Multiple instances of mapping configurations in a storage system or storage appliance

• US 20080133865A1
• Filed: 12/05/2006
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/05/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Sherman, Jason, Qi, Yanling
• Granted Patent: US 8,700,846 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/170
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0646 Horizontal data movement in storage systems, i.e. moving data in between storage devices or systems
• 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

The present invention is directed to a method and software for managing the host-to-volume mappings of a SAN storage system. The host-to-volume mappings of the SAN storage system are represented in mapping configuration components. The active mapping configuration component represents the current host-to-volume mapping for the SAN storage system. Only one mapping configuration component is active at a time. The host-to-volume mappings of a SAN storage system are changed by deactivating the active mapping configuration component and activating an inactive mapping configuration component that represents a different mapping configuration, effecting a repartition, repurpose, disaster recovery, or other business activity. This can be a scheduled task or performed in an on-demand manner. The mapping configuration components are managed and controlled through the management component of the SAN storage system.

Claims

1. A storage system, comprising:

at least one host;

at least one volume; and

at least one mapping configuration component, which has the capability to be active or inactive;

wherein each of the at least one mapping configuration components represent a set of host-to-volume mappings of the storage system, only one mapping configuration component is active at a time, and the active mapping configuration component represents current host-to-volume mappings of the storage system.

2. The storage system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the storage system is selected from the group consisting of a RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) system or a storage appliance.

3. The storage system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the mapping configuration component has the capability to be created, cloned, modified, viewed, activated, deactivated, and deleted.

4. The storage system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the mapping configuration component includes a unique identifier and a human readable alias.

5. The storage system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the host-to-volume mappings of the storage system can be changed from that of the active mapping configuration component to that of an inactive mapping configuration component by making the active mapping configuration component inactive and making the inactive mapping configuration component active.

6. The storage system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the mapping configuration component is controlled by a storage system management component.

7. The storage system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the change in the host-to-volume mappings of the storage system repurposes at least one host.

8. The storage system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the change in the host-to-volume mappings of the storage system repartitions at least one host.

9. The storage system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the storage system is a SAN (storage area network) storage system.

10. The storage system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the SAN is selected from the group consisting of Fibre Channel SAN, InifiBand SAN, IP (internet protocol) SAN, SAS (Serial Attached SCSI [Small Computer System Interface]) SAN, or other transport technology that connects host systems to storage systems.

11. The storage system as claimed in claim 5, wherein at least one host is rebooted after the hosts-to-volume mappings of the storage system are changed.

12. The storage system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the rebooted host boots from a SAN (storage area network).

13. The storage system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the rebooted host boots from a boot volume on its local storage.

14. A method for managing the host-to-volume mappings of a storage system, comprising the steps of:

representing a set of a host-to-volume mappings of a storage system in a mapping configuration component, the mapping configuration component having the capability to be activate or inactive, only one mapping configuration component being able to be active at a time; and

activating the mapping configuration component to set the current host-to-volume mappings of the storage system to that represented in the mapping configuration component.

15. The method claimed in claim 14, wherein the mapping configuration component has the capability to be created, cloned, modified, viewed, activated, deactivated, and deleted.

16. The method claimed in claim 14, further comprising the steps of:

deactivating the active mapping configuration component; and

activating an inactive mapping configuration component to change the host-to-volume mapping of the storage system from the set represented in the active mapping configuration component to the set represented in the inactive mapping configuration component.

17. The method claimed in claim 14, wherein the mapping configuration component includes a unique identifier and a human readable alias.

18. The method claimed in claim 16, wherein the mapping configuration component is controlled through a storage system management component.

19. The method claimed in claim 16, wherein the change in the host-to-volume mappings of the storage system repurposes at least one host.

20. The method claimed in claim 16, wherein the change in the host-to-volume mappings of the storage system repartitions at least one host.

21. The method claimed in claim 16, wherein the storage system is a SAN (storage area network) storage system.

22. The method claimed in claim 16, wherein at least one host in the storage system is rebooted after the hosts-to-volume mappings of the storage system are changed.

23. The method claimed in claim 22, wherein the rebooted host boots from a SAN.

24. The method claimed in claim 22, wherein the rebooted host boots from a boot volume on its local storage.