Storage subsystem, information processing system and method of controlling I/O interface

• US 20020052985A1
• Filed: 07/25/2001
• Published: 05/02/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Asaka, Yoshihiro, Furuumi, Noboru
• Granted Patent: US 6,671,767 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0868 Data transfer between cache memory and other subsystems, e.g. storage devices or host systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0873 Mapping of cache memory to specific storage devices or parts thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/261 Storage comprising a plurality of storage devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/262 configured as RAID
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/312 In storage controller

Abstract

A storage subsystem comprising a disk control unit having a cache memory and disk units under control thereof is connected to a central processing unit through an interface such as FC-SB2 which the central processing unit issues an I/O request consisting of a chain of plural commands and data asynchronously with responses from the disk control unit. The disk control unit executes commands having target data hit on the cache memory independently of the order of receipt of plural commands from the central processing unit, in parallel with the staging of target data of commands resulting in cache misses from a disk unit to the cache memory.

Claims

1. A storage subsystem comprising:

plural storage units; and

a storage control unit that is connected to a central processing unit and has an internal cache memory for temporarily storing data exchanged between said central processing unit and said storage units, wherein;

said storage subsystem is connected to said central processing unit by an I/O interface protocol by which said central processing unit issues I/O requests consisting of a chain of plural commands and data to said storage control unit asynchronously with responses from said storage control unit;

said storage control unit has a means that decides order of processing said plural commands and data from said central processing unit independently of the order they were received, and executes said commands; and

said plural storage units are under control of said storage control unit.

2. The storage subsystem according to claim 1,

wherein said storage control unit has a means that, of plural commands received from said central processing unit, for said commands having processing target data existing on said cache memory, performs data transfer with said central processing unit, and if processing target data of said commands does not exist on said cache memory, reads said processing target data from said storage units into said cache memory in parallel with data transfer with said central processing unit.

3. The storage subsystem according to claim 1,

wherein said storage control unit has a means that, in the case where a RAID configuration is taken to distribute data of one logical volume across said plural storage units, merges plural commands received from said central processing unit into one command group;

when processing target data of plural commands of said command group does not exist on said cache memory, in parallel activates more than once reading of processing target data of commands of said command group into said cache memory from the individual storage units in which said processing target data of said commands is stored; and

in order of completion of said reading, for said commands of said command group, performs data transfer with said central processing unit in parallel with said reading.

4. The storage subsystem according to claim 3,

wherein said storage control unit has a means that merges plural commands received from said central processing unit into one command group;

when processing target data of plural commands of said command group does not exist on said cache memory, in parallel activates more than once said reading of the processing target data into said cache memory from said storage units in which said respective processing target data of said commands is stored, according to operation ratio of each of said storage units; and

in order of completion of said reading, performs data transfer with said central processing unit in parallel with said other reading.

5. The storage subsystem according to claim 4,

wherein said storage control unit has a means that merges plural commands received from said central processing unit into a first command group;

when processing target data of plural commands of said first command group does not exist on said cache memory, of said first command group, commands whose processing target data exists in a same storage unit are sorted in ascending order of addresses of access to said storage unit, and are grouped into a second command group;

in units of said second command groups, decides range of data of said storage unit to be read into said cache memory and activates said reading; and

in order of completion of said reading, performs data transfer to said central processing unit in parallel with said other reading.

6. A storage subsystem comprising:

plural storage units; and

a storage control unit that is coupled to a central processing unit and has an internal cache memory which temporarily stores data to be exchanged among said central processing unit and said storage units, wherein;

said storage subsystem is coupled to said central processing unit in accordance with I/O interface protocol by which said central processing unit issues I/O requests having a chain of plural commands and data to said storage control unit asynchronously with responses from said storage control unit;

said storage control unit comprising deciding means configured so as to decide an order of processing said plural commands and data from said central processing unit independently of the order they were received, and executes said commands; and

said plural storage units are under control of said storage control unit.

7. A method of controlling an I/O interface that is used for connection between a central processing unit and a storage control unit placing plural storage units under control thereof in which data exchanged with said central processing unit is stored, and having a cache memory for temporarily storing the data, and has a protocol by which said central processing unit issues an I/O request consisting of a chain of plural commands and data to said storage control unit asynchronously with responses from said storage control unit, comprising steps of:

performing, for commands from the central processing unit, data transfer with said central processing unit in an order independent from the order the commands were received, and reporting command end for each of the commands in said storage control unit; and

receiving data and command end reports from said storage control unit in an order independent of order of issuance of commands and data from said central processing unit, locating issued commands corresponding to said received data and command end reports, and processing said data and command end reports as a response frame for said located commands in said central processing unit.

8. The I/O interface control method according to claim 7, further comprises steps of:

continuing said I/O request without discontinuing it, when an error and retry factor occur in the middle of a chain of commands and data received from the central processing unit, performing data transfer with said central processing unit for the other executable commands and data that were already received, and merging end statuses of processing of all commands constituting said I/O request and sending said merged end status to said central processing unit as an I/O request processing completion report in said storage control unit; and

recognizing, after receiving said I/O request processing completion report, the end statuses of the commands and performing recovery processing only for the commands in which an error or a retry request occurred in said central processing unit.

9. The I/O interface control method according to claim 7, further comprises steps of:

receiving data and command end reports from said storage control unit in an order independent of order of issuance of commands and data from said central processing unit, continuing the I/O request processing without discontinuing it until receiving a command end report for all commands constituting said I/O request, and performing, after receiving said command end report for all commands constituting said I/O request, recovery processing only for commands indicated as an error or a retry request in said received command end report in said central processing unit.

10. An information processing system, comprising:

a central processing unit;

a storage control unit having plural storage units under control thereof in which data exchanged with said central processing unit is stored, and having a cache memory for temporarily storing the data; and

an I/O interface that is used for connection between said central processing unit and said storage control unit and has a protocol by which said central processing unit issues an I/O request consisting of a chain of plural commands and data to said storage control unit asynchronously with responses from said storage control unit, wherein;

said storage control unit has a means, for commands from said central processing unit, performs data transfer with said central processing unit in an order independent from order of said commands were received, and reports command end for each of said commands; and

said central processing unit has a means that receives data and command end reports from said storage control unit in an order independent of the order of issuance of commands and data from said central processing unit, locates issued commands corresponding to said received data and command end reports, and processes data and command end reports as a response frame for said located commands.

11. The information processing system according to claim 10, wherein:

said storage control unit, when an error and retry factor occur in the middle of a chain of commands and data received from said central processing unit, continues said I/O request without discontinuing it, performs data transfer with said central processing unit for the other executable commands and data that were already received, and merges end statuses of processing of all commands constituting said I/O request and sends said merged end status to said central processing unit as an I/O request processing completion report; and

said central processing unit, after receiving said I/O request processing completion report, recognizes said end statuses of said commands and performs recovery processing only for commands in which an error or a retry request occurred.