METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR REPLICATING AN EXPANDABLE STORAGE VOLUME

• US 20160048431A1
• Filed: 10/26/2015
• Published: 02/18/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/28/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Modukuri, Kiran Kumar, Jennings, Logan Rand
• Granted Patent: US 9,672,119 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2071 using a plurality of controllers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2074 Asynchronous techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2082 Data synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/00 Accessing, addressing or allocating within memory systems or architectures digital input from, or digital output to record carriers, e.g. to disk storage units, G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0292 using tables or multilevel address translation means G06F12/023 takes precedence; address translation in virtual memory systems G06F12/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1009 using page tables, e.g. page table structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/16 Protection against loss of memory contents contains no material, see G06F11/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/00 Interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units interface circuits for specific input/output devices G06F3/00 ; multiprogram control therefor G06F9/46; multiprocessor systems G06F15/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/128 Details of file system snapshots on the file-level, e.g. snapshot creation, administration, deletion use of snapshots for error detection or correction G06F11/14, G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1824 implemented using Network-attached Storage [NAS] architecture distributed or networked storage systems G06F3/067; protocols for distributed storage of data in a network H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1827 Management specifically adapted to NAS management of storage area networks [SAN] G06F3/067
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/284 : Relational databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 : Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/82 : Solving problems relating to consistency
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 : Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0607 : by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 : by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 : Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0662 : Virtualisation aspects
• 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]

Abstract

Machine implemented method and system for generating a disaster recovery copy of an expandable storage volume having a namespace for storing information for accessing data objects stored at a data constituent volume is provided. A transfer operation for transferring a point in time copy of the expandable storage volume from a first location to a second location is generated. Information regarding the expandable storage volume from the first location is retrieved and a destination expandable storage volume is resized to match components of the expandable storage volume at the first location. Thereafter, the point in time copy of the expandable storage volume from the first location to the second location is transferred and configuration information regarding the point in time copy is copied from the first location to the second location; a data structure for storing information regarding the transferred point in time copy of the expandable storage volume is updated.

Claims

1. A machine implemented method for generating a disaster recovery copy of an expandable storage volume having a namespace for storing information for accessing data objects stored at a data constituent volume, comprising:

generating a transfer operation for transferring a snapshot of the expandable storage volume from a first location to a second location;

retrieving information regarding the expandable storage volume from the first location;

resizing a destination expandable storage volume at the second location to match components of the expandable storage volume at the first location;

transferring the snapshot of the expandable storage volume from the first location to the second location;

copying configuration information regarding the snapshot from the first location to the second location; and

updating a data structure for storing information regarding the transferred snapshot of the expandable storage volume.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the expandable storage volume includes a plurality of data constituent volumes managed by at least two different storage system nodes.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the namespace stores a directory namespace having a directory entry associated with a data object stored at the data constituent volume.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the directory namespace is a network attached storage (NAS) path namespace of a storage system.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the directory entry stores a pointer to a redirector file that includes an object locator of the data object.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first location is managed by a first storage system and the second location is managed by a second storage system.

7. A system for generating a disaster recovery copy of an expandable storage volume having a namespace for storing information for accessing data objects stored at a data constituent volume, comprising:

a first storage system at a first location for managing the expandable storage volume;

a second storage system at a second location for managing a destination expandable storage volume;

a processor executable replication application configured to generate a transfer operation for transferring a snapshot of the expandable storage volume from the first location to the second location;

retrieve information regarding the expandable storage volume from the first location;

and resize the destination expandable storage volume at the second location to match components of the expandable storage volume at the first location;

wherein the snapshot of the expandable storage volume is transferred from the first location to the second location with configuration information regarding the snapshot.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the expandable storage volume includes a plurality of data constituent volumes managed by at least two different storage system nodes.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the namespace stores a directory namespace having a directory entry associated with a data object stored at the data constituent volume.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the directory namespace is a network attached storage (NAS) path namespace of a storage system.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the directory entry stores a pointer to a redirector file that includes an object locator of the data object.

12. A machine implemented method for managing a disaster recovery copy of an expandable storage volume at a first location having a namespace for storing information for accessing data objects stored at a data constituent volume, comprising:

resizing a destination expandable storage volume at a second location to match components of the expandable storage volume at the first location;

transferring a snapshot of the expandable storage volume from the first location to the second location to be stored as the disaster recovery copy;

presenting the disaster recovery copy to a computing system for reading and writing information at the second location;

resizing the expandable storage volume at the first location to match the destination expandable storage volume at the second location; and

re-synchronizing the expandable storage volume with the destination storage volume after the first location becomes available.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the expandable storage volume includes a plurality of data constituent volumes managed by at least two different storage system nodes.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the namespace stores a directory namespace having a directory entry associated with a data object stored at the data constituent volume.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the directory namespace is a network attached storage (NAS) path namespace of a storage system.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the directory entry stores a pointer to a redirector file that includes an object locator of the data object.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the expandable storage volume includes an object location store (OLS) that is replicated and transferred with the namespace.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the namespace and the OLS of the expandable storage volume have a mirroring relationship with a namespace and an OLS of the of the destination expandable storage volume, based on which the replicated copy of the expandable storage volume is transferred to the second location.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the mirroring relationship is maintained in a data structure by a processor executable coordinator module.

20. The method of claim 12, further comprising;

updating a data structure for storing information regarding the transferred snapshot of the expandable storage volume.