HIGH PERFORMANCE DATA STORAGE USING OBSERVABLE CLIENT-SIDE MEMORY ACCESS

• US 20120221803A1
• Filed: 02/28/2011
• Published: 08/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kove IP, LLC
• Original Assignee: Kove Corporation
• Inventors: Poling, Andrew S., Overton, John K., Stabrawa, Timothy A., Cornelius, Zachary A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,015,426 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3037 where the computing system component is a memory, e.g. virtual memory, cache accessing, addressing or allocating within memory systems or architectures G06F12/00; checking stores for correct operation G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/17331 Distributed shared memory [DSM], e.g. remote direct memory access [RDMA]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0611 in relation to response time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• 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 3/0676 Magnetic disk device

Abstract

In one example, a system is provided that performs memory access operations on a storage volume stored in memory and identifies the memory access operations performed. A request to perform a memory access operation may be received at a communication interface. The request may comply with a memory access protocol. The memory access operation may be performed on a portion of the memory in response to the request, where the portion of the memory is included in the storage volume. One or more attributes of the memory access operation may be identified. An action related to the memory access operation may be performed based on the attribute of the memory access operation.

Claims

1. A storage system that stores data for a client component, the system comprising:

a communication interface;

a memory for storage of data received over the communication interface, the communication interface being configured to;

receive a request to perform a memory access operation on the memory, the request being compliant with a memory access protocol; and

perform the memory access operation on a portion of the memory in response to the request, the portion of the memory being included in a storage volume that is included in the memory;

and

observer logic configured to identify at least one attribute of the memory access operation and to perform an action related to the memory access operation in response to identification of the at least one attribute of the memory access operation, the communication interface being further configured to complete the memory access operation on the memory without waiting for the observer logic.

2. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the memory is a first memory, the storage system comprises a storage device that includes the communication interface, the first memory, and the observer logic, and wherein the memory access protocol is a communication protocol for transfer of data between a second memory included in the client component and the first memory included in a storage device, and the transfer of data is independent of central processing units (CPU) included in the client component and storage device.

3. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the memory comprises, in addition to all data blocks of the storage volume, volume information about the data blocks.

4. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the action related to the memory access operation includes a determination of statistics about memory access operations.

5. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the action related to the memory access operation includes an identification of a region of the memory affected by the memory access operation.

6. The storage system of claim 5, wherein the action related to the memory access operation further comprises a duplication of the region of the memory to a backing store.

7. The storage system of claim 1 further comprising a processor in communication with the memory, the memory comprising the observer logic, the observer logic being executable with the processor, the communication interface being further configured to perform the memory access operation on the memory independently of the processor.

8. A tangible computer-readable storage medium encoded with computer executable instructions, the computer executable instructions executable with a processor in a storage device, the computer-readable medium comprising:

instructions executable to identify at least one attribute of a memory access operation, wherein the memory access operation is performed on a storage volume independently of the processor in response to receipt by a communication interface of the storage device of a request to perform the memory access operation, the request is compliant with a memory access protocol, and the storage volume is included in a memory of the storage device; and

instructions executable to perform an action related to the memory access operation based on the at least one attribute of the memory access operation.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the memory access operation is a Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) operation.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions to identify the at least one attribute of the memory access operation are configured to execute after the memory access operation is completed.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the request includes data indicative of the at least one attribute of the memory access operation, and the instructions executable to identify the at least one attribute of the memory access operation are executable to identify the at least one attribute from the data included in the request.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions executable to identify the at least one attribute of the memory access operation are further executable to identify the at least one attribute from a notification message received at the communication interface before the request to perform the memory access operation is received.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions executable to identify the at least one attribute of the memory access operation are further executable to identify the at least one attribute from a notification message received at the communication interface after the request to perform the memory access operation is received.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the instructions executable to identify the at least one attribute of the memory access operation are further executable to monitor an area of the memory for data indicative of the at least one attribute, the memory access operation is a first memory access operation, and the data indicative of the at least one attribute of the first memory access operation is written to the area of the memory in response to a request to perform a second memory access operation.

15. A computer-implemented method to identify memory access operations from data received at a communication interface of a storage system, the method comprising:

receiving a request to perform a memory access operation on a memory, the request being received at the communication interface, the request being compliant with a memory access protocol;

performing the memory access operation on a portion of the memory in response to the request, the portion of the memory being included in a storage volume, the storage volume being included in the memory;

identifying at least one attribute of the memory access operation with a processor in the storage system, the memory access operation being performed on the portion of the memory independently of the processor; and

performing an action related to the memory access operation with the processor.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the memory access operation completes before the action related to the memory access operation is performed.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the memory access operation completes before the at least one attribute of the memory access operation is identified.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the memory access operation is a first memory access operation, and performing the action related to the first memory access operation comprises writing to a memory region in response to a second memory access operation.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the memory region comprises a flag that indicates whether the portion of the memory has been updated by the memory access operation since the portion of the memory was last copied to a backing store.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the memory access operation is performed on the portion of the memory independently of a second processor included in a client component that transmitted the request.