Storage device management method, system and program

• US 20030220899A1
• Filed: 02/14/2003
• Published: 11/27/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Shimada, Naoki, Aoshima, Tatsundo, Takeda, Kei, Numanoi, Tadashi
• Granted Patent: US 7,246,105 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/061 Improving I/O performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0649 Lifecycle management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0816 the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5012 determining service availability, e.g. which services are available at a certain point in time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

Use situations of storage devices utilizing a storage area network (SAN) are predicted and the devices are automatically managed on the basis of the predicted results. To manage the devices utilizing the SAN, there is established the policy prescribing actions each executed when some object to be judged satisfies some condition with regard to storage devices. Information concerning use situations of the devices is collected and a value of an object to be judged of the policy is calculated based on collected information to judge whether the value of the object to be judged satisfies a condition of the policy. When the condition is satisfied, the action of the policy is executed. The objects to be judged of the policy may be actual result values in the past, current values or prediction values in the future relative to use capacity of storages, the number of I/O operations of disk or fragmentation.

Claims

1. A management method of storage devices utilizing a storage area network (SAN), comprising:

a step of establishing policy prescribing actions each executed when some object to be judged satisfies some condition with regard to storage devices;

a step of collecting information concerning use situations of said storage devices;

a step of calculating a value of an object to be judged of said policy on the basis of the collected information;

a step of judging whether said value of the object to be judged satisfies a condition of said policy or not; and

a step of executing the action of said policy when said condition of the policy is satisfied.

2. A storage device management method according to claim 1, wherein

said objects to be judged of said policy include use capacity of storage, the number of I/O operations of disk or fragmentation.

3. A storage device management method according to claim 2, wherein

said objects to be judged of said policy include actual result values in the past, current values or prediction values in the future relative to said use capacity of storage, said number of I/O operations of disk or said fragmentation.

4. A storage device management method according to claim 2, wherein

said step of executing the action of said policy is performed by transmitting a command of the action to an integration control unit which integrates operations to each logical layer of said SAN to be executed.

5. A management system of storage devices utilizing a SAN, comprising:

means for establishing policy prescribing actions each executed when some object to be judged satisfies some condition with regard to storage devices;

means for collecting information concerning use situations of said storage devices;

means for calculating a value of an object to be judged of said policy on the basis of the collected information;

means for judging whether said value of the object to be judged satisfies a condition of said policy or not; and

means for executing the action of said policy when said condition of the policy is satisfied.

6. A storage device management system according to claim 5, wherein

said objects to be judged of said policy include use capacity of storage, the number of I/O operations of disk or fragmentation.

7. A storage device management system according to claim 6, wherein

said objects to be judged of said policy include actual result values in the past, current values or prediction values in the future relative to said use capacity of storage, said number of I/O operations of disk or said fragmentation.

8. A storage device management system according to claim 5, wherein

said means for executing the action of said policy transmits a command of the action to an integration control unit which integrates operations to each logical layer of said SAN to be executed and executes said action.

9. A management program of storage devices utilizing a SAN, comprising:

a step of establishing policy prescribing actions each executed when some object to be judged satisfies some condition with regard to storage devices;

a step of collecting information concerning use situations of said storage devices;

a step of calculating a value of an object to be judged of said policy on the basis of the collected information;

a step of judging whether said value of the object to be judged satisfies a condition of said policy or not; and

a step of executing the action of said policy when said condition of the policy is satisfied.

10. A storage device management program according to claim 9, wherein

said objects to be judged of said policy include use capacity of storage, the number of I/O operations of disk or fragmentation.

11. A storage device management program according to claim 10, wherein

said objects to be judged of said policy include actual result values in the past, current values or prediction values in the future relative to said use capacity of storage, said number of I/O operations of disk or said fragmentation.

12. A storage device management program according to claim 9, wherein

said step of executing the action of said policy is performed by transmitting a command of the action to an integration control unit which integrates operations to each logical layer of said SAN to be executed.

13. A program of managing information concerning storage devices, comprising:

reading out information relating objects to be judged, judgment conditions and processing contents corresponding to a state of said storage device for judging the state of said storage device to one another;

receiving information obtained by analyzing information concerning said storage devices; and

transmitting an instruction for execution of said processing contents on the basis of said received information and said read-out information.