FILE-SHARING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROCESSING FILES, AND PROGRAM

• US 20120005193A1
• Filed: 03/19/2010
• Published: 01/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Nemoto, Jun, Agetsuma, Masakuni, Iwasaki, Masaaki
• Granted Patent: US 8,266,192 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/722
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/185 Hierarchical storage management [HSM] systems, e.g. file migration or policies thereof details of archiving G06F16/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing

Abstract

Provided is a technique capable of efficiently operating files and directories that are stored in storage located in a physically far place from a file server, without causing a network latency. An index creation program is also loaded in a cloud computing environment, and a flag, which indicates whether or not to execute batch processing to a directory that has been migrated to the cloud side, is provided, whereby it becomes possible to collectively execute index creation processing for the migrated directory on the cloud side. More specifically, upon completion of migration of all files under a given directory to the cloud side, a flag, which indicates whether or not to perform batch processing on the cloud side, is validated for the metadata of the directory. Such a batch processing flag can be held for each application such as applications of the index creation processing and the virus check processing.

Claims

1. A file-sharing system comprising:

a first file server (200, 1800) including a first scan processing section (290, 1810) configured to scan data included in a file to generate predetermined information, the first file server (200, 1800) being configured to provide a file to a client terminal (100) based on a virtual file system (360) that is generated by virtually merging a first file system (370, 380) and a second file system (490); and

a second file server (400, 1900) including a second scan processing section (460, 1910) and the second file system (490), the second scan processing section (460, 1910) being configured to scan data included in a file to generate predetermined information, wherein;

the first scan processing section (290, 1810), in response to a first scan processing request for files included in the first and second file systems (370, 380, 490) issued by a management terminal (110), executes scan processing to the files included in the first file system (370, 380) based on the virtual file system (360), and sends a second scan processing request to the second file server (400, 1900) to execute scan processing to the files included in the second file system (490),

the second scan processing section (400, 1910), in response to the second scan processing request received, executes scan processing to the target files and sends the scan processing result to the first file server (200, 1800), and

the first file server (200, 1800) merges the scan processing result obtained with the first scan processing section (290, 1810) and the scan processing result obtained with the second scan processing section (460, 1910), and provides the merged result to the management terminal (110).

2. The file-sharing system according to claim 1, wherein:

the first file server is a file server (200, 1800) connected to the client terminal (100) and the management terminal (110) via a network (120), the second file server is a cloud computing environment (400, 1900) connected to the first file server (200, 1800) via a network (130), the first file system is an upper-level real file system (370, 380) provided by a disk array system (300) connected to the first file server (200, 1800),

the second file system is a lower-level real file system (490) provided by the cloud computing environment (400, 1900),

the first and second scan processing sections (290, 490, 1810, 1910) are implemented as programs configured to execute indexing processing for creating index data of a file, or virus check processing for detecting a virus included in a file,

the virtual file system (360) constitutes a hierarchical file system with the upper-level real file system (370, 380) and the lower-level real file system (490),

the first file server (200, 1800) further includes an object management table (800) that manages a correspondence relationship between the virtual file system (360) and a storage location of a real file or directory, and a batch processing flag (860) indicating that all files included in a single directory have been migrated to the lower-level real file system (490), and also includes an inter-tier migration processing section (540) configured to migrate a file from the upper-level real file system (370, 380) to the lower-level real file system (490) in accordance with the conditions described in an inter-tier migration policy (550) that is a policy for migrating files between file systems of different tier levels,

the first scan processing section (290, 1810) refers to the object management table (800) for a file and a directory corresponding to the first scan processing request, and sends the second scan processing request to the second file server (400, 1900) to execute scan processing to all files included in a directory whose batch processing flag (860) is ON, and executes by itself scan processing to files that are included in a directory whose batch processing flag (860) is OFF and are included in the second file system (490), instead of instructing the second scan processing section (460, 1910) to execute scan processing to such files, and

the second scan processing section (460, 1910), in response to the second scan processing request received, executes scan processing to the target files, and sends the scan processing result to the first file server (200, 1800).

3. The file-sharing system according to claim 1, wherein:

the virtual file system (360) constitutes a hierarchical file system with the first file system (370, 380) defined as an upper-level file system and the second file system (490) defined as a lower-level file system, and the first file server (200, 1800) further includes a file migration processing section (540) configured to migrate a file from the first file system (370, 380) to the second file system (490) in accordance with a predetermined condition (550).

4. The file-sharing system according to claim 3, wherein:

the first file sever (200, 1800) further includes an object management table (800) that manages a correspondence relationship between the virtual file system (360) and a storage location of a real file or directory, and a batch processing flag (860) indicating that all files included in a single directory have been migrated to the second file system (490), and

the first scan processing section (290, 1810) refers to the object management table (800) for a file and a directory corresponding to the first scan processing request, and sends the second scan processing request to the second file server (400, 1900) to execute scan processing to all files included in a directory whose batch processing flag (860) is ON, and

the second scan processing section (460, 1910), in response to the second scan processing request received, executes scan processing to the target files and sends the scan processing result to the first file server (200, 1800).

