System and method for managing resources in a distributed storage system

• US 20070028068A1
• Filed: 07/29/2005
• Published: 02/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Zaki, Omer, Golding, Richard, Wong, Theodore
• Granted Patent: US 7,694,082 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/170
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0866 for peripheral storage systems, e.g. disk cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0875 with dedicated cache, e.g. instruction or stack
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• 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]

Abstract

A resource management system uses a virtual resource pool distributed across a set of storage devices to manage resources in a distributed storage system. The storage devices dedicate a resource in an allocation pool available to the virtual resource pool. The virtual resource pool is a virtual storage server in which an application receives at least a predetermined amount of storage capacity, a predetermined level of performance, or a predetermined reliability, represented by tokens. A virtual resource pool manager gives the tokens to an application. The application transmits the tokens along with the commands to the storage device. The token represents a right to consume up to some limit of resources on a specific storage device in a computing session. The storage device locally tracks resource consumption through the token.

Claims

1. A method of managing a resource in a distributed storage system having a plurality of storage devices, comprising:

generating a virtual pool of resources;

distributing the resources among a set of allocation pools on the storage devices;

generating a virtual session in response to a request by an application;

generating a set of tokens representing the resources in the allocation pools;

sending the set of tokens to the application for selective transmission to the storage device with a command; and

tracking the token in a token cache to monitor and limit consumption of the resources in the storage devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the storage devices maintains a cache entry of the tokens that were recently sent to said each of the storage devices.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein each of the storage devices monitors resource usage associated with each of the tokens.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein if no client sends a command on the virtual session, determining that recent usage dropped below a predetermined threshold, and removing the cache entry associated with the virtual session.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the tokens carry an indication of the performance expected on the virtual session and the storage devices use, for determining a level of performance to provide to an application.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the tokens comprise expiration and authentication information to prevent improper copying of the tokens, and to ensure that only an authorized resource management system is capable of generating the tokens.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein a first client sharing tokens with a second client to share the virtual session so that the first and second clients are capable of sharing the virtual session.

8. A system for providing any of a minimum level of performance or a maximum level of performance, to an application in a distributed storage architecture for a plurality of storage devices, comprising:

a resource management system for managing resource capabilities represented by a plurality of tokens;

a communication channel between the application and the resource management system, to facilitate negotiations between the application and the resource management system with regard to the application obtaining at least some of the tokens;

a virtual pool of resources for distributing the tokens to the application;

an allocation pool manager for comparing the tokens against a minimum performance utilization of recently-seen tokens and determining whether there are sufficient resources available to accept the tokens; and

the resource management system opening a session between the application and the storage devices upon the storage devices accepting the tokens.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein each of the storage devices maintains a cache entry of the tokens that were recently sent to said each of the storage devices.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein each of the storage devices monitors resource usage associated with each of the tokens.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein if no client sends a command on the virtual session, the allocation pool manager determines that recent usage dropped below a predetermined threshold, and removing the cache entry associated with the virtual session.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the tokens carry an indication of the performance expected on the virtual session and the storage devices use, for determining a level of performance to provide to an application.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the tokens comprise expiration and authentication information to prevent improper copying of the tokens, and to ensure that only an authorized resource management system is capable of generating the tokens.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein a first client sharing tokens with a second client to share the virtual session so that the first and second clients are capable of sharing the virtual session.

15. A computer program product having a plurality of executable instruction codes that are stored on a computer-readable medium, for managing a resource in a distributed storage system having a plurality of storage devices, comprising:

a first set of instruction codes for generating a virtual pool of resources;

a second set of instruction codes for distributing the resources among a set of allocation pools on the storage devices;

a third set of instruction codes for generating a virtual session in response to a request by an application;

a fourth set of instruction codes for generating a set of tokens representing the resources in the allocation pools;

a fifth set of instruction codes for sending the set of tokens to the application for selective transmission to the storage device with a command; and

a sixth set of instruction codes for tracking the token in a token cache to monitor and limit consumption of the resources in the storage devices.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein each of the storage devices maintains a cache entry of the tokens that were recently sent to said each of the storage devices.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein each of the storage devices monitors resource usage associated with each of the tokens.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein if no client sends a command on the virtual session, determining that recent usage dropped below a predetermined threshold, and removing the cache entry associated with the virtual session.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the tokens carry an indication of the performance expected on the virtual session and the storage devices use, for determining a level of performance to provide to an application.

20. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the tokens comprise expiration and authentication information to prevent improper copying of the tokens, and to ensure that only an authorized resource management system is capable of generating the tokens.