STORAGE RESOURCE PACK MANAGEMENT

• US 20150199221A1
• Filed: 01/14/2014
• Published: 07/16/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: GOODMAN, Daniel I., HAREL, Ran, MATOSEVICH, Rivka M., NISSAN-MESSING, Orit, SILES, Yossi
• Granted Patent: US 9,529,552 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

Methods, apparatus and computer program products implement embodiments of the present invention that include identifying, by a first computer in communication with a storage system having one or more storage devices, storage resources on the storage system, and defining multiple resource packs, each of the resource packs comprising respective multiple attributes for the storage resources. In response to an inventory request from a second computer in communication with the first computer, each of the resource packs can be conveyed to the second computer. Additionally, upon receiving, from the second computer, an allocation request to allocate a portion of a given resource pack, the portion of the given resource pack can be allocated in response to the request.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying, by a first computer in communication with a storage system having one or more storage devices, storage resources on the storage system;

defining multiple resource packs, each of the resource packs comprising respective multiple attributes for the storage resources; and

conveying each of the resource packs to a second computer in communication with the first computer.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein conveying each of the resource packs comprises identifying one or more of the multiple resource packs that are currently available, and conveying the identified one or more identified resource packs to the second computer.

3. The method according to claim 2, and comprising receiving, prior to conveying each of the resource packs, a resource pack inventory request from the second computer.

4. The method according to claim 1, and comprising receiving, from the second computer, an allocation request to allocate a portion of a given resource pack, and allocating the portion of the given resource pack in response to the request.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the second computer maintains mapping information for storage resources on the storage system, and comprising updating the mapping information upon allocating the portion of the given resource pack to the second computer.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the attributes are selected from a list consisting of storage identification attributes, storage configuration attributes, cost attributes and credentials parameters.

7. The method according to claim 1, and comprising receiving, from the second computer, a request to free an allocated portion of a given resource pack, and reclaiming the allocated portion in the given resource pack.

8. A storage facility, comprising:

a storage system having one or more storage devices; and

a first computer in communication with the storage system, and configured;

to identify storage resources on the storage system,

to define multiple resource packs, each of the resource packs comprising respective multiple attributes for the storage resources, and

to convey each of the resource packs to a second computer in communication with the first computer.

9. The storage facility according to claim 8, wherein the first computer is configured to convey each of the resource packs by identifying one or more of the multiple resource packs that are currently available, and conveying the identified one or more identified resource packs to the second computer.

10. The storage facility according to claim 9, wherein prior to conveying each of the resource packs, the first computer is configured to receive a resource pack inventory request from the second computer.

11. The storage facility according to claim 8, wherein the first computer is configured to receive, from the second computer, an allocation request to allocate a portion of a given resource pack, and allocating the portion of the given resource pack in response to the allocation request.

12. The storage facility according to claim 11, wherein the second computer is configured to maintain mapping information for storage resources on the storage system, and to update the mapping information upon allocating the portion of the given resource pack to the second computer.

13. The storage facility according to claim 8, wherein the attributes are selected from a list consisting of storage identification attributes, storage configuration attributes, cost attributes and credentials parameters.

14. The storage facility according to claim 8, wherein the first computer is configured to ‘

receive, from the second computer, a request to free an allocated portion of a given resource pack, and to reclaim the allocated portion in the given resource.

15. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code executing on a first computer in communication with a storage system having one or more storage devices configured to identify storage resources on the storage system;

computer readable program code configured to define multiple resource packs, each of the resource packs comprising respective multiple attributes for the storage resources; and

computer readable program code configured to convey each of the resource packs to a second computer in communication with the first computer.

16. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein the computer readable program code is configured to convey each of the resource packs by identifying one or more of the multiple resource packs that are currently available, and to convey the identified one or more identified resource packs to the second computer.

17. The computer program product according to claim 16, and comprising computer readable program code configured to receive, prior to conveying each of the resource packs, a resource pack inventory request from the second computer.

18. The computer program product according to claim 15, and comprising computer readable program code configured to receive, from the second computer, an allocation request to allocate a portion of a given resource pack, and allocating the portion of the given resource pack in response to the request.

19. The computer program product according to claim 18, wherein the attributes are selected from a list consisting of storage identification attributes, storage configuration attributes, cost attributes and credentials parameters.

20. The computer program product according to claim 15, and comprising and comprising computer readable program code configured to receive, from the second computer, a request to free an allocated portion of a given resource pack, and to reclaim the allocated portion in the given resource pack.