STORAGE OPTIMIZATION METHOD

• US 20080222381A1
• Filed: 01/07/2008
• Published: 09/11/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SQUARE 1 BANK
• Original Assignee: SQUARE 1 BANK
• Inventors: Lam, Gerard
• Application Number:
  US11/970,515
• Publication Number:
  US 20080222381A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/170
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2003/0697 device management, e.g. handlers, drivers, I/O schedulers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0601 Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0637 Permissions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/069 using logs of notifications; Post-processing of notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• 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

In a system and method for examining the configuration of a storage area network using a browser application, linking to the storage area network using a browser application, obtaining data from a device on the storage area network, parsing the data into records, eliminating redundancies in the records, storing the records in a database, and providing access to the database to a user through the browser.

Claims

1. A method for examining the configuration of a storage area network using a browser application, comprising:

linking to a portion of the storage area network using the browser application wherein the browser application links to the portion of the storage area network at least one of directly or through a switch;

obtaining data from one or mote devices comprising a portion of the storage area network that defines one or more parameters about the one or more devices;

parsing the data from each of the one or more devices into one or more records;

eliminating redundancies in the one or more records;

adding the one or more records into a database-in a predetermined format; and

providing a user access to the records in the database through a first graphical user interface generated by the browser application wherein the first graphical user interface provides for linking to a second graphical user interface that provides access to the one or more records from the one or more devices.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more parameters includes a worldwide name.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more parameters includes a logical unit number.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more devices comprises one or more hosts.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more devices comprises one or more storage arrays.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the one or more records for the one or more hosts comprises data identifying each host bus adapter coupled to the host.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the one or more records for the one or more hosts further comprises data identifying one or more zones used by the host.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the data identifying one or more zones used by the one or more hosts indicates which storage arrays are accessed by a host.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the record for the one or more hosts comprises data identifying the amount of storage space allocated to the one or more hosts on one or more storage arrays accessed by the one or more hosts.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the record for the one or more hosts comprises data identifying one or more switches utilized by the one or more zones.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising allowing a user to manually add data to the database.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising allowing the user to search the database for a particular device connected to the storage area network using a search engine.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the search engine is a boolean search engine.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein relationships between the one or more devices are depicted on the graphical user interface.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising searching for configuration errors in the storage area network.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the user is notified on the graphical user interface if any configuration errors are found.

17. A method for evaluating the configuration of a storage area network comprising:

coupling a browser application to the storage area network;

executing one or more commands on the storage area network to obtain device information for one or more devices comprising the storage area network;

parsing the device information into one or more device records;

eliminating redundancies in the one or more device records;

storing the one or more device records in a database;

providing access to a user to the database through a first graphical user interface generated by the browser application wherein the first graphical user interface provides for linking to a second graphical user interface that provides access to the one or more device records.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the first graphical user interface is viewable in a first portion of a display and a second graphical user interface is viewable in a second portion of the display.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein the browser application is a web browser.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein the browser application is coupled to the storage area network through a control workstation.

21. The method of claim 17 wherein the one or more commands comprise system commands.

22. The method of claim 17 wherein the device information comprises a worldwide name.

23. The method of claim 17 wherein the user is presented with all device information for a particular device when the user selects the link corresponding to a particular device.

24. The method of claim 21 wherein the user is presented with all device information for one or more devices coupled to the particular device when the user selects the link corresponding to the particular device.

25. The method of claim 17 wherein relationships between one or more device records are depicted on the graphical user interface.

26. A software storage medium including a software program which, when executed by a processing arrangement, is configured to examine a storage area network, said software program comprising:

a first module which, when executed, links to a portion of the storage area network using a browser application wherein the browser application links to the portion of the storage area network at least one of directly or through a switch;

a second module which, when executed, obtains data from one or more devices comprising the portion of the storage-area network that defines one or more parameters about the one or more devices;

a third module which, when executed, parses the data from each of the one or more devices into one or more records;

a fourth module which, when executed, eliminates redundancies in the one or more records;

a fifth module which, when executed, adds the one or more records into a database in a predetermined format; and

a sixth module which, when executed, provides access to the database to a user through a first graphical user interface generated by the browser application wherein the first graphical user interface provides for linking to a second graphical user interface that provides access to one or more records from one or more devices.