5. The file-sharing system according to claim 4, wherein the first scan processing section (290,'"'"'1810) executes by itself scan processing to files that are included in a directory whose batch processing flag (860) is OFF and are included in the second file system (490), instead of instructing the second scan processing section (460, 1910) to execute scan processing to such files.

6. The file-sharing system according to claim 1, wherein:

the first and second scan processing sections (290, 460, 1810, 1910) are implemented as programs loaded in memory, and

the first file server (200, 1800) instructs the second file server (400, 1900) to load and unload the program for implementing the second scan processing section (460, 1910) into/from memory (440) on the second file server (400, 1900) at any given time.

7. The file-sharing system according to claim 4, wherein:

the first file sever (200, 1800) monitors a state of communication with the second file server (400, 1900), and changes, when a the amount of network delay indicated by the communication state exceeds a threshold concerning the network delay and the batch processing flag (860) in the object management table (800) is OFF, the batch processing flag (860) to ON.

8. The file-sharing system according to claim 1, further comprising a third file server that is connected to the first file server (200, 1800) and provides a third file system, wherein the first file server (200, 1800) checks if the third file server includes a third scan processing section corresponding to the second scan processing section (460, 1910), and determines, based on the check result, which of the first scan processing section (290, 1810) of the first file server (200, 1800) and the third scan processing section is to execute scan processing to one or more objects provided by the third file system.

9. The file-sharing system according to claim 1, wherein the scan processing executed by the first and second scan processing sections (290, 460, 1810, 1910) is index creation processing for creating index information to be used for searches by extracting a keyword from a file, or virus check processing for checking for viruses by scanning a file.

12. A program for causing a plurality of computers that constitute a storage system or are connected to a storage system to function as the file-sharing system according to claim 1.

10. A method for processing files with a file-sharing system, the file-sharing system comprising a first file server (200, 1800) including a first file system (370, 380) and a second file server (400, 1900) including a second file system (490), wherein:

the first file server (200, 1800) generates a virtual file system (360) by merging the first file system (370, 380) and the second file system (490), and provides a file to a client terminal (100) based on the virtual file system (360),

the first file server (200, 1800), in response to a scan processing request for files included in the first and second file systems (370, 380, 490) issued by a management terminal (110), executes scan processing to the files included in the first file system (370, 380) based on the virtual file system (360) and sends a scan processing request to the second file server (400, 1900) to execute scan processing to the files included in the second file system (490),

the second file server (400, 1900), in response to the scan processing request received from the first file server (200, 1800), executes scan processing to the target files and sends the scan processing result to the first file server (200, 1800), and

the first file server (200, 1800) merges its own scan processing result and the scan processing result obtained from the second file server (400, 1900), and provides the merged result to the management terminal (110).

11. The file processing method according to claim 10, wherein:

the first file server is a file server (200, 1800) connected to the client terminal (100) and the management terminal (110) via a network (120), the second file server is a cloud computing environment (400, 1900) connected to the first file server (200, 1800) via a network (130), the first file system is an upper-level real file system (370, 380) provided by a disk array system (300) connected to the first file server (200, 1800),

the second file system is a lower-level real file system (490) provided by the cloud computing environment (400, 1900),

the scan processing is executed by programs (290, 460, 1810, 1910) configured to execute indexing processing for creating index data of a file, or virus check processing for detecting a virus included in a file, the virtual file system (360) constitutes a hierarchical file system with the upper-level real file system (370, 380) and the lower-level real file system (490),

the first file server (200, 1800) performs the following processing;

executing inter-tier migration of a file from the upper-level real file system (370, 380) to the lower-level real file system (490) in accordance with conditions described in an inter-tier migration policy (550) that is a policy for migrating files between file systems of different tier levels including the upper- and lower-level real file systems (370, 380, 490),

updating, while executing the inter-hierarchical file migration, information of an object management table (800) that manages a correspondence relationship between the virtual file system (360) and a storage location of a real file or directory, and a batch processing flag (860) indicating that all files included in a single directory have been migrated to the lower-level real file system (490), and

referring to the object management table (800) for a file and a directory corresponding to the scan processing request, and sending a scan processing request to the second file server (400, 1900) to execute scan processing to all files included in a directory whose batch processing flag (860) is ON, and executing by itself scan processing to files that are included in a directory whose batch processing flag is OFF and are included in the second file system (490), instead of instructing the second scan processing section (460, 1910) to execute scan processing to such files, and

the cloud computing environment (400, 1900), in response to the scan processing request received from the first file server (200, 1800), executes scan processing to the target files and sends the scan processing result to the first file server (200, 1800).