System and method for policy based storage provisioning and management

• US 20050027754A1
• Filed: 08/26/2004
• Published: 02/03/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Candera, Inc., Confluence Networks Incorporated
• Inventors: Meyer, Richard, Patel, Dipam, Collins, Jim, Gajjar, Kumar, Prasad, Chandra
• Granted Patent: US 7,065,616 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0724 in a multiprocessor or a multi-core unit multiprocessors per se G06F15/80
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; 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], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1482 by means of middleware or OS functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/201 between storage system components
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2025 using centralised failover control functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2089 Redundant storage control functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2092 Techniques of failing over between control units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1458 by checking the subject access rights
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0607 by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0614 Improving the reliability of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0629 Configuration or reconfiguration of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0632 by initialisation or re-initialisation of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0635 by changing the path, e.g. traffic rerouting, path reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• 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 49/357 : Fibre channel switches
• 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]

Abstract

A storage provisioning policy is created by specifying storage heuristics for storage attributes using storage heuristic metadata. Storage attributes characterize a storage device and storage heuristic metadata describe how to specify a storage heuristic. Using the storage heuristic metadata, storage heuristics are defined to express a rule or constraint as a function of a storage attribute. In addition, the storage provisioning policy may also specify mapping rules for exporting the storage to a consumer of the storage, such as the server or server cluster.

Claims

1. A method for provisioning one or more storage devices using one or more storage provisioning policies and discovered storage attribute data from the one or more storage devices, the one or more storage provisioning policies comprising one or more storage heuristics for one or more storage attributes, the method comprising:

comparing the discovered storage attribute data associated with the one or more storage devices to the one or more storage heuristics for the storage attributes in the one or more storage provisioning policies; and

if discovered storage attribute data associated with a storage device in the one or more storage devices satisfy the one or more storage heuristics for the one or more storage attributes, provisioning the storage device.

2-44. -44. (canceled)