SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT BASED STORAGE ACCESS

• US 20110246526A1
• Filed: 03/31/2010
• Published: 10/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Xu, Zheng, Helm, John, Finkelstein, Yuri, Rethinakaleeswaran, Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 9,197,514 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/784
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/20 of structured data, e.g. relational data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5074 Handling of user complaints or trouble tickets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/74 measures in reaction to resource unavailability
• 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]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers

Abstract

A method and a system implementing a service level agreement based storage access system. A service level agreement based storage access system presents a single interface for data storage consumers and translates generic data operation requests to data operation request specific to a storage server. The SLA based storage access system also monitors storage server performance and may throttle processes to ensure service level agreements are not violated.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

translating a generic data operation request received from a data storage consumer, using one or more processors, to a specific request for a storage server where the data storage consumer has provisioned storage;

communicating to the storage server the specific request;

communicating to the data storage consumer a received response to the specific request; and

determining service level agreement performance data based upon the data requested and the delay between sending the specific request and receiving the response.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising issuing an alert ticket when the service level agreement performance data indicates an actual or potential service level agreement violation.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising throttling the data storage server resources of other processes to maintain the service level agreement of the data storage consumer when the service level agreement performance data indicates an actual or potential service level agreement violation.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the alert ticket suggests an amount and type of resource to alter to maintain the service level agreement.

5. A method comprising:

receiving a profile indicating data storage needs of a data storage consumer from the data storage consumer;

automatically assigning the data storage consumer, using one or more processors, to a storage server that has configuration data describing the capabilities of the storage server which meet the data storage needs indicated in the profile; and

allocating storage meeting the data storage needs of the profile on the compatible storage server for the data storage consumer.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the data storage needs indicate a data throughput requirement.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the data storage needs indicate a minimum number of reads per second.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the data storage needs indicate a minimum number of writes per second.

9. A system comprising:

a consumer interface to receive a generic data operation request from a data storage consumer;

an allocation module to identify a storage server where the data storage consumer has allocated storage;

a storage server plug-in application to translate the generic data operation request, using one or more processors, to a specific request for the storage server, to communicate the specific request to the storage server, and to receiving from the storage server a response to the specific request;

a service level agreement monitoring module to determine service level agreement performance data based upon the data requested and the delay between sending the specific request and receiving the response; and

a service orientated architecture interface to communicate the response to the data storage consumer.

10. A system as in claim 9, wherein the service level agreement monitoring module further executes the operation of issuing an alert ticket when the service level agreement indicates a potential or actual violation of a service level agreement.

11. A system as in claim 9, further comprising a balancing module to perform the operation of throttling the data storage server resources of other processes to maintain the service level agreement of the data storage consumer when the service level agreement performance data indicates a potential or actual service level agreement violation.

12. A system as in claim 10, wherein the service level agreement monitoring module further indicates on the alert ticket an amount and type of resource to alter to maintain the service level agreement.

13. A system comprising:

a configuration module to receive a profile indicating data storage needs of a data storage customer from the data storage consumer;

an allocation module to automatically assign the data storage customer, using one or more processors, to a storage server that has configuration data describing the capabilities of the storage server which meet the data storage needs indicated in the profile; and

14. A system as in claim 13, wherein the data storage needs of the profile indicate a throughput requirement.

15. A system as in claim 13, wherein the data storage needs of the profile indicate a required minimum number of reads per second.

16. A system as in claim 13, wherein the data storage needs of the profile indicate a required minimum number of writes per second.