Dynamic Data Storage Repartitioning

• US 20110138148A1
• Filed: 12/04/2009
• Published: 06/09/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Bagal, Prasad V., Long, Richard L., Bridge, William Havinden JR., Friedman, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,156,304 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0613 in relation to throughput
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0676 Magnetic disk device

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention enable dynamic repartitioning of data storage in response to one or more triggers. In embodiments, a trigger may be a user-initiated action, a system-generated action, and/or an inference based on storage usage parameters. Applications of the present invention are its use in embodiments of a storage management system comprising a file system manager and a volume manager, where the placement of data into a partition (data storage region) may be specified by matching one or more disk region placement data attributes assigned to data with corresponding disk region attributes. In embodiments, dynamic repartitioning comprises adjustment of the location of the boundary between adjacent disk partitions and, if necessary, rebalancing of the data stored within the partitions by identifying mismatched data and relocating it to the partition with which it is associated.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising at least one computer-readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions, wherein execution of the one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to execute a computer-implemented method for dynamically repartitioning data storage comprising partitions by performing the steps comprising:

responsive to a request to repartition the data storage, wherein the request is in response to at least one trigger in a set of triggers being satisfied, and wherein data is allocated to a data storage partition based on identifying an association between at least one attribute of the data and at least one attribute of the partition, adjusting the location of at least one adjustable boundary between the partitions; and

rebalancing the data allocated to the data storage in response to identifying mismatched data having an attribute associated with a second data storage partition and being located in a first data storage partition, by relocating the mismatched data to the second partition.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the data storage is virtual storage.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the set of triggers comprises at least one of:

a change in the ratio of the first partition size to the second partition size;

a change in data storage;

a data rebalancing request received from a user;

a partition having reached a threshold limit of available storage space; and

a set of storage usage parameters.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein a value of a data attribute is assigned by at least one of:

assigning the value to an attribute of a data file;

assigning the value to an attribute of a class or type, and assigning the data file to the class or the type;

assigning the value to an attribute of a customizable template, and associating the data file with the template; and

determining the value by inference based on data file usage parameters, and assigning the value to an attribute of the data file.

5. The computer program product of claim 4 wherein the data attribute value is configurable.

6. The computer program product of claim 5 wherein the data attribute is a performance attribute that is assigned a higher performance value or a lower performance value.

7. The computer program product of claim 6 wherein performance critical data that is assigned the higher performance value is associated with a higher performance partition.

8. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein data allocated to the first partition and data allocated to the second partition are compacted by being placed adjacent to the adjustable boundary between the first partition and the second partition.

9. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein rebalancing data allocated to the data storage comprises alternately examining the first partition and the second partition to identify the mismatched data.

10. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein rebalancing data allocated to the data storage further comprises compacting the data in at least one partition.

11. A computer processing system for dynamically repartitioning data storage comprising a plurality of partitions, the system comprising:

a boundary configurator that adjusts the location of a boundary between a first partition and a second partition within the plurality of partitions in response to receiving a request to reparation the data storage, wherein the request is in response to at least one trigger in a set of triggers being satisfied; and

a data reallocator that rebalances data allocated to the data storage in response to identifying mismatched data having an attribute associated with the second partition and being located in the first partition, by relocating the mismatched data to the second partition.

12. The computer processing system of claim 11 wherein a performance data attribute is a high performance attribute or a low performance attribute, and data that is assigned the performance attribute is associated with a higher performance partition.

13. The computer processing system of claim 12 wherein the set of triggers comprises at least one of:

assigning the value to an attribute of a data file;

assigning the value to an attribute of a class or type, and assigning the data file to the class or the type;

assigning the value to an attribute of a customizable template, and associating the data file with the template; and

determining the value by inference based on data file usage parameters, and assigning the value to an attribute of the data file.

14. The computer processing system of claim 12 wherein a value of a data attribute is user-defined or usage-defined.

15. The computer processing system of claim 14 wherein the data attribute value is configurable.

16. A method for reallocating data comprising:

identifying mismatched data having an attribute associated with a second partition and being stored in the first partition in data storage comprising a plurality of partitions and at least one adjustable partition boundary, the first partition and the second partition being partitions from the plurality of partitions; and

relocating the mismatched data to the second partition.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the adjustable boundary is between the first partition and the second partition, and the first partition and the second partition are processed alternately by performing steps comprising:

relocating mismatched data within a segment of the first partition to the second partition in response to identifying an association between an attribute of the mismatched data an attribute of the second partition; and

relocating mismatched data within a segment of the second partition to the first partition in response to identifying an association between an attribute of the mismatched data and an attribute of the first partition.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein a segment is a data file.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein selecting a segment to examine is based on proximity of the segment location to the location of the adjustable boundary.

20. The method of claim 16 further comprising compacting data within at least one partition of the data storage.