DATA STORAGE RESOURCE ALLOCATION BY EMPLOYING DYNAMIC METHODS AND BLACKLISTING RESOURCE REQUEST POOLS

• US 20130145376A1
• Filed: 01/08/2013
• Published: 06/06/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Gokhale, Parag, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Karandikar, Amey Vijaykumar, Wang, Yu
• Granted Patent: US 9,262,226 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/16 for access to memory bus G06F13/28 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/502 Proximity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• 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 9/46 Multiprogramming arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory

Abstract

A resource allocation system begins with an ordered plan for matching requests to resources that is sorted by priority. The resource allocation system optimizes the plan by determining those requests in the plan that will fail if performed. The resource allocation system removes or defers the determined requests. In addition, when a request that is performed fails, the resource allocation system may remove requests that require similar resources from the plan. Moreover, when resources are released by a request, the resource allocation system may place the resources in a temporary holding area until the resource allocation returns to the top of the ordered plan so that lower priority requests that are lower in the plan do not take resources that are needed by waiting higher priority requests higher in the plan.

Claims

1. A system having a processor for dynamically assigning data storage requests to data storage resources, the system comprising:

a means for receiving an initial request plan specifying how an alternate data path is to be chosen when preferred data storage resources are not available;

a means for building a grid allocation table by grouping data storage resources in columns or rows of the grid allocation table according to common characteristics of the data storage resources;

a means for assigning, when preferred resources are available, a row or column, respectively, of the grid allocation table to a data allocation request using preferred data storage resources;

a means for assigning, when preferred data storage resources are not available, an alternate set of data storage resources to the data storage request;

wherein each column or row of the grid allocation table operates independently on separate data storage requests.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a means for determining whether requested resources from a failed request comprise common or unique resources; and

a means for selectively adding the failed request to the blacklist table when the failed request corresponded to a common resource, and not adding the failed request to the blacklist table when the failed request corresponded to a unique requested resource.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the preferred resources are determined based on geographic proximity of one or more data objects related to a data storage request and available data storage resources.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the preferred resources are determined based on network proximity of one or more data objects related to a data storage request and available data storage resources.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the means for assigning the alternate set of resources includes a means for evaluating one or more rules to determine an alternate data path for performing a data storage request, wherein at least one rule is an overflow rule that indicates an alternate data path to use for performing the data storage request when the preferred set of data storage resources is unavailable.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the means for assigning the alternate set of resources includes a means for evaluating one or more rules to determine an alternate data path for performing a data storage request, wherein at least one rule is an overflow rule that distributes data storage requests across sets of data storage resources in an alternating fashion to evenly distribute the data storage requests.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the common characteristics of the data storage resources comprise at least an access to a tape drive, an allocation of a stream for that tape drive, an available tape on which to store data, and a media agent computer to process and monitor the request.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the table includes a row or column of priorities associated with each of multiple data management operations in a list of data management operations, wherein the data management operations are to be performed along one dimension of the table in priority order.

9. A method of dynamically assigning data storage requests to data storage resources, the method comprising:

receiving an initial request plan specifying how an alternate data path is to be chosen when preferred data storage resources are not available;

building a grid allocation table by grouping data storage resources in columns or rows of the grid allocation table according to common characteristics of the data storage resources;

assigning, when preferred resources are available, a row or column, respectively, of the grid allocation table to a data allocation request using preferred data storage resources;

assigning, when preferred data storage resources are not available, an alternate set of data storage resources to the data storage request;

wherein each column or row of the grid allocation table operates independently on separate data storage requests.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

determining whether requested resources from a failed request comprise common or unique resources; and

selectively adding the failed request to the blacklist table when the failed request corresponded to a common resource, and not adding the failed request to the blacklist table when the failed request corresponded to a unique requested resource.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the preferred resources are determined based on geographic proximity of one or more data objects related to a data storage request and available data storage resources.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein the preferred resources are determined based on network proximity of one or more data objects related to a data storage request and available data storage resources.

13. The method of claim 9 wherein the assigning the alternate set of resources includes evaluating one or more rules to determine an alternate data path for performing a data storage request, wherein at least one rule is an overflow rule that indicates an alternate data path to use for performing the data storage request when the preferred set of data storage resources is unavailable.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the assigning the alternate set of resources includes evaluating one or more rules to determine an alternate data path for performing a data storage request, wherein at least one rule is an overflow rule that distributes data storage requests across sets of data storage resources in an alternating fashion to evenly distribute the data storage requests.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the common characteristics of the data storage resources comprises at least an access to a tape drive, an allocation of a stream for that tape drive, an available tape on which to store data, and a media agent computer to process and monitor the request.

16. The method of claim 9 wherein the table includes a row or column of priorities associated with each of multiple data management operations in a list of data management operations, wherein the data management operations are to be performed along one dimension of the table in priority order.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with instructions for controlling a computer system in performing data management operations on data objects located at different physical locations, by a method comprising:

determining, for each of multiple data management operation, whether each of multiple requested resources for use in performing the data management operation has been blacklisted by comparing a received data storage request to a generated blacklist table to blacklist that operation based on a resource requirement category of that operation;

creating a data structure for allocating the data management resources,

wherein the created data structure for resource allocation selects one or more data management resources to perform each of the multiple data management operations based at least in part on—

a determined location of the one or more data objects affected by the data management operation, and

a grouping of at least two of the data management resources based on a similarity of at least one determined characteristic;

performing the data management operations based on the created logical data structure for resource allocation;

determining whether requested resources from a failed request comprise common or unique resources; and

selectively adding the failed request to the blacklist table when the failed request failed because of requested common resources and not adding the failed request to the blacklist table when the failed request failed because of unique requested resources.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the at least one determined characteristic comprises a geographic criteria based on subsets of data identified by a user and related to office locations of a business organization.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the data structure is a table, and further comprising grouping at least two of the data management resources based on similar data management resources within a column of the table.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein performing the data management operations comprises performing in priority order operations along one dimension of the created logical data structure.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the determined location of the one or more data objects comprises determining a geographic location of a computer on which the data objects are stored.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the determined location of the one or more data objects comprises determining a network location of the data objects.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the resource requirement category comprises at least an access to a tape drive, an allocation of a stream for that tape drive, an available tape on which to store data, and a media agent computer to process and monitor the request.