Systems, methods, and computer program products providing read access in a storage system

• US 10,649,668 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2018
• Issued: 05/12/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Reddy, Raghunatha
• Primary Examiner(s): Thammavong, Prasith
• Application Number:
  US15/902,425
• Publication Number:
  US 20180181319A1
• Time in Patent Office: 810 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2087 with a common controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0611 in relation to response time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

A computer program product having a computer readable medium tangibly recording computer program logic for providing data access in a storage system, the computer program product including code to analyze a plurality of data access requests directed to a source volume of the storage system, code to generate a mirror volume of the source volume, the mirror volume including a subset of data items of the source volume, in which the first subset of data items is selected for the minor volume based at least in part on data access patterns revealed by analyzing the data access requests, and code to access the mirror volume in parallel with accessing the source volume to fulfill read requests from a plurality of hosts.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying a first subset of data within a first storage structure having a first access characteristic different than a second access characteristic of a second subset of the data within the first storage structure based upon an analysis of metadata of access operations to the data within the first storage structure;

selecting data items for inclusion within the second subset of the data based upon a cost benefit analysis of storing a threshold amount of data for parallel access compared to reducing storage space utilized to redundantly store data;

storing a copy of the second subset of the data within a second storage structure created to store the second subset of the data based upon the second subset of the data having the second access characteristic, wherein the first and second subsets of the data are retained within the first storage structure; and

providing access to the second subset of the data through the first and second storage structures and access to the first subset of the data through the first storage structure.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

providing clients with read access to the second subset of the data through the first storage structure and the second storage structure.

3. The method of claim 1, comprising:

processing a first access request to the second subset of the data using the first storage structure in parallel with processing a second access request to the second subset of the data using the second storage structure.

4. The method of claim 1, comprising:

creating a load sharing mirror, as the second storage structure, that has read-only access and can be accessed independently of the first storage structure.

5. The method of claim 1, comprising:

creating a database in a reserved area of the first storage structure for storing the metadata.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the second storage structure has read-only access and the first storage structure supports read operations and write operations.

7. The method of claim 1, comprising:

creating a plurality of additional storage structures with independent access paths to allow parallel access thereto.

8. The method of claim 7, comprising:

storing copies of the second subset of the data within the plurality of additional storage structures.

9. The method of claim 1, comprising:

identifying data items for inclusion within the second subset of the data based upon the data items being access greater than a threshold frequency.

10. A computing device comprising:

a memory comprising instructions for performing a method; and

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to execute the instructions to cause the processor to;

identify a first subset of data within a first storage structure having a first access characteristic different than a second access characteristic of a second subset of the data within the first storage structure based upon an analysis of metadata of access operations to the data within the first storage structure;

select data items for inclusion within the second subset of the data based upon a cost benefit analysis of storing a threshold amount of data for parallel access compared to reducing storage space utilized to redundantly store data;

store a copy of the second subset of the data within a second storage structure created to store the second subset of the data based upon the second subset of the data having the second access characteristic, wherein the first and second subsets of the data are retained within the first storage structure; and

provide access to the second subset of the data through the first and second storage structures and access to the first subset of the data through the first storage structure.

11. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the first storage structure comprises a logical volume.

12. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the second storage structure comprises a logical volume.

13. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the instructions cause the processor to update data within the second storage structure with changes to the second subset of the data that occurred at the first storage structure, wherein the updating is performed according to an updating policy.

14. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the metadata is stored within a database saved to a reserved space in the first storage structure.

15. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the instructions cause the processor to create an additional storage structure mirroring the second storage structure, wherein both the second storage structure and the additional storage structure comprise independent access paths.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a machine, causes the machine to:

identify a first subset of data within a first storage structure having a first access characteristic different than a second access characteristic of a second subset of the data within the first storage structure based upon an analysis of metadata of access operations to the data within the first storage structure;

select data items for inclusion within the second subset of the data based upon a cost benefit analysis of storing a threshold amount of data for parallel access compared to reducing storage space utilized to redundantly store data;

store a copy of the second subset of the data within a second storage structure created to store the second subset of the data based upon the second subset of the data having the second access characteristic, wherein the first and second subsets of the data are retained within the first storage structure; and

provide access to the second subset of the data through the first and second storage structures and access to the first subset of the data through the first storage structure.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions cause the machine to:

update data within the second storage structure according to an updating policy based upon a threshold number of changes occurring to the second subset of the data within the first storage structure.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the first storage structure is a logical volume.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the first storage structure provides read and write access and the second storage structure provides read-only access.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the second storage structure is a logical volume.