the background process has not completed in a predetermined amount of time, increasing the priority of the background process.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the background process is configurable to have at least two priorities including a low priority and a high priority, wherein the high priority is a higher priority than the low priority, the method further comprising:

in response to starting a foreground process, performing;

in response to determining that the background process has the low priority, suspending, aborting, or throttling the background process; and

in response to determining that the background process has the high priority, suspending, aborting, or throttling the foreground process.

4. A method, comprising:

configuring a background process to periodically scrub a boot storage of a storage controller to ensure operational correctness of the boot storage;

storing, via one or more foreground processes, a system configuration data of the storage controller in the boot storage of the storage controller; and

executing the background process and the one or more foreground processes to meet predetermined performance requirements for the background process and the one or more foreground processes, wherein in response to starting an execution of the background process if a number of executing foreground processes are greater than a predetermined threshold, then suspending some or all of the one or more foreground processes.

5. The method of claim 4, the method further comprising:

in response to starting an execution of a foreground process, performing;

in response to determining that a number of executing foreground processes is less than a first predetermined threshold, throttling the background process; and

in response to determining that the number of executing foreground processes is greater than a second predetermined threshold, suspending the background process, and subsequent to suspending the background process, resuming the background process after a predetermined period of time if the number of executing foreground processes fall below the first predetermined threshold and aborting the background process after the predetermined period of time if the number of executing foreground processes do not fall below the second predetermined threshold.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein a priority of the background process is set based on how many times the background process has been aborted since a last completion of the background process.

7. A system, comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor performs operations, the operations performed by the processor comprising;

configuring a background process to periodically scrub a boot storage to ensure operational correctness of the boot storage;

storing, via one or more foreground processes, a system configuration data in the boot storage; and

executing the background process and the one or more foreground processes to meet predetermined performance requirements for the background process and the one or more foreground processes, wherein the predetermined performance requirements include executing the background process at least once in a predetermined interval of time, and completing execution of each of the one or more foreground processes within a predetermined amount of time.

8. The system of claim 7, the operations further comprising:

starting execution of the background process;

in response to completion of the execution of the background process, reducing a priority of the background process; and

in response to determining that the execution of the background process has not completed in a predetermined amount of time, increasing the priority of the background process.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the background process is configurable to have at least two priorities including a low priority and a high priority, and wherein the high priority is a higher priority than the low priority, the operations performed further comprising:

in response to starting a foreground process, performing;

in response to determining that the background process has the low priority, suspending, aborting, or throttling the background process; and

in response to determining that the background process has the high priority, suspending, aborting, or throttling the foreground process.

10. A system, comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor performs operations, the operations performed by the processor comprising;

configuring a background process to periodically scrub a boot storage to ensure operational correctness of the boot storage;

storing, via one or more foreground processes, a system configuration data in the boot storage; and

executing the background process and the one or more foreground processes to meet predetermined performance requirements for the background process and the one or more foreground processes, wherein in response to starting an execution of the background process if a number of executing foreground processes are greater than a predetermined threshold, then suspending some or all of the one or more foreground processes.

11. The system of claim 10, the operations further comprising:

in response to starting an execution of a foreground process, performing;

in response to determining that a number of executing foreground processes is less than a first predetermined threshold, throttling the background process; and

in response to determining that the number of executing foreground processes is greater than a second predetermined threshold, suspending the background process, and subsequent to suspending the background process, resuming the background process after a predetermined period of time if the number of executing foreground processes fall below the first predetermined threshold and aborting the background process after the predetermined period of time if the number of executing foreground processes do not fall below the second predetermined threshold.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein a priority of the background process is set based on how many times the background process has been aborted since a last completion of the background process.

13. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code configured to perform operations, the operations comprising:

configuring a background process to periodically scrub a boot storage of a storage controller to ensure operational correctness of the boot storage;

storing, via one or more foreground processes, a system configuration data of the storage controller in the boot storage of the storage controller; and

executing the background process and the one or more foreground processes to meet predetermined performance requirements for the background process and the one or more foreground processes, wherein the predetermined performance requirements include executing the background process at least once in a predetermined interval of time, and completing execution of each of the one or more foreground processes within a predetermined amount of time.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, the operations further comprising:

starting execution of the background process;

in response to completion of the execution of the background process, reducing a priority of the background process; and

in response to determining that the execution of the background process has not completed in a predetermined amount of time, increasing the priority of the background process.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the background process is configurable to have at least two priorities including a low priority and a high priority, and wherein the high priority is a higher priority than the low priority, the operations further comprising:

in response to starting a foreground process, performing;

in response to determining that the background process has the low priority, suspending, aborting, or throttling the background process; and

in response to determining that the background process has the high priority, suspending, aborting, or throttling the foreground process.

16. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code configured to perform operations, the operations comprising:

configuring a background process to periodically scrub a boot storage of a storage controller to ensure operational correctness of the boot storage;

storing, via one or more foreground processes, a system configuration data of the storage controller in the boot storage of the storage controller; and

executing the background process and the one or more foreground processes to meet predetermined performance requirements for the background process and the one or more foreground processes, wherein in response to starting an execution of the background process if a number of executing foreground processes are greater than a predetermined threshold, then suspending some or all of the one or more foreground processes.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, the operations further comprising:

in response to starting an execution of a foreground process, performing;

in response to determining that a number of executing foreground processes is less than a first predetermined threshold, throttling the background process; and

in response to determining that the number of executing foreground processes is greater than a second predetermined threshold, suspending the background process, and subsequent to suspending the background process, resuming the background process after a predetermined period of time if the number of executing foreground processes fall below the first predetermined threshold and aborting the background process after the predetermined period of time if the number of executing foreground processes do not fall below the second predetermined threshold.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein a priority of the background process is set based on how many times the background process has been aborted since a last completion of the background process.