ENHANCING TIERING STORAGE PERFORMANCE

• US 20130297873A1
• Filed: 03/13/2013
• Published: 11/07/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: HYDE, Joseph S. II, ROY, Subhojit
• Granted Patent: US 8,996,808 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/117
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/061 Improving I/O performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0611 in relation to response time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0641 De-duplication techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0649 Lifecycle management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0685 Hybrid storage combining heterogeneous device types, e.g. hierarchical storage, hybrid arrays
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

Various embodiments for improving data storage and retrieval performance, for a tiered storage environment having levels corresponding to storage performance, are provided. In one embodiment, by way of example only, reference count information of at least one data segment maintained in the tiered storage environment is used to determine which of the levels in the tiered storage environment the at least one data segment is assigned. Those of the at least one data segment having higher reference counts are assigned to a higher performance level than those having lower reference counts.

Claims

1. A method for improving data storage and retrieval performance in a computing environment by a processor, comprising:

for a tiered storage environment having levels corresponding to storage performance, using reference count information of at least one data segment maintained in the tiered storage environment to determine which of the levels in the tiered storage environment the at least one data segment is assigned, wherein those of the at least one data segment having higher reference counts are assigned to a higher performance level than those having lower reference counts.

2. The method of claim 1, further including obtaining the reference count information from a data deduplication engine.

3. The method of claim 1, further including monitoring the tiered storage environment to associate the reference count information with the at least one data segment.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein upon a first access to the at least one data segment, and a determination that the at least one data segment has an associated reference count above a predetermined threshold, immediately migrating the at least one data segment to the higher performance level.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein using the reference count information includes using the reference count information as a weighted factor with additional characteristics of the at least one data segment to determine the which of the levels to assign the at least one data segment.

6. The method of claim 5, further including using an input/output activity, including at least one of a read count and a write count as the additional characteristics to determine the which of the levels to assign the at least one data segment.

7. The method of claim 6, further including subsequently using the input/output activity solely to determine if the at least one data segment should be migrated from a higher performance level to a lower performance level.