COMPUTER ARCHITECTURES USING SHARED STORAGE

• US 20100250867A1
• Filed: 03/30/2010
• Published: 09/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Peters, Marc A., Kuehn, Dennis L., Stone, Kevin A., Bettger, David D.
• Granted Patent: US 9,098,562 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/152
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0813 with a network or matrix configuration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4221 being an input/output bus, e.g. ISA bus, EISA bus, PCI bus, SCSI bus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/176 Support for shared access to files; File sharing support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/28 Databases characterised by their database models, e.g. relational or object models
• 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 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0655 Vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices
• 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: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]

Abstract

Shared storage architectures and methods are provided. A particular shared storage architecture is a system including shared storage including data and file system metadata separated from the data. The file system metadata includes location data specifying storage location information related to the data. Services are provided from service providers to service consumers through the shared storage.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

shared storage including data and file system metadata separated from the data, wherein the file system metadata includes location data specifying storage location information related to the data, and wherein services are provided from service providers to service consumers through the shared storage.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the services are hosted on the shared storage independent of CPU core, thread and server instances.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein data in the shared storage is read from the shared storage in an order that the data was written to the shared storage.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein a capacity of the shared storage to provide the services from the service providers to the service consumers expands as storage capacity of the shared storage expands.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the shared storage is persistent.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the shared storage automatically reconfigures in response to a hardware failure.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein a service of the shared storage and data in the shared storage can be at least one of hidden and restricted.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein a registry including the file system metadata is not associated with a particular server.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the services are striped across the shared storage.

10. A method, comprising:

hosting services on shared storage.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising transferring at least one of data stored at the shared storage and a hosted service without using a server-to-server session.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising maintaining at least one registry of available services in the shared storage.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein maintaining the at least one registry comprises identifying data available in the shared storage in the at least one registry.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising restricting access to the at least one registry based on at least one of a security level of a user, a security level of an application, and a security level of the data.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of the data and the services can be at least one of hidden and restricted through controlled access in the at least one registry.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising determining the security level of the data based on at least one of rule sets and policies.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein hosting the services includes publishing the services in a directory structure.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein data in the shared storage and the services hosted on the shared storage can be at least one of added, removed, and acted upon independent of time.

19. The method of claim 10, wherein, when a requestor requests access to a particular service hosted on the shared storage, the particular service takes on at least one of an identity of the requestor and a security level of the requestor.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein, when the requestor requests access to particular data on the shared storage, the particular data takes on at least one identity attribute of the requestor associated with security level of the requestor.

21. The method of claim 10, wherein the services hosted on the shared storage are stateless services, wherein a stateless service does not retain any information regarding usage, current state, and security level of the stateless service after use.

22. The method of claim 10, further comprising generating at least one of a persistent record of requests to access the services hosted on the shared storage and of requests to access data on the shared storage.

23. The method of claim 10, further comprising modifying the services hosted on the shared storage in real time.

24. The method of claim 10, further comprising performing diagnostics against infrastructure of the shared storage, the services, and data in the shared storage.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising recovering faulted data.

26. The method of claim 10, wherein hosting a particular service on the shared storage includes:

enabling a client to read executable instructions to implement the particular service from the shared storage; and

enabling the client to read data utilized by the service from the shared storage, wherein the executable instructions to implement the particular service and the data utilized by the particular service are provided to the client without using a server-to-server connection.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the particular service enables communication between the client and a producer device, wherein a portion of data written to the shared storage by the producer device is read from the shared storage by the client while a second portion of the data is being written to the shared storage by the producer device.

28. A method, comprising:

filtering a metadata registry to generate a filtered metadata registry, wherein the metadata registry includes data identifying a plurality of services that are hosted on a shared storage system, and wherein the filtered metadata registry identifies services that are accessible by a user device based on a security level of the user device, based on security levels associated with the services, and based on security levels associated with data accessed by the services;

sending the filtered metadata registry to the user device;

receiving a request from the user device to implement a first service, wherein the first service is selected from the filtered metadata registry;

sending storage location information identifying storage locations in the shared storage system of instructions to implement the first service, wherein the user device reads the instructions from the shared storage system using the storage location information to generate a first instance of the first service, and wherein the user device executes the first instance of the first service to determine output data;

receiving a request to allocate storage space for the output data;

allocating storage space for the output data in the shared storage system;

updating the metadata registry to include storage location information identifying the allocated storage space; and

sending the storage location information identifying the allocated storage space to the user device, wherein the user device writes the output data to the shared storage system using the storage location information.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the metadata registry further comprise decryption keys associated with the plurality of services hosted at the shared storage system, wherein sending the storage location information identifying the storage locations of the instructions to implement the first service includes sending a decryption key for the first service, and wherein the user device decrypts the instructions using the decryption key to generate the first instance.

30. The method of claim 28, wherein the instructions are striped across a plurality of physical storage devices of the shared storage system.

31. The method of claim 28, wherein, during execution of the first instance, the first instance is restricted from accessing data stored in the shared storage system based at least partially on the security level of the user device.

32. The method of claim 28, wherein a second service executed by a second user device accesses the output data from the shared storage system after the first instance terminates.