DETERMINING FAILURE LOCATION IN A STORAGE SYSTEM

• US 20160092292A1
• Filed: 09/28/2015
• Published: 03/31/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Lv, Man, Liu, Chris Zirui, Zou, Colin Yong
• Granted Patent: US 10,346,238 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0754 by exceeding limits
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method, a computer program product and an apparatus for determining a failure location in a storage system by obtaining performance information of a disk; in response to the performance information indicating that at least one or more performance indices exceed a corresponding predetermined threshold, determining whether a health condition of the disk is normal based on at least one or more performance indices; and in response to determining that the health condition of the disk is normal, determining a failure location based on the health condition information of at least one or more elements in a communication path of the disk, and it may be diagnosed whether a failure occurs to the disk per se or in its communication path, and before a potential failure occurs to the disk, it may also predict the failure thereby preventing data loss.

Claims

1. A method for determining a failure location in a storage system, the method comprising:

obtaining performance information of a disk;

in response to the performance information, indicating that at least one or more performance indices exceed a corresponding predetermined threshold, by;

determining whether a health condition of the disk is normal based on the at least one or more performance indices; and

in response to determining that the health condition of the disk is normal, determining a failure location of at least one or more elements in a communication path of the disk.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprises:

obtaining health condition information of the at least one or more elements in the communication path of the disk; and

in response to the health condition information of at least one element in the communication path being abnormal, determining that the at least one element failed.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprises:

determining the health condition of the disk normal, when the at least one or more performance indices are irrelevant to the health condition of the disk, and the health condition information of the disk is detected to be normal.

4. The method according to claim 3, further comprising:

determining that the disk fails, when the at least one or more performance indices associated with the health condition of the disk, and/or the health condition information of the disk is detected to be abnormal.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprises periodically executing, manually triggering, triggering in response to detecting an I/O performance abnormality with the disk, or triggering in response to a reception of an information reporting of a disk I/O failure.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the disk I/O failure information is reported by a disk array RAID.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the at least one or more performance indices include at least one or more of the following from the group consisting of:

an I/O error count, an average I/O delay, a data error, a reallocated sector count, a SAS G-list count, and a SAS background media scan information.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the health condition information comprises at least one of a historical health condition information and a current health condition information.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the health condition information is reported using Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T).

10. An apparatus for determining a failure location in a storage system, the apparatus configured to:

obtain performance information of a disk;

in response to the performance information indicating that at least one or more performance indices exceed a corresponding predetermined threshold, by;

determining whether a health condition of the disk is normal based on the at least one or more performance indices; and

in response to determining that the health condition of the disk is normal, determining a failure location of at least one or more elements in a communication path of the disk.

11. The apparatus according to claim 10, further configured to:

obtain health condition information of the at least one or more elements in the communication path in sequence of the disk; and

in response to the health condition information of the at least one element in the communication path being abnormal, determine that the at least one element failed.

12. The apparatus according to claim 10, further configured to:

determine the health condition of the disk normal, when the at least one or more performance indices are irrelevant to the health condition of the disk, and the health condition information of the disk is detected to be normal.

13. The apparatus according to claim 12, further configured to:

determine that the disk fails, when the at least one or more performance indices associated with the health condition of the disk, and/or the health condition information of the disk is detected to be abnormal.

14. The apparatus according to claim 10, further configured to periodically executed, manually trigger, trigger in response to detection of an I/O performance abnormality with the disk, or trigger in response to reception of an information reporting of a disk I/O failure.

15. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the disk I/O failure information is reported by a disk array RAID.

16. The apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the at least one or more performance indices include at least one or more of the following from a group consisting of:

an I/O error count, an average I/O delay, a data error, a reallocated sector count, a SAS G-list count, and a SAS background media scan information.

17. The apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the health condition information comprises at least one of a historical health condition information and a current health condition information.

18. The apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the health condition information is reported using Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T).

19. A computer program product for determining a failure location in a storage system, the computer program product being tangibly stored on a non-transient computer-readable medium and comprising machine executable instructions which, when executed, cause the machine to perform steps of:

obtaining performance information of a disk;

in response to the performance information, indicating that at least one or more performance indices exceed a corresponding predetermined threshold, by;

determining whether a health condition of the disk is normal based on the at least one or more performance indices further comprising, wherein the health condition information comprises at least one of a historical health condition information and a current health condition information; and

in response to determining that the health condition of the disk is normal, determining a failure location of at least one or more elements in a communication path of the disk, further comprising determining the health condition of the disk normal, when the at least one or more performance indices are irrelevant to the health condition of the disk, and the health condition information of the disk is detect to be normal; and

wherein the at least one or more performance indices include at least one or more of the following from the group consisting of;

an I/O error count, an average I/O delay, a data error, a reallocated sector count, a SAS G-list count, and a SAS background media scan information;

obtaining health condition information of the at least one or more elements in the communication path of the disk; and

in response to the health condition information of at least one element in the communication path being abnormal, determining that the at least one element failed.

20. The computer program product according to claim 19, further comprising:

determining that the disk fails, when the at least one or more performance indices associated with the health condition of the disk, and/or the health condition information of the disk is detected to be abnormal;

further comprises periodically executing, manually triggering, triggering in response to detecting an I/O performance abnormality with the disk, or triggering in response to a reception of an information reporting of a disk I/O failure, the disk I/O failure information is reported by a disk array RAID.