Method and apparatus for managing I/O paths on a storage network

• US 20070028014A1
• Filed: 10/04/2006
• Published: 02/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Hayashi, Takahiro, Kohama, Osamu, Morishima, Hiroshi
• Granted Patent: US 7,376,766 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/38
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0613 in relation to throughput
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0635 by changing the path, e.g. traffic rerouting, path reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices

Abstract

A processing apparatus which stores a first information piece about attributes identifying a specific process generating data input/output requests in such a manner that the first information piece is associated with a second information piece identifying at least one of the physical paths as at least one first physical path, and which, when transmitting first data input/output requests generated by the process identified by the first information piece to the storage apparatus, transmits the first data input/output requests to the storage apparatus via the first physical path identified by the second information piece associated with the first information piece and, when transmitting second data input/output requests generated by a process not identified by the first information piece to the storage apparatus, transmits the second data input/output requests to the storage apparatus via at least one second physical path different from the first physical path of the plurality of physical paths.

Claims

1. A processing apparatus which is coupled to a storage apparatus via a plurality of physical paths as transmission paths for a plurality of data input/output requests to be transmitted to the storage apparatus, the transmission occurring in association with the execution of an application program managed as a process by an operating system, the processing apparatus comprising:

a CPU;

a memory;

an association storage section implemented by the CPU executing a program stored in the memory; and

a transmission controller implemented by the CPU executing a program stored in the memory,

wherein the association storage section stores a first information piece about attributes identifying a specific process generating data input/output requests in such a manner that the first information piece is associated with a second information piece identifying at least one of the physical paths as at least one first physical path, and

wherein when transmitting first data input/output requests generated by the process identified by the first information piece to the storage apparatus, the transmission controller transmits the first data input/output requests to the storage apparatus via the first physical path identified by the second information piece associated with the first information piece and, when transmitting second data input/output requests generated by a process not identified by the first information piece to the storage apparatus, transmits the second data input/output requests to the storage apparatus via at least one second physical path different from the first physical path of the plurality of physical paths.