SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR STORAGE SERVICE AUTOMATION

• US 20150378921A1
• Filed: 07/16/2014
• Published: 12/31/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fusion-IO Incorporated (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Karippara, Jaidil, Pamula, Pavan, Feng, Yuepeng, Sema, Vikuto Atoka
• Granted Patent: US 9,697,130 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/084 with a shared cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0866 for peripheral storage systems, e.g. disk cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0868 Data transfer between cache memory and other subsystems, e.g. storage devices or host systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0871 Allocation or management of cache space
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0888 using selective caching, e.g. bypass
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/28 using burst mode transfer, e.g. direct memory access DMA, cycle steal G06F13/32 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/151 Emulated environment, e.g. virtual machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/313 In storage device
• 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 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]

Abstract

A cache automation module detects the deployment of storage resources in a virtual computing environment and, in response, automatically configures cache services for the detected storage resources. The automation module may detect new storage resources by monitoring storage operations and/or requests, by use of an interface provided by virtualization infrastructure, and/or the like. The cache automation module may deterministically identify storage resources that are to be cached and automatically caching services for the identified storage resources.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

detecting a virtual machine deployed on a host computing device;

determining a cache configuration for the detected virtual machine; and

configuring a cache to service I/O requests pertaining to the detected virtual machine in accordance with the determined cache configuration.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the virtual machine comprises identifying a virtual machine not previously operating on the host computing device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein configuring the cache to service I/O requests pertaining to the detected virtual machine comprises activating an I/O filter configured to identify I/O requests pertaining to the detected virtual machine within the host computing device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein configuring the cache to service I/O requests pertaining to the detected virtual machine comprises utilizing a storage driver operating within the host computing device to redirect storage requests of the virtual machine to the cache.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, based on a pre-determined criterion, whether to cache data of the detected virtual machine.

6. An apparatus, comprising:

a detector configured to identify addition of a storage resource;

a cache automation module configured to automatically determine whether to cache data of the identified storage resource; and

a configuration engine configured to automatically configure cache services for the storage resource.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the storage resource comprises a virtual machine operating on a host.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the cache automation module determines whether to cache data of the identified storage resource based on one or more of a type of the storage resource, a name of a virtual machine associated with the identified storage resource, an application associated with the identified storage resource, and a file name associated with the identified storage resource.

9. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the configuration engine excludes the identified storage resource from caching services in response to determining that the identified storage resource is a cluster shared volume.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the configuration engine automatically configures a driver to redirect requests sent to the identified storage resource to a cache manager.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the driver is configured for operation within a guest operating system of a virtual machine, and wherein the driver is configured to redirect requests to a cache manager operating within the guest operating system.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the driver is configured to identify requests pertaining to the identified storage resource in a storage stack of a host computing device of a virtual machine associated with the identified storage resource.

13. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the configuration engine indicates that requests pertaining to the identified storage resource are ephemeral, and wherein the configuration engine configures a cache manager to service requests pertaining to the identified storage resource by use of an ephemeral storage resource, independent of a primary storage resource corresponding to the storage resource.

14. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the detector identifies the addition of the storage resource in response to one or more of initialization of a virtual machine on a host computing device, and initialization of a storage resource of a virtual machine.

15. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the detector identifies the addition of the storage resource by use of an application programming interface of a virtualization platform.

16. A system, comprising:

a cache manager that provides caching services to virtual machines configured for operation within a virtualization infrastructure;

a monitor that detects deployment of a virtual storage volume within the virtualization infrastructure; and

a configuration agent that automatically configures caching services for the deployed virtual storage volume in accordance with an autocache configuration in response to the detection.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the monitor detects deployment of the virtual storage volume by use of an interface provided by the virtualization infrastructure.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the configuration agent configures a storage driver to redirect storage requests pertaining to the virtual storage volume to the cache manager.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the configuration agent configures a storage driver operating within a guest operating system to redirect storage requests pertaining to the virtual storage volume to the cache manager.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the configuration agent automatically configures caching services for the virtual storage volume in response to determining that the virtual storage volume complies with a cache policy of the autocache configuration.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the cache policy distinguishes virtual storage volumes for caching services based on one or more of:

storage volume type, virtual machine name, storage volume file name, and application name.