STORAGE SYSTEM, MANAGEMENT COMPUTER, AND VIRTUAL LOGICAL VOLUME MANAGEMENT METHOD

• US 20150248245A1
• Filed: 02/22/2013
• Published: 09/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Sakata, Hironobu, Ohata, Hideo, Maniwa, Naoshi
• Granted Patent: US 9,626,110 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1009 using page tables, e.g. page table structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/10 Program control for peripheral devices G06F13/14 - G06F13/42 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/14 Handling requests for interconnection or transfer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1024 Latency reduction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/152 Virtualized environment, e.g. logically partitioned system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/657 Virtual address space management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/06 Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers , e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0611 in relation to response time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0635 by changing the path, e.g. traffic rerouting, path reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0653 Monitoring storage devices or systems
• 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 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices

Abstract

Multiple storage apparatuses each provide a virtual logical volume composed of multiple logical pages to a host computer. A management computer determines a target logical page to which data are migrated to achieve a volume goal performance on the basis of access path information that can identify a storage apparatus that receives an I/O request in which the virtual logical volume is specified, an actual volume response performance, the volume goal performance to be attained, a page response performance of the logical page, and storage destination information that can identify a storage apparatus in which a storage area allocated to the logical page is present, and migrates data of the logical page between storage apparatuses.

Claims

1. A storage system comprising:

multiple storage apparatuses configured to provide a virtual logical volume composed of multiple logical pages to a host computer, receive an I/O (Input/Output) request from the host computer, allocate a physical page to a logical pages identified on the basis of I/O request when the I/O request is a write request, and write target data of the write request in the allocated physical page; and

a management computer configured to manage the multiple storage apparatuses, wherein

the management computer is configured to;

determine a logical page that is a target of data migration to attain a volume goal performance on the basis of access path information that can identify a storage apparatus that receives an I/O request in which the virtual logical volume is specified by the host computer, an actual volume response performance of a processing target virtual logical volume, the volume goal performance to be attained, a page response performance of a logical page in the virtual logical volume, and storage destination information that can identify a storage apparatus in which a physical page allocated to the logical page is present, and

migrate data in the physical page allocated to the target logical page from the storage apparatus having the physical page allocated to the target logical page to a physical page of another storage apparatus.

2. The storage system according to claim 1,

wherein the management computer is configured to

acquire a response performance of each of multiple I/O paths to multiple storage apparatuses in accessing to the virtual logical volume, and

estimate a volume response performance of the virtual logical volume when each of the logical pages is migrated on the basis of I/O frequency to each of multiple logical pages of the virtual logical volume and the response performance of each path to determine the target logical page on the basis of the estimated volume response performance.

3. The storage system according to claim 2,

wherein the management computer is configured to determine a logical page, as the target logical page, satisfying a definition of high improvement effect on the volume response performance.

4. The storage system according to claim 3,

wherein the management computer is configured to determine the target logical page to improve the actual volume response performance of the virtual logical volume to equal to or higher than the goal volume response performance.

5. The storage system according to claim 1,

wherein the management computer is configured to determine a storage apparatus that receives an I/O request from the host computer using the virtual logical volume to be a migration destination storage apparatus of data in the physical page allocated to the logical page.

6. The storage system according to claim 1,

wherein the management computer is configured to acquire the page response performance and the storage destination apparatus information only for the logical pages of the processing target virtual logical volume from each of the storage apparatuses.

7. The storage system according to claim 1,

wherein a migration destination storage apparatus to which data on the logical page are to be migrated includes multiple logical volumes, and

wherein the management computer is configured to

acquire a usage of each of the logical volumes in the migration destination storage apparatus, and

preferentially determine a logical volume with lower usage of the migration destination storage apparatus to be migration destination of data in the physical page allocated to the target logical page.

8. The storage system according to claim 1,

wherein the management computer is configured to, for migration of data in multiple logical pages, migrate data in physical pages allocated to the respective logical pages on the basis of at least one of descending order of volume response performance improvement effect achieved by migration of data in the logical pages, descending order of I/O frequency of the respective logical pages, and priority associated with the respective logical pages.

9. The storage system according to claim 1,

wherein the management computer is configured to:

determine a storage apparatus with the largest data transfer amount for the virtual logical volume to be a storage apparatus receiving the I/O request for the virtual logical volume, and

output indication to switch an access path of the host computer using the virtual logical volume to a path to the receiving storage apparatus.

10. The storage system according to claim 1,

wherein the management computer is configured to determine candidate processing target virtual logical volumes from multiple virtual logical volumes on the basis of at least one of the following conditions:

(A) goal volume response performance of the virtual logical volumes is not satisfied;

(B) a state in which a goal volume response performance of the virtual logical volumes is not satisfied has continued for a predetermined time or longer; and

(C) priority configured for the virtual logical volumes in advance is high.

11. The storage system according to claim 1,

wherein the management computer is configured to:

estimate time required for completing migration of data in the determined logical page, and

display the estimated time on a predetermined screen.

12. The storage system according to claim 11,

wherein the management computer is configured to:

obtain migration time per a predetermined data amount between a migration source storage apparatus and migration destination storage apparatus of data in the logical pages determined to be migration target on the basis of transfer rate information between the storage apparatuses,

obtain the number of pages of the logical pages determined to be migration targets for each migration source storage apparatus, and

obtain predicted required time for each migration source storage apparatus required for completing data migration from the migration source storage apparatus to the migration destination storage apparatus on the basis of the migration time and the number of pages, and obtain predicted required time required for completing data migration from the multiple migration source storage apparatuses to the migration destination storage apparatus on the basis of the predicted required time for each migration source storage apparatus.

13. A management computer coupled to multiple storage apparatuses configured to provide a virtual logical volume composed of multiple logical pages to a host computer, receive an I/O (Input/Output) request from the host computer, allocate a physical page to a logical pages identified on the basis of I/O request when the I/O request is a write request, and write target data of the write request into the allocated physical page, the management computer comprising:

a storage device configured to store access path information that can identify a storage apparatus that receives an I/O request in which the virtual logical volume is specified by the host computer, an actual volume response performance information of the processing target virtual logical volume, information of a volume goal performance to be attained, page response performance information of a logical page in the virtual logical volume, and storage destination information that can identify a storage apparatus in which a physical page allocated to the logical page is present; and

a control device configured to determine a target logical page to which data are migrated to achieve the volume goal performance information on the basis of the access path information, the volume response performance information, the volume goal performance information, the page response performance information and the storage destination information, and migrate data in the physical page allocated to the target logical page from the storage apparatus having the physical page allocated to the target logical page to a physical page of another storage apparatus.

14. A virtual logical volume management method for managing a virtual logical volume in a storage system including multiple storage apparatuses configured to provide a virtual logical volume composed of multiple logical pages to a host computer, receive an I/O (Input/Output) request from the host computer, allocate a physical page to a logical pages identified on the basis of I/O request when the I/O request is a write request, and write data being a target of the write request into the allocated physical page, the virtual logical volume management method comprising:

determining a logical page that is a target of data migration to attain a volume goal performance on the basis of access path information that can identify a storage apparatus that receives an I/O request in which the virtual logical volume is specified by the host computer, an actual volume response performance of the processing target virtual logical volume, the volume goal performance to be attained, a page response performance of a logical page in the virtual logical volume, and storage destination information that can identify a storage apparatus in which a physical page allocated to the logical page is present; and

migrating data in the physical page allocated to the target logical page from the storage apparatus having the physical page allocated to the target logical page to a physical page of another storage apparatus.

15. The virtual logical volume management method according to claim 14, further comprising:

determining a storage apparatus with the largest data transfer amount for the virtual logical volume to be a storage apparatus receiving the I/O request for the virtual logical volume;

switching an access path of the host computer using the virtual logical volume to a path to the receiving storage apparatus;

updating information changed as a result of switching the access path among the access path information, the volume response performance information, the volume goal performance information, the page response performance information, and the storage destination information; and

then determining the target logical page and migrating the data in the physical page allocated to the target logical page